date:20080331

[FairfieldLife] Re: Reality...what a concept

2008-03-31 Thread TurquoiseB

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "endlessrainintoapapercup" 
>  wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend"  wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  
> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > I guess what I'm trying to say is that reality seems
> > > > to be a concept that people whose realities don't
> > > > change very quickly are interested in. They stay in
> > > > pretty much the same state of consciousness for long
> > > > periods of time. When reality changes on you more
> > > > quickly -- say, dozens of times in an hour -- you 
> > > > lose your fascination for the concept. Or at least 
> > > > I did.
> > > 
> > > (Note the implied value judgment, BTW.)
> > 
> > It was noted. I was wondering whether
> > or not to take it personally...
> 
> Naah. We're all in the same boat here relative
> to Barry.

I should point out, just for the fun of it,
that there is no "implied value judgment" in
my original statement. It is merely a *descrip-
tion* of two different ways of living. 

T'would seem that at least two people are so 
sensitive about the subject of "pace of change"
(how quickly their state of consciousness shifts
radically enough for them to notice) that they 
perceive anyone who even brings the subject up
as making a "value judgment."

I don't think I was. I see no real value in a 
fast pace of change itself, as long as there is
steady, perceivable change. I'd see having one's 
reality change radically many times a day or week 
as being no more potentially valuable or interesting 
than having it change radically every month. Or year. 

Your reality *has* changed radically in the last 
year, right? Or, at least it's changed radically
since the time you started TM, right?

Oh. Never mind.  :-)

[FairfieldLife] Re: Fairfield on the BBC!

2008-03-31 Thread claudiouk

Good synopsis and points. Actually the TM part seemed rather 
insubstantial and the general impression came across that all the 
scientific claims for TM (for cardiovascular effects, for instance)
did not amount to much when properly "reviewed". The following piece 
from BBC Health News is all about the programme and there is not even 
a mention of TM  

Scientists probe meditation secrets 
By Naomi Law  

Scientists are beginning to uncover evidence that meditation has a 
tangible effect on the brain. 

Sceptics argue that it is not a practical way to try to deal with the 
stresses of modern life. 

But the long years when adherents were unable to point to hard 
science to support their belief in the technique may finally be 
coming to an end. 

When Carol Cattley's husband died it triggered a relapse of the 
depression which had not plagued her since she was a teenager. 

"I instantly felt as if I wanted to die," she said. "I couldn't think 
of what else to do." 

Carol sought medical help and managed to control her depression with 
a combination of medication and a psychological treatment called 
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. 

However, she believes that a new, increasingly popular course called 
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) - which primarily consists 
of meditation - brought about her full recovery. 

It is currently available in every county across the UK, and can be 
prescribed on the NHS. 

One of the pioneers of MBCT is Professor Mark Williams, from the 
Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford. 

He helps to lead group courses which take place over a period of 
eight weeks. He describes the approach as 80% meditation, 20% 
cognitive therapy. 

New perspective 

He said: "It teaches a way of looking at problems, observing them 
clearly but not necessarily trying to fix them or solve them. 

"It suggests to people that they begin to see all their thoughts as 
just thoughts, whether they are positive, negative or neutral." 

MBCT is recommended for people who are not currently depressed, but 
who have had three or more bouts of depression in their lives. 

Trials suggest that the course reduces the likelihood of another 
attack of depression by over 50%. 

Professor Williams believes that more research is still needed. 

He said: "It is becoming enormously popular quite quickly and in many 
ways we now need to collect the evidence to check that it really is 
being effective." 

However, in the meantime, meditation is being taken seriously as a 
means of tackling difficult and very modern challenges. 

Scientists are beginning to investigate how else meditation could be 
used, particularly for those at risk of suicide and people struggling 
with the effects of substance abuse. 

What is meditation? 

Meditation is difficult to define because it has so many different 
forms. 


 By meditating, you can become happier, you can concentrate more 
effectively and you can change your brain in ways that support that 
Dr Richard Davidson  

Broadly, it can be described as a mental practice in which you focus 
your attention on a particular subject or object. 

It has historically been associated with religion, but it can also be 
secular, and exactly what you focus your attention on is largely a 
matter of personal choice. 

It may be a mantra (repeated word or phrase), breathing patterns, or 
simply an awareness of being alive. 

Some of the more common forms of meditative practices include 
Buddhist Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation, Transcendental 
Meditation, and Zen Meditation. 

The claims made for meditation range from increasing immunity, 
improving asthma and increasing fertility through to reducing the 
effects of aging. 

Limited research 

Research into the health claims made for meditation has limitations 
and few conclusions can be reached, partly because meditation is 
rarely isolated - it is often practised alongside other lifestyle 
changes such as diet, or exercise, or as part of group therapy. 

So should we dismiss it as quackery? Studies from the field of 
neuroscience suggest not. 

It is a new area of research, but indications are intriguing and 
suggest that meditation may have a measurable impact on the brain. 

In Boston, Massachusetts, Dr Sara Lazar has used a technique called 
MRI scanning to analyse the brains of people who have been meditating 
for several years. 

She compared the brains of these experienced practitioners with 
people who had never meditated and found that there were differences 
in the thickness of certain areas of the brain's cortex, including 
areas involved in the processing of emotion. 

She is continuing research, but she believes that meditation had 
caused the brain to change physical shape. 

Buddhist monks 

In Madison, Wisconsin, Dr Richard Davidson has been carrying out 
studies on Buddhist monks for several years. 

His personal belief is that "by meditating, you can become happier, 
you can concentrate more effectivel

[FairfieldLife] Re: Fairfield on the BBC!

2008-03-31 Thread bob_brigante


> Good points - but do you think they would have insisted on charging
>  her the $2,500? Would they have perhaps made an exception as she
>  was a journalist? I don't think so - but I could be wrong.
> 



It's considered to be unethical by major newspapers to accept freebies 
or discounts, because this might bias the reporter's neutral point of 
view. The NYT makes reporters pay their own way (which is reimbursed by 
the newspaper):


http://www.nytco.com/press/ethics.html#paying

"They may not accept gifts, tickets, discounts, reimbursements or other 
benefits from individuals or organizations covered (or likely to be 
covered) by their newsroom.

[FairfieldLife] Re: Beautiful, sweet, innocent -- but a creepy zombie nonetheless.

2008-03-31 Thread Stu

I do this for a living.  I make inanimate objects have emotions and
appear as if they are sentient beings.  Thats 90% of a film editor's
work.

Like many attempts to create the illusion of a human the CGI girl will
never have a soul.  That is not the way to create the artifice of a
human.  What works best for most artists is to give the figure a story. 
CGI girl does not have a story.  Creepy.  Bad art.  Yech!

I don't have a soul either.  I don't know what a soul is.  Its another
one of those iron age terms ignorant people used.  In those days people
thought the brain was an organ designed to cool the blood.  The idea of
a soul compensated for lack of knowledge.

I don't have a soul but I do have a story, and thats one of the things
that makes me human.

s.

Mythos and Logos

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> http://cubo.cc/
>
> Move your mouse around to see her move.
>
> This was created by CGI -- not a real girl.
>
> Here's the question:  what's missing that is needed to make the
> creepiness go away?
>
> A soul?
>
> Edg
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: Fairfield on the BBC!

2008-03-31 Thread sparaig

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "gruntlespam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[...]
> Good points - but do you think they would have insisted on charging
>  her the $2,500? Would they have perhaps made an exception as she
>  was a journalist? I don't think so - but I could be wrong.
> 

If you attend the David Lynch Weekend, you can get a scholarship for the $2500 
to learn 
TM.


> I don't think that she/the production team would have paid, even if it
>  was practical as such. They weren't into comparing different types of
>  meditation as such - once she had learn't one way, and got some 
> results, that was the end of it it seemed.
> 

See above. David Lynch might not be willing to foot the bill, but *someone* 
probably 
would be willing.

> She never really seemed to be interested in "what" meditation really 
> was in a deeper sense, plus she seemed to just feel that one type of 
> meditation was the same as another. But possibly this was just a limitation
>  of the show.
>

Or the show is  a reflection of her own attitude.


Lawson

[FairfieldLife] Fitna

2008-03-31 Thread shempmcgurk

http://tinyurl.com/2rfy6c

[FairfieldLife] Re: 'USA bugged every move of MLK

2008-03-31 Thread shempmcgurk

Yes, Robert, RFK was behind the bugging.

I seem to recall that both myself and willytex pointed this out to 
you, I think it was, in the past year when you got all wet praising 
Bobby Kennedy.



--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> (CNN) -- FBI wiretaps have "given us the most powerful and 
persuasive source of all for seeing how utterly selfless Martin 
Luther King was," as a civil rights leader, according to a leading 
civil rights scholar 
>var CNN_ArticleChanger = new CNN_imageChanger
('cnnImgChngr','/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/imgChng/p1-
0.init.exclude.html',1,1);  //CNN.imageChanger.load
('cnnImgChngr','imgChng/p1-0.exclude.html');"You see him being 
intensely self-critical. King really and truly believed that he was 
there to be of service to others. This was not a man with any 
egomaniacal joy of being a famous person, or being a leader," said 
Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar David Garrow in a recent interview 
with CNN.
>   Hoping to prove the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was under the 
influence of Communists, the FBI kept the civil rights leader under 
constant surveillance. 
>   The agency's hidden tape recorders turned up almost nothing about 
communism.
>   But they did reveal embarrassing details about King's sex life -- 
details the FBI was able to use against him.  
>   The almost fanatical zeal with which the FBI pursued King is 
disclosed in tens of thousands of FBI memos from the 1960s.
>   The FBI paper trail spells out in detail the government agency's 
concerted efforts to derail King's efforts on behalf of the civil 
rights movement.
>   The FBI's interest in King intensified after the March on 
Washington in August 1963, when King delivered his "I have a dream 
speech," which many historians consider the most important speech of 
the 20th century. After the speech, an FBI memo called King the "most 
dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country." 
> 
> The bureau convened a meeting of department heads to "explore how 
best to carry on our investigation [of King] to produce the desired 
results without embarrassment to the Bureau," which included "a 
complete analysis of the avenues of approach aimed at neutralizing 
King as an effective Negro leader."
>   The FBI began secretly tracking King's flights and watching his 
associates. In July 1963, a month before the March on Washington, FBI 
Director J. Edgar Hoover filed a request with Attorney General Robert 
Kennedy to tap King's and his associates' phones and to bug their 
homes and offices. 
>   
>
>   
>   In September, Kennedy consented to the technical surveillance. 
Kennedy gave the FBI permission to break into King's office and home 
to install the bugs, as long as agents recognized the "delicacy of 
this particular matter" and didn't get caught installing them. 
Kennedy added a proviso -- he wanted to be personally informed of any 
pertinent information.
>   While King did have associates who had been members of the 
Communist Party, by all accounts they severed those ties when they 
started working in the civil rights movement. What's more, the FBI 
bugs never picked up evidence that King himself was a Communist, or 
was interested in toeing the party line.
>   But the long list of bugs in his hotel rooms picked up just 
enough about King's love life.
>   A decision in a 1977 court case brought by Bernard Lee, one of 
King's associates, sealed the transcripts from those wiretaps until 
2027. But King's associates confirm there were at least two cases in 
which FBI surveillance caught King in compromising circumstances.
>   The first incident involved King at a party at the Willard Hotel 
in Washington. The FBI recorded the party and captured the sounds of 
a sexual encounter in the room afterwards. The second incident 
occurred during King's stay in a hotel in Los Angeles, California. 
There, agents heard another drunken gathering in which King told an 
off-color joke about the recently assassinated President John F. 
Kennedy. Hoover sent transcripts and excerpts of those recordings to 
the White House and to the attorney general.
>   
>   Hoover's contempt for King's private behavior is clear in the 
memos he kept in his personal files. His scrawl across the bottom of 
positive news stories about King's success dripped with loathing. 
>   On a story about King receiving the St. Francis peace medal from 
the Catholic Church, he wrote "this is disgusting." On the 
story "King, Pope to Talk on Race," he scribbled "astounding." On a 
story about King's meeting with the pope, "I am amazed that the Pope 
gave an audience to such a degenerate." On a story about King being 
the heavy favorite to win the Nobel Prize, he wrote "King could well 
qualify for the 'top alley cat' prize!"
>   When King learned he would be the recipient of the Nobel Peace 
Prize in 1964, the FBI decided to take its harassment of King one 
step further, sending him an insulting and threat

[FairfieldLife] Re: Reality...what a concept

2008-03-31 Thread shempmcgurk

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Some comedian said that. I forget which one.
> But, as far as I can tell, he nailed it. Reality
> IS a concept.


1980 comedy album by Robin Williams:

http://tinyurl.com/2gopuu







> 
> I'm just not convinced that the concept has...uh...
> reality *outside* of being a concept. 
> 
> My experience, and the words of a few teachers I
> respect, has shown me that there are many realities,
> probably as many as their are points of view. And,
> to me, UC or BC as defined by Maharishi are Just
> Two More Points Of View. What individuals in this
> state of consciousness see is Just What They See,
> not reality.
> 
> So for me reality is an empty concept; it doesn't
> float my boat. It just doesn't have any "legs" as 
> philosophical concepts go. Others may find the 
> concept fascinating. So it goes. 
> 
> I'm more comfortable with realities. As in one or
> more for every point of view in the universe. As 
> in Maharishi's "Knowledge is structured in consc-
> iousness." As in Castaneda's "A Separate Reality." 
> 
> Reality kinda loses its meaningfulness when you've
> sat in the desert and been flipped in and out of
> dozens of states of consciousness in an hour, and 
> in and out of an equal number of the *realities* 
> that "go with" each of those states of consciousness. 
> 
> In one of those states of consciousness, it's just
> a normal night out in the desert. You've got yer
> stars, the sand, the wind, a bunch of humans sitting 
> in a circle watching another human as he stands in 
> the center of the circle. 
> 
> In another of those states of consciousness, the 
> human in the center of the circle steps up off the 
> sand and walks around about three feet off the ground. 
> In another the stars start to move around. In another 
> the human in the center of the circle disappears. In 
> yet another, *you* disappear. 
> 
> Which of these was "reality?" Which not?
> 
> I think they were all reality -- from a particular
> set of points of view and states of consciousness, 
> as seen by individuals who don't exist, at a certain 
> moment in time, which also doesn't exist.  :-)
> 
> The thing that I think Castaneda just nailed in his
> books is not that each of these separate realities 
> have different sets of rules -- operating systems 
> or laws of nature -- that apply to them. They also
> require different states of consciousness to be *in* 
> them. You can't fully remember these states of consc-
> iousness and their attendant realities *after* you're 
> no longer *in* them. You can't even fully *conceive* 
> of what they were from a different state of conscious-
> ness and point of view and *its* reality. It's just 
> the most frustrating thing in the world.
> 
> But at the same time, it's a heckuva lot of fun.
> 
> I guess what I'm trying to say is that reality seems
> to be a concept that people whose realities don't
> change very quickly are interested in. They stay in
> pretty much the same state of consciousness for long
> periods of time. When reality changes on you more
> quickly -- say, dozens of times in an hour -- you 
> lose your fascination for the concept. Or at least 
> I did.
> 
> I'm completely *comfortable* with the notion of there
> being a Saganesque "billions and billions" of realities. 
> That poses no problem for me whatsoever. 
> 
> Anybody else out there feel that way, or is it just me?
>

[FairfieldLife] 'USA bugged every move of MLK

2008-03-31 Thread Robert

(CNN) -- FBI wiretaps have "given us the most powerful and persuasive source of
all for seeing how utterly selfless Martin Luther King was," as a civil rights
leader, according to a leading civil rights scholar
var CNN_ArticleChanger = new
CNN_imageChanger('cnnImgChngr','/2008/US/03/31/mlk.fbi.conspiracy/imgChng/p1-0.init.exclude.html',1,1);
//CNN.imageChanger.load('cnnImgChngr','imgChng/p1-0.exclude.html');"You
see him being intensely self-critical. King really and truly believed that he
was there to be of service to others. This was not a man with any egomaniacal
joy of being a famous person, or being a leader," said Pulitzer Prize-winning
scholar David Garrow in a recent interview with CNN.
Hoping to prove the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was under the influence of
Communists, the FBI kept the civil rights leader under constant surveillance.
The agency's hidden tape recorders turned up almost nothing about communism.
But they did reveal embarrassing details about King's sex life -- details the
FBI was able to use against him.
The almost fanatical zeal with which the FBI pursued King is disclosed in
tens of thousands of FBI memos from the 1960s.
The FBI paper trail spells out in detail the government agency's concerted
efforts to derail King's efforts on behalf of the civil rights movement.
The FBI's interest in King intensified after the March on Washington in
August 1963, when King delivered his "I have a dream speech," which many
historians consider the most important speech of the 20th century. After the
speech, an FBI memo called King the "most dangerous and effective Negro leader
in the country."

The bureau convened a meeting of department heads to "explore how best to carry
on our investigation [of King] to produce the desired results without
embarrassment to the Bureau," which included "a complete analysis of the
avenues of approach aimed at neutralizing King as an effective Negro leader."
The FBI began secretly tracking King's flights and watching his associates.
In July 1963, a month before the March on Washington, FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover filed a request with Attorney General Robert Kennedy to tap King's and
his associates' phones and to bug their homes and offices.

In September, Kennedy consented to the technical surveillance. Kennedy gave
the FBI permission to break into King's office and home to install the bugs, as
long as agents recognized the "delicacy of this particular matter" and didn't
get caught installing them. Kennedy added a proviso -- he wanted to be
personally informed of any pertinent information.
While King did have associates who had been members of the Communist Party,
by all accounts they severed those ties when they started working in the civil
rights movement. What's more, the FBI bugs never picked up evidence that King
himself was a Communist, or was interested in toeing the party line.
But the long list of bugs in his hotel rooms picked up just enough about
King's love life.
A decision in a 1977 court case brought by Bernard Lee, one of King's
associates, sealed the transcripts from those wiretaps until 2027. But King's
associates confirm there were at least two cases in which FBI surveillance
caught King in compromising circumstances.
The first incident involved King at a party at the Willard Hotel in
Washington. The FBI recorded the party and captured the sounds of a sexual
encounter in the room afterwards. The second incident occurred during King's
stay in a hotel in Los Angeles, California. There, agents heard another drunken
gathering in which King told an off-color joke about the recently assassinated
President John F. Kennedy. Hoover sent transcripts and excerpts of those
recordings to the White House and to the attorney general.

Hoover's contempt for King's private behavior is clear in the memos he kept
in his personal files. His scrawl across the bottom of positive news stories
about King's success dripped with loathing.
On a story about King receiving the St. Francis peace medal from the Catholic
Church, he wrote "this is disgusting." On the story "King, Pope to Talk on
Race," he scribbled "astounding." On a story about King's meeting with the
pope, "I am amazed that the Pope gave an audience to such a degenerate." On a
story about King being the heavy favorite to win the Nobel Prize, he wrote
"King could well qualify for the 'top alley cat' prize!"
When King learned he would be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964,
the FBI decided to take its harassment of King one step further, sending him an
insulting and threatening note anonymously. A draft was found in the FBI files
years later. In it the FBI wrote, "You are a colossal fraud and an evil,
vicious one at that." The letter went on to say, "The American public ... will
know you for what you are -- an evil, abnormal beast," and "Satan could not do
more."
The letter's threat was o

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