The Boundaries of the Knowable - An Examination of the BIG Questions

This is a 10-part series from The Open University, featuring Professor Russell Stannard exploring the BIG questions - What is consciousness? What is free will? What caused the Big Bang? What is time? Each "episode" is relatively short, between 7 and 14 minutes, so these are bite size examinations of the big questions.

The Boundaries of the Knowable

2010 | 107 min

Professor Russell Stannard (Department of Physical Sciences, The Open University) presents a series with numerous open questions about our consciousness and the physical brain, free will, cosmology and life. Questions such as: What is consciousness? What is free will? What caused the Big Bang? What is time?

One day he says, we will reach the limits of science and it will grind to a halt. Science is the pursuit of knowledge to understand the physical world around us. One day we will reach the boundaries of the knowable. Perhaps we have already reached them. There are questions that we cannot answer and perhaps never will.

Is there free will or is it pre-determined? Are we predictable? If we strip down to the subatomic level, we can observe that even the electrons which orbit the nucleus are unpredictable. Surely this means that if the building blocks of life themselves are unpredictable, and then this will translate into everything else? Perhaps we are destined never to know the answer to this question.

Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding and now we know that 13.7 billion years ago there was a Big Bang which formed our galaxy, our solar system and our world. But what caused the Big Bang? 'Cause and effect' is a fundamental concept of science. But if there was no linear time or anything technically before the Big Bang, how could there be a 'cause'?

If everything had to be created randomly, the chances of the universe being able to sustain life would be effectively zero. So why is our universe so 'life friendly'? Was it created by an omnipotent being? Are there life forms out in other parallel universes? There could be many 'earth-like' planets out there. Evolution took billions of years on earth. There could be older galaxies out there, where life forms are more advanced than we are, due to the age of their universe.

The nature of time itself is fascinating. We are used to thinking in three dimensions: length, height and width. We also understand that time is linear. But what if time was in fact part of the other three dimensions? What if there were four dimensions? Astronauts experience the slowing down of time and distances in space. They experience the four dimensions. Science calls this 'spacetime'. But what is real? What we see here on earth or what the astronauts experience in space? These questions are still causing debate between scientists. These abstract questions are important, but will we ever fathom the riddles that they present?

Watch the full documentary now (playlist)

 

Professor Noam Chomsky visited Google Cambridge to answer a series of questions submitted by Google employees. Among Professor Chomsky's more recent books are On Anarchism (2013), Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire (interviews, 2013), and Occupy: Reflections on Class War, Rebellion and Solidarity (Occupied Media Pamphlet Series) (2013).

Noam Chomsky | Talks at Google

Published on Apr 8, 2014


Professor Noam Chomsky visits Google Cambridge to answer the following questions from Googlers:

1. Your early view of the potential abuse of the Internet as a political medium seemed to convey a wait and see attitude. How has your view evolved and where do you think the balance of power is headed? 2:43

2. What is the most interesting insight the science of Linguistics has revealed but that the public at large seems not to know about or appreciate? 13:00

3. In "Hopes and Prospects" you mention your colleague Kenneth Hale and his work with Native Americans. In your opinion, how important is the problem of language extinction? That is, how important is it - for humanity to preserve the current level of linguistic diversity? 18:03

4. Can you comment on the contribution of research in statistical natural language processing to linguistics? 30:00

5. What, in your opinion, are the most effective strategies for building a more just and peaceful world? And in your view, what are the most significant takeaways from Occupy, the Arab Spring, and the Ukrainian "Euromaidan" uprising? 35:11

6. In "Hopes and Prospects" you compare Obama with Bush2. It's 4 years later now. What would you say today? 41:39

John Brockman - The World Mind That Came In From the Counterculture

From Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Feuilleton, this is an interesting profile of Edge founder John Brockman on the occasion of this year's Edge Annual Question.

John Brockman: A Portrait

The World Mind That Came In From the Counterculture

Be imaginative, exciting, compelling, inspiring: That’s what John Brockman expects of himself and others. Arguably, the planet’s most important literary agent, Brockman brings its cyber elite together in his Internet salon "Edge." We paid a visit to the man from the Third Culture.

01.10.2014 · Von Jordan Mejias, New York

 

At the age of three John Brockman announced: „I want to go to New York!“ For decades he has been a leading light behind the scenes in the city’s intellectual life.

THE INTERNET had yet to be born but the talk still revolved around it. In New York, that was, half a century ago. "Cage," as John Brockman recalls, "always spoke about the mind we all share. That wasn’t some kind of holistic nonsense. He was talking about profound cybernetic ideas." He got to hear about them on one of the occasions when John Cage, the music revolutionary, Zen master and mushroom collector, cooked mushroom dishes for him and a few friends. At some point Cage packed him off home with a book. "That’s for you," were his parting words. After which he never exchanged another word with Brockman. Something that he couldn’t understand for a long time. "John, that’s Zen," a friend finally explained to him. "You no longer need him."

Norbert Wiener was the name of the author, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine the name of the book. Page by page Brockman battled his way through the academic text, together with Stewart Brand, his friend, who was about to publish the Whole Earth Catalog, the shopping primer and bible of the environmentally-driven counterculture. For both readers, physics and mathematics expanded into an infinite space that no longer distinguished between the natural and human sciences, mind and matter, searching and finding.

Like the idea of the Internet—which was slowly acquiring contours during these rambling 1960s discussions—the idea of Edge, the Internet salon around which Brockman’s life now revolves, was also taking shape. Edge is the meeting place for the cyber elite, the most illustrious minds who are shaping the emergence of the latest developments in the natural and social sciences, whether they be digital, genetic, psychological, cosmological or neurological. Digerati from the computer universe of Silicon Valley aren’t alone in giving voice to their ideas in Brockman’s salon. They are joined in equal measure by other eminent experts, including the evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, the philosopher Daniel Dennett, the cosmologist Martin Rees, the biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, the economist, psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, the quantum physicist David Deutsch, the computer scientist Marvin Minsky, and the social theorist Anthony Giddens. Ranging from the co-founder of Apple Steve Wozniak to the decoder of genomes Craig Venter, his guest list is almost unparalleled even in the boundless realm of the Internet. Even the actor Alan Alda and writer Ian McEwan can be found in his forum.

The bridge of the third culture

A question is sent out to all salon members at the start of every year. This year it is: "What scientific idea ready to be retired?" The "editorial marching orders," written by Brockman, reveal the heart of Edge: "Go deeper than the news. Tell me something I don’t know. You are writing for your fellow Edgies, a sophisticated bunch, and not the general public. Stick to ideas, theories, systems of thought, disciplines, not people. Come up with something new, be exciting, inspiring, compelling. Tell us a great story. Amaze, delight, surprise us!"

Does he really need to spell all that out so clearly? After all, quite a few of the authors number among his clients. He markets them and their works globally, and they know exactly what he expects of them and what they can expect of him. As their literary agent, he never misses a business opportunity. Indeed, he has built a reputation for negotiating mind-boggling prices for individual works that, in contrast to Edge, adopt a more populist approach to the sciences. But above all, it’s his concept of The Third Culture that glitters, the miraculous formula that Brockman evokes to secure the supremacy of the so called hard sciences, even in the instances when the world and our place in it is surveyed in quasi-philosophical mode. As physicist, politician, and the novelist C. P. Snow lament, there is a chasm separating the twin cultures of the natural and human sciences; and the enterprising Brockman fills this divide with bestsellers from his Third Culture.

Business isn’t just blossoming, he says, it has never been better. Anyone harboring any doubts should pay him a visit on Fifth Avenue, where Brockman, Inc. has been spreading its wings of late in premises that are awash with light and where gravity seems to have been suspended. The two glass corner offices are a testament to transparency. The one for the company’s founder allows the Empire State Building to peek over his shoulder as he works at his paper-free desk; the other is for his son Max, the company’s brand new CEO, who can admire the perpetually breathtaking silhouette of the Flatiron Building though the gigantic windows. Between them Katinka Matson, the co-founder of Edge, President of Brockman Inc., mother of Max, and business and life partner of John—has stylishly set up shop. As the daughter of a literary agent, the profession is in her DNA. In her spare time she now brightens up the office with multi-colored, larger-than-life scans of floral images.

Brockman, who was born in 1941, could comfortably retire and devote himself completely to Edge, his intellectual hobby. But Edge is no mere hobby for him, no pastime pursued at times when the demands of work abate. "I have never thought of money. I have only ever done what interested me, and that always brought in enough to get me by." Before opening his Internet salon, he had published a newsletter with the same title and philosophical outlook. This evolved out of the Reality Club. "Trippy stuff" topped the agenda when a group of people started meeting in New York during the 1980s, a group whose fluctuating composition included the physicist Freeman Dyson, the feminist Betty Friedan, the social revolutionary Abbie Hoffman and the film stars Ellen Burstyn and Dennis Hopper. They were charged with asking each other the questions that they asked themselves. No instant answers were expected. The focus was on asking the questions. In literary New York Brockman had never glimpsed the prospect of this type of exchange of ideas, the adventure that he wanted for himself and to share with others. He preferred the empirical study of our cosmos, on both micro and macro scales, to the imagined world. Not that this forced him to relinquish story-telling. With the frequently spectacular experiences they describe, the books and authors he represents offer him more suspense and excitement than he can find in any novel. And his own life? As he describes it, that too emerges as a collection of gripping stories that veer off in numerous different directions while always following a clear, very personal line. From Day One he was curious and hungry for knowledge, and had an appetite for excitement and new experiences.

A blueprint for the Internet

Brockman’s life-story begins with the proclamation: "I want to go to New York." He was three years old at the time, lying in a Boston hospital, seriously ill with cerebrospinal meningitis, and these are said to have been the first words he spoke when he woke up from a six-week coma. He finally made it to New York at the age of 20—enrolling as a graduate student at Columbia University where he completed a degree in business. After this he worked within the financial services industry, not that his life revolved exclusively around money and transactions at the time. The crazy 1960s burst into life and Brockman felt compelled to immerse himself in the vibrant cultural mix. He experienced the New York underground for himself on the stage of the Living Theater. It was culture shock, a call to action, an invitation to engage. But Brockman didn’t participate in the avant-garde experiments with his banjo and guitar, but with his gift for organization. Today we would probably call him a cultural impresario.

New York gave him confidence, telling him "You can be free." He didn’t need to be told twice. With Sam Shepard, who was still working as a waiter, he discussed ideas for "intermedia" stage performances. In no time he had become an indispensable part of the multimedia theater and film scene. He was entrusted by Jonas Mekas, the great father of experimental film in the U.S., with commissioning films from Nam June Paik and Robert Rauschenberg for an "expanded" film festival. His organizational skills even got him into the Lincoln Center Film Festival where he presented the work of newcomers like Martin Scorsese when he wasn’t escorting European guests—with names like Federico Fellini and Jean-Luc Godard—out to dinners. Even Jackie Kennedy, still not an Onassis, makes an appearance in the background during this period.

While the stars of Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and the Beatniks were slowly fading, and the folk scene around Bob Dylan dawning, Brockman was spending time working with Andy Warhol. But the drug-sodden collective in the Factory wasn’t for him. He needed to be his own master. For the same reason, things didn’t work out with the countercultural Yippies, after his friend Abbie Hoffman recruited him for the founding meetings of the movement. Brockman had no interest in revolution. However: "The ideas behind it interested me." Cage taught him how to perceive the non-linear structure of reality using cybernetics. With hindsight he came to feel this was "like a construction diagram for the Internet." He wrote a book with the title By the Late John Brockman, an aphoristic volume of his various insights and experiences.

In the circle of elites

And then, at MIT in 1965, he finally came face to face with a computer. There is precisely one example of this type of computer, a humungous contraption, surrounded by busy men in white lab coats, and secured behind a glass screen against which he pressed his nose. "I fell in love on the spot. It was pure magic." Brockman had no more doubts whatsoever that everything was interconnected: the arts and the sciences and the psychedelic shows with their flashing strobes, through whose cacophony of sound Marshall McLuhan trumpeted his theory of communications.

At the Esalen Institute, the personal growth laboratory on California’s Pacific coast, he listened to talks by scientists and madcap geniuses whose names hardly anyone on the East Coast knew. A treasure trove just waiting to be opened. An awakening. In 1973 this gave rise to his literary agency, albeit circuitously. Once again he found himself promoting something that interested him. Slowly but surely he realized that he had struck gold. Or, as he prefers to say, he discovered an oil well that has never stopped bubbling. Since then Brockman has been keyed to the Third Culture from head to foot. Famous scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs and sponsors are drawn to him like moths to a light bulb. At his desk in New York he clicks on the invitation to a party he is flying to in San Francisco the following day. The hosts include the co-founder of Google Sergey Brin, the Russian billionaire Yuri Miner, the co-founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, and Art Levinson, Chairman of the Board of Apple Inc. and the former CEO of the biotech company Genentech. It is safe to assume that Brockman also enjoys get-togethers with such distinguished names.

But even more he evidently enjoys the gatherings at his picturesque farm in Connecticut with its numerous nooks and crannies. For one day or weekend every summer, he affords himself the intellectual pleasure of transforming his New England idyll into a swap meet for the latest scientific research and ideas. From Princeton and Yale, Harvard and MIT, Silicon Valley and New York’s executive suites, he invites thinkers, movers, shakers and clients—all of them friends—to discuss the hottest topics in their various fields. The most recent edition of these bucolic conferences held beneath ancient maple trees began with an up-to-date tour d’horizon by the economist Sendhil Mullainathan, who mused that the excessive volumes of data might threaten the qualitative character of science. The social scientist Fiery Cushman reported on the failure of algorithms in complex calculations, the experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe on the elusively ephemeral nature of the self, the psychologist June Gruber on the problem of positive emotion and the initial solutions.

In total 10 scientists gave talks on this perfect summer’s day, which now, thanks to Edge, no longer has to end. Since November Brockman has been posting the videos of the contributions on the Web. By February the day’s entire program should be accessible. Those online, however, can only guess at the pleasure John Brockman feels as he observes the mind games he has staged. "Edge," says its creator, "for me that means ideas, for me that means culture."

The 5 Big Questions in Brain Science - Prediction, Mind Reading, Responsibility, Treatment, and Enhancement

National Geographic asked bioethicist Hank Greely, bioethics and genetics expert at Stanford University's Law School, what he sees as the five big questions in neuroscience. He offered five interesting insights: Prediction, Mind Reading, Responsibility, Treatment, and Enhancement.



This brief article comes from National Geographic News.

Q&A: The 5 Big Questions in Brain Science

A bioethicist suggests that neuroscience challenges how we view ourselves.

Dan Vergano
National Geographic
Published December 18, 2013

What moral dilemmas will arise from our newfound abilities to peer into the workings of the human mind? | Photograph by Pasieka, Science Photo Library/Corbis

Advances in our understanding of the brain have turned neuroscience into one of the hottest frontiers in research, and in ethics. (See "Beyond the Brain.")

On Wednesday, the U.S. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues met to discuss the moral implications of brain science. The bioethics experts met at the request of President Barack Obama, who earlier this year called for the start of a $100 million federal Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative.

Obama asked the bioethics council to look into what sort of moral dilemmas might arise from the newfound abilities to peer into the workings of the human mind promised by his brain-mapping proposal, and by neuroscience overall.

What are the big questions? We asked Hank Greely, a bioethics and genetics expert at Stanford University's Law School, what he sees as being the five big questions in neuroscience. Here are his insights:

1. Prediction: using neuroscience to predict peoples' fate or actions.

We are spending a lot of research dollars on the question of whether Dad, or I, will get Alzheimer's. What is going to happen when we can really predict that? There will be tremendous implications for families and the medical system, in terms of intervention or treatment.

Another question is crime. What about when we can tell whose brains indicate they are more likely to commit or recommit a crime when people are released from jail? Who is going to recommend or deny a brain scan for every criminal case?

Most likely, these brain results will just be added to other evidence in criminal cases. But if neuroscience adds yet another predictive element to when releases [from prison occur] or sentences end, it will have big effects on preventive retention or preventive therapy for the incarcerated.

2. Mind reading: using neuroscience as a lie detector or to see emotional states.

When I first started saying "mind reading," I thought a lot of my neuroscientist friends would object. But many of them say, yes, that is right, it is like that. A study involving MIT undergraduates was able to tell when they were visualizing a face or a place with 85 percent accuracy, for example. That's pretty good.

Where this will really make a difference is in contacting quadriplegics with the most severe paralysis—"locked in" individuals. We will be able to put people thought to have been in a persistent vegetative state in a [brain] scanner and try to talk to them.

Lie detection raises a host of legal, ethical, and social questions. Only one company is left doing this—NoLieMRI. They are seen as problematic because they don't publish their methods or results. But there is a lot of interest in the technology from the Defense Department, which wants to move away from the polygraph to other ways to do lie detection.

In court, where you will probably first see mind reading is with disability claims—whether people are really feeling pain for Social Security disability claims for lower back pain. Hundreds of thousands of people are making these claims. Some perhaps aren't really in pain. We don't have a good way to tell the difference, but if we did, that would matter.

3. Responsibility: using neuroscience to determine whether people have free will.

I have some neuroscientists who think the effect of their science will be to make the court system disappear. It will show that people have no real "free will" and that people are not truly responsible for their actions. "My brain made me do it" … I don't know any lawyers who believe this will happen.

But there is one particular case, which took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, of a 40-year-old man who suddenly became interested in pornography and moved to child pornography and then groped his 12-year-old stepdaughter. The Tuesday before his sentencing he complained of headaches, couldn't read, he blacked out. And they took him to the emergency room.

They found a tumor the size of a chicken egg on a part of his brain called the left frontal lobe [implicated in studies as being involved with judgment and cognition]. They removed the tumor and the impulses went away.

Ten months later he tells his probation officer that the impulses are coming back. They x-ray him and find that the tumor has returned. They remove the tumor again and he hasn't been rearrested in the last two to three years.

Ironically, we may see a lot of court cases involving brain abnormalities where people claim their lawyer was ineffective. "I should have had a brain scan," they will tell the jury.

4. Treatment: using neuroscience in medical care.

We are not giving billions of dollars to neuroscientists to study whatever interests them, but for treatments for diseases such as Parkinson's. That is what is driving the funding for neuroscience.

We have to ask careful questions, however, about claims of treatment to avert or cure diseases such as opiate addiction. Could a judge order someone to get treatment based on a brain scan, or is the brain sacred? To what extent can parents force children to get treatments based on neuroscience?

As our basic medical knowledge improves, we will see dual uses spread away from cures for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's as we learn more about how to fundamentally change others.

5. Enhancement: using neuroscience to juice our capabilities.

You most often think about college kidsusing Adderall or Ritalin to give themselves a brain boost. There isn't a lot of evidence this helps, aside from keeping them awake.

But what if it does work? Is it fair to the kid who doesn't get a brain enhancement? Or what if it only works long enough to pass your medical exam—should that person be practicing medicine? Will we have to pee in a cup before finals?

I think that in memories is where we will see neuroscience matter. So much is being done on memory in connection with Alzheimer's, but also with age-appropriate memory loss. I would take a pill in an instant to have a memory as sharp as I recall it was when I was younger.

Last, we asked Greeley if neuroscience would result in ethics becoming more brain-based and moving away from the old moral questions.

No, I see neuroscience raising questions similar to any technology, although they will be fundamental ones because of the importance of the brain to our sense of self.

For any technology there are two questions you need to ask:

Does it work? It is easy to get carried away with the science-fiction scenarios and just assume it works, which may encourage giving too much credibility to a technology.

The other question is, if it does work, what now? There will be benefits and risks to any technology. It is really important to focus on both questions—not to focus on just one first—to give thought to both before it is too late to think about either one.

The interview has been edited and condensed.
Follow Dan Vergano on Twitter.

Roger Nygard - The Nature of Existence

Okay, he really does not answer every mystery of existence in this interesting documentary, but he does ask a whole mess of people, from a pizza cook to Richard Dawkins and Leonard Susskind, a co-founder of String Theory.

The Nature of Existence (2010)

What are the answers to the great questions of life, and who is certain they know the truth others have been struggling to find for centuries?

For The Nature of Existence, Roger Nygard prepared a questionnaire with 85 weighty philosophical questions, ranging from Why do we exist? and Do we have free will? to Who created God? and Is there a moral yardstick that applies to all cultures?

Nygard then set out to interview as many people who might have something to say about his list of imponderables as possible, ranging from biologist and author Richard Dawkins, physicist and String Theory creator Leonard Susskind, and Indian spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to a born-again Christian wrestler, the director of The Empire Strikes Back, a pair of self-proclaimed druids, and a pizza cook.

The result is a witty, thought-provoking, and often surprising study in the greatest mysteries of life.

Why do we exist and what are we supposed to do about it? What started the Universe and was it a mistake? Does God exist and why does he seem so interested in our sex lives?

I wrote the toughest 85 questions I could think of, about our purpose and the nature of existence, and then asked hundreds of people all over the globe, such as: Indian holy man Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (The Art of Living), evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), 24th generation Chinese Taoist Master Zhang Chengda, Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind (co-discoverer of string theory), wrestler Rob Adonis (founder of Ultimate Christian Wrestling), confrontational evangelist Brother Jed Smock, novelist Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), director Irvin Kershner (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back), Stonehenge Druids Rollo Maughfling and King Arthur Pendragon and many more… 

How would YOU answer?

Roger Nygard
Filmmaker

Watch the full documentary now - 94 min

Robert T. Gonzalez - Why quantum mechanics is the biggest embarrassment in all of modern physics

From the YouTube description of the video:

Even the professional understanding of quantum mechanics is "embarrassing", says cosmologist Sean Carroll. 

Read Sean's blog on this subject at http://bit.ly/V1SUpV and the full paper at http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1069 

We filmed with Sean during his visit to the University of Nottingham and will have more videos with him coming soon. 

Check out Sean's website (and his excellent books) at:http://preposterousuniverse.com/

Interesting.

Why quantum mechanics is the biggest embarrassment in all of modern physics

Robert T. Gonzalez

It's been close to a century since we established how quantum mechanics "works," and we still don't know what it really means — and that, says cosmologist Sean Carroll in the video up top, may make QM the most embarrassing subject in all of modern physics.

What's embarrassing, says Carroll, isn't that there remain unanswered questions about quantum mechanics, or that there's debate within the physics community regarding its significance. In science, uncertainty, skepticism and deliberation participate in a powerfully deductive dialectic that enables us to rework our understanding of nature — to step back from what we think we know, re-assess our preconceived notions, and bring forth newer, more fully formed views of our Universe. This notion — that science advances not in spite of uncertainty, but because of it — is precisely why Stephen Hawking bet against the discovery of the Higgs Boson. In physics (as with pretty much any scientific field), unanswered questions and internal debate are, almost invariably, wellsprings of progress.

Not so with quantum mechanics, says Carroll, who claims that what's truly embarrassing about the physics of the very small is that questions surrounding its significance have gone unanswered for some 80 years, "with very little... immediately demonstrable progress, even though it's such an important question."

"It seems to me that we have not been been trying to answer this question with as much vigor as we should," Carroll continues. "What is quantum mechanics, really? I mean, that's like saying 'what is the Universe?' What more important question is there than that?"

At just shy of 15 minutes, this video's a bit long for anyone with an attention span conditioned by the internet, but we highly recommend watching the whole thing. Carroll's explanations are lucid and intriguing, and the points he levels are compelling without being condescending. All-in-all, it's as good an introduction to QM as it is an exploration of the present state of the field.

For more, check out Carroll's blog entry on the subject of QM-as-embarrassment over at Preposterous Universe. 

Top image via Shutterstock

Secular Buddhist Podcast - Episode 97 :: Adam Tebbe :: Sweeping Zen

Here is a recent Secular Buddhist Podcast - Episode 97 :: Adam Tebbe :: Sweeping Zen.This is an interesting discussion on contemporary issues in Western Buddhism.

Episode 97 :: Adam Tebbe :: Sweeping Zen

Dec 30, 2011

The Secular Buddhist Podcast

Adam Tebbe

Sweeping Zen founder Adam Tebbe joins us to speak about contemporary issues in Buddhism.

Many of you have heard me say in the past, “Question with confidence.” That is, we should foster the development of an environment to have open and free inquiry into our beliefs, even those deeply cherished. That idea, question with confidence, was put very well long ago by Thomas Jefferson, who said, “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”

Few people have represented the idea of free inquiry in our Buddhist practice as today’s guest. Adam Tebbe is senior editor at The Buddhist Dispatch. He is also the founder of Sweeping Zen and Kannonji Zen Retreat in Second Life, a sangha which hosts events from Buddhist clergy using the virtual technology of Second Life. He trained to become a licensed chemical dependency counselor but found that he enjoys this work far better. He generally keeps his opining to his blog at Sweeping Zen. Adam also does some news gathering for Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly, owned by the Shambhala Sun Foundation.

So, sit back, relax, and have a nice Dr. Pepper. How long has that been?

Podcast: Download

:: Discuss this episode ::

Stephen Fry on Philosophy and Unbelief

Stephen Fry is a kinder, gentler, new atheist - or, maybe, he is George Carlin without the bitterness and anger.

From Open Culture:

Stephen Fry on Philosophy and Unbelief

Comedian Stephen Fry has the classic British intellectual voice, much like philosopher Bryan McGee. It turns out that he knows something about philosophy, and this clip is a shortened version of a longer video called “The Importance of Unbelief.”

A more gentle version of George Carlin, Fry’s views appear heartfelt while partaking of serious irony. He claims that in order to properly appreciate our present lives, “even if it isn’t true, you must absolutely assume that there is no afterlife.” Choosing his positions to argue as much for their rhetorical audacity as anything else, he argues for polytheism in favor of monotheism, and he treats the issue of the divine presence in nature by referencing the life cycle of a parasitic worm. He seems an apt voice to add to the new atheist debates, at least as amusing as Dawkins and much moreso than Sam Harris. This clip is added to our collection of 250 Cultural Icons.

Related Content:

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18

Stephen Fry Gets Animated about Language

Mark Linsenmayer runs the Partially Examined Life philosophy podcast and blog. He also performs with the Madison, WI band New People.

Tags: Stephen Fry, Philosophy, Unbelief, Open Culture, Big Think, The Importance of Unbelief, humor, comedy, philosophy, atheism, agnostic, questioning, afterlife

Documentary - Everything and Nothing

Cool . . . . From Documentary Heaven.

Everything and Nothing

Two-part documentary which deals with two of the deepest questions there are – what is everything, and what is nothing?

In two epic, surreal and mind-expanding films, Professor Jim Al-Khalili searches for an answer to these questions as he explores the true size and shape of the universe and delves into the amazing science behind apparent nothingness.

The first part, Everything, sees Professor Al-Khalili set out to discover what the universe might actually look like. The journey takes him from the distant past to the boundaries of the known universe.

Along the way he charts the remarkable stories of the men and women who discovered the truth about the cosmos and investigates how our understanding of space has been shaped by both mathematics and astronomy.

Watch the full documentary now (playlist – 2 hours)

Tags: documentary, Philosophy, questions, universe, Everything and Nothing, Jim Al-Khalili, film, mind expanding, surreal, distant past, space, cosmos

Stuart Kauffman and Charles Hulse - What If We Could Ask The Big Questions?

Over at NPR's 13.7 Cosmos and Culture blog, Stuart Kauffman and Charles Hulse muse on asking the big questions in life - the ones for which we are unlikely to find hard and fast answers, the ones that are mysteries even in the asking.

What if one finds, as Nietzsche stated, " ... when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." What if, faced with the questions of meaning and purpose, one finds himself dangling at the edge of the abyss.

Excellent post.

What If We Could Ask The Big Questions?

March 28, 2011

by Stuart Kauffman and Charles Hulse

Enlarge David McNew/Getty Images

Do you have enough courage to put one foot into the abyss?

What if one is running through a world where the main concerns are procuring "purple plastic penguins for the poolside," catching the latest installment of the "lives and antics of the rich and infamous" and receiving the next dose of "Wonder Bread and high fructose corn syrup?" What if, as the result of an accident, or a series of dreams about being inundated by waterspouts and of being inundated by a real waterspout, one starts asking the forbidden "questions?"

What if one starts asking: Why are we here? Why am I here now? What does it mean to be human? What is our humanity? How did the universe and life come about? What really is the nature of reality? What is time? What is space? How do we really know? What is the nature of God? Why is there evil? What is the nature of consciousness?

Who is "I"? What is beauty? Are we under the control of a deterministic universe or do we have free-will? How can we choose, if we don't really know what can happen? What is the next step in human evolution? The evolution of anything? Can we even say it? What are the goals of technology? Just because we can, should we? (Not that these are new questions, but rather, new questions to the one pondering the questions.)

What if one finds, as Nietzsche stated, " ... when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." What if, faced with the questions of meaning and purpose, one finds himself dangling at the edge of the abyss. There, like the event horizon of a black hole, the souls of those who are foolish enough to have asked the questions before are sucked in, never to be seen again.

Yet, can't we ask?

What if one goes to science (reason) and religion (faith) for answers and finds them lacking (if not, possibly, the sources of the problem)? Those failing, what if one goes to the counselor's couch – only to laugh at the thought that such concerns are the result of unresolved childhood conflicts, repressed sexual / aggressive desires or the fear of death. (We've been there twice, maybe three times.)

Where does one go, in this time of instant oatmeal, instant messaging and instant gratification, to find the time and solitude to fully ponder these and other "deep" questions. Academia? We think not. The monastery? We doubt it. The asylum? Maybe.

How does one go face-to-face with the System and say, "Hey, we all need a few months (or years) to sort a few "things" out?"

"Get back to work (the void)," they storm. Although they may be right when they add, "And stop wasting time on those stupid questions. It will only get you in trouble."

Yet, why do the redwing blackbirds come back each year? Why do crocuses spring up next to melting snow? What more do we need? What if one just goes quietly into a forest?

So, we will end this by asking: Where in this day and age, does one go to ask the questions? Where does one go to find like "minded" people who are also seeking the answers? How does one find the time to read the great works, the space to ponder the great questions and the courage to keep one foot in reality while placing the other foot into the abyss?

Tags: NPR, 13.7 Cosmos and Culture, Stuart Kauffman, Charles Hulse, What If We Could Ask The Big Questions?, one foot into the abyss, Philosophy, questions, life, meaning, purpose, existential, humanity, universe, beauty