Electromagnetism & Soul Life

What would happen if a contemporary Physics PhD, trained at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore, bucks the establishment a bit and heads West to apply his technical chops to a more phenomenology-style approach to basic Physics research while never losing sight of the sociological, human impacts of what he pursues? Oddly enough, his results veer strongly into the arena of spiritual exercise and inner work. On top of that, they are invitingly accessible.

NOTE: Deep appreciation to Gopi Vijaya, whose fascinating talk (see the 4:36:00 mark in the video) given at the recent MysTech summer conference directly inspired this post. Essentially I try to outline his chain of thoughts while adding bits of my own commentary about possible implications (in parens).

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Utah’s So-So Salt Lake

True, it once was known as The Great Salt Lake, But now it’s just ‘okay’ or ‘so-so’ or ‘meh’. And with Trump’s petty penchant for trying to cram new, if hokey and unimaginative, geographic nomenclature down our economically thirsty throats, maybe this once spectacular inland sea has outlived, barely, its moniker. The following Google AI dialog highlights why…


Will the real Great Salt Lake please stand up?

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Tell Me the Secret of Wampum

Other night I decided to mess with an AI research agent to see what kind of details it could point me towards concerning wampum, a goofy-corny childhood play term we used to use. Actually, it was a reverential term in the native American language of the tribes local to my formative region, coastal and inland New Jersey. These people called themselves “Lenapi”.

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“Something” Is Bothering Me – 2

Our intrepid Seeker, who feels entirely justified in wondering why there’s Anything, continues his discussion with the Ghost of Stephen Hawking, who is not quite sure it merits any thinking time. But before things can wrap up, the situation is complicated by the sudden arrival of yet another spirit entity! Part 1 of this dialogue happened here.

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“Something” Is Bothering Me – 1

Physicist, or perhaps more aptly ex-Physicist gadfly(?) Lawrence Krauss released what some tried to promote as a groundbreaking book in 2012 called “A Universe From Nothing”. It purported to clear up, once and for all, why there is Something rather than Nothing. It failed to make a dent in this age-old riddle, despite Richard Dawkins‘ (who isn’t even an ex-Physicist) half-cocked back cover blurb review declaring the now certain and indisputable removal of deities, religions, Creation, or Theism of any sort from any future human contemplation. Krauss’ main rhetorical maneuvers in his argument involved monkeying around with the definition of ‘nothing’ while relying upon Physics man-splaining to obfuscate the obvious. This story happens a few years later…

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Overcoming The World

I don’t believe or disbelieve these things. Those kinds of stances towards such lofty happenings seem demeaning and facile and dismissive to me. Rather, I sense that there is truth in them. And accept the burden of working upon ‘self’ to evolve matters such that more is gradually illuminated. This feels like a personal responsibility to me. I wouldn’t call it religion; that obscures the reality.


“…for I have overcome the World.” — John 16:33

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Gender, Athletic Competition, & AI Chess

A recurring idea from Jaron Lanier (“You Are Not A Gadget” – 2010) goes like this: “It isn’t really a question of whether AI can get smarter than humans. It is more whether humans will collectively (unconsciously) agree to make themselves stupid enough to descend to the same level as artificial intelligence”. I’ve paraphrased but you get the idea. What does this have to do with the social debate over transgender athletes?

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