Richard Feynman holds forth:
Think about what rituals, assumptions and habits we all have that we just take for granted: quite irrationally, of course. How would we ever begin to expunge our lives of irrationality? We depend on it for survival. Feynman shows how our success depends not on any single perspective that we have, but rather in our ability to switch perspectives, to see from as many perspectives as possible.
Via 3quarksdaily, my new favorite poem:
God’s Acrostic
Jaqueline Osherow
What if the universe is God’s acrostic?
He’s sneaking bits of proverbs into seismic variations;
Abbreviating psalms in flecks of snow.
Try to read them, says a comet,
If you dare.
Fine print. What you’ve been waiting for.
Twisted in the DNA of marmosets:
Hermetic feedback to your tight-lipped prayer.
Examine indentations left by hailstones in the grass;
Unearth their parallel soliloquies;
Note, too, the shifting patterns in the shibboleths
Initiating each communication.
Verify them. Don’t take my word.
Eavesdrop on the planets in the outer spheres; they may
Reverse the letters’ previous direction.
Silence, as you might imagine, has no bearing here.
Episodes of stillness—however brief—must be
Interpreted as unheard
Sounds,
Gaps that, with any luck, you’ll fill in later—
Or so you tell yourself, acknowledging
Delusion’s primal status in this enterprise.
Still, that’s no reason to slow down.
Abandonments are howling out around you:
Cast-off lamentations from the thwarted drops of rain
Reduced to vapor on their struggle down;
Observe, at the very least, their passing.
Sanctify them. Don’t succumb
To anything less potent than a spelled-out
Invitation to rule a not yet formulated nebula.
Calm yourself. You’ll hear it come.
A recent TED talk by mycologist Paul Stamets on the importance of allying with fungal life to propel human interests; you can watch the video here. He addresses “mycophobia”, fear of fungi, which manifests itself as dismissal of or mistrust of fungal agents, notably “magic mushrooms”; his talk, however, focuses not on psychedelics but rather on the importance of mushrooms in processing hostile environments (sterile rock beds, fields contaminated by oil waste, etc.) in preparation for life. I’m lucky to live in the PNW; a quick jaunt into the woods underscores just how fundamental mycelia are to life. (Via 3quarksdaily.)
