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Only excerpts, the book is on its way ...
But the basic premise is so common sense, so much in harmony with "Buddhism 101," that there is little to doubt. You, Inshin, Jakuden and pretty much all the rest of the human race seem to share a similar experience of the world, with many shared assumptions, because we are all human beings with similar brains, taught to experience the world with similar ideas and language concepts. For example: Today I fixed our "toaster" in the kitchen, but there is no "toaster" in the universe (sorry Plato and Aristotle) absent our having come to associate, in our shared language and conventions, a certain configuration of atoms that processes electricity and heat a certain way, into something that makes, out of other molecules, that which we call "toast." The "toaster" exists as much between our ears as it does as something outside. We may not determine the atoms or their configuration (talk to the quantum physicists about that, however) except to the extent an engineer designs and builds the thing, but we make "toasters" and "toast" between our ears.
We just don't realize, usually, the extent to which we do so. We just all, mutually, are thinking there are actually "toasters" because we share this common dream made of common ideas and conventions.
Now, expand from toasters to the whole kitchen, the whole house, the town, country and planet ... the universe ...
I believe that this fellow uses the analogy of the "file" icon that appears on your computer desktop. The universe is always revealed to us as "icons" instead of the much more complex and hidden processes that we have no need to fully see or witness. Actually, there is no "file" there, but clicking on it commences a serious of transactions of 0s and 1s in the motherboard that cause some software process to proceed. Likewise "toaster" is a kind of semi-fictional icon we "click" for a whole series of physical and chemical molecular changes that, when activated, eventually result in some tasty calories and nutrients fueling our cells.
Gassho, J
STLah
Sorry to have run longLast edited by Jundo; 09-27-2021, 11:35 PM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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I'll just eat my toast
Gassho
SatComment
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"Samsung Electronics Puts Forward a Vision To ‘Copy and Paste’ the Brain on Neuromorphic Chips"
The future of AI looks interesting...
Gassho
SatComment
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There was a time that I could have walked from Japan to New Mexico. When I went to visit Shinshi this summer, I just flew and drove.
(Now, who says that America was "discovered" in 1492??)
They walked all that way ... but no shoes!Fossilized footprints show humans made it to North America much earlier than first thought
North and South America were the last continents to be settled by humans, but exactly when that started is a topic that has divided archaeologists.
The commonly held view is that people arrived in North America from Asia via Beringia, a land bridge that once connected the two continents, at the end of the Ice Age around 13,000 to 16,000 years ago. But more recent -- and some contested -- discoveries have suggested humans might have been in North America earlier.
Now, researchers studying fossilized human footprints in New Mexico say they have the first unequivocal evidence that humans were in North America at least 23,000 years ago.
...Bennett and his colleagues were able to accurately date 61 footprints by radiocarbon dating layers of aquatic plant seeds that had been preserved above and below them. The prints, which were discovered in the Tularosa Basin in White Sands National Park, were made 21,000 to 23,000 years ago, the researchers found.
https://us.cnn.com/2021/09/23/americ...scn/index.html
Gassho, J
STLahLast edited by Jundo; 09-28-2021, 11:13 PM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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So, will our phones someday be "sentient beings?" MU!"Samsung Electronics Puts Forward a Vision To ‘Copy and Paste’ the Brain on Neuromorphic Chips"
The future of AI looks interesting...
Gassho
Sat
Gassho, J
STLahALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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I'm very much a humanities person, however I find the sciences and mathematics to be fascinating. While I do not understand any of it, the concepts alone really open my eyes. Case in point, a British mathematician called Roger Penrose and I just learnt won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020.
I learnt about him through his idea of a cyclical universe. That is to say, according to him when the universe has expanded so far for so long it's mathematically no different to the moment before the big bang. So the Universe births itself anew, a rebirth so to speak over and over and over. This aligns quite nicely I thought to the Buddhist idea of aeon/kalpa.
Gassho
Mark
ST浪省 - RouSei - Wandering Introspection
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UPDATE:
This truly BREATHTAKING JAW DROPPING MIND BLOWING 360 degree view of the night sky on MARS, taken by the Rover ...Oh, ya gotta love folks who know their stuff! Some challenges on the authenticity of this PICTURE!
Beautiful but probably FAKE!
Sorry folks, although it is lovely.This is actually a montage of Earth sky on to Mars foreground. 'Mars' is near Regulus and Saturn is near Spica; so the sky images are from April 2012. ... the sky on mars is not so dark at night ...
https://www.facebook.com/SocialJunki...43315067435809
... do not miss this.
(Thank you, Bion, it popped into my Facebook feed from you)
Use your mouse to look around ...
Gassho, J
STLahLast edited by Jundo; 10-05-2021, 01:06 PM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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That sky... just...
st/rjComment
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Oh, ya gotta love folks who know their stuff! Some challenges on the authenticity of this PICTURE!
Beautiful but probably FAKE!
Sorry folks, although it is lovely.This is actually a montage of Earth sky on to Mars foreground. 'Mars' is near Regulus and Saturn is near Spica; so the sky images are from April 2012. ... the sky on mars is not so dark at night ...
https://www.facebook.com/SocialJunki...43315067435809
Gassho, J
STLahALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Well, now my family and Treeleaf won't be rid of me, even when I'm dead!
Give it a try! Ask him about religion or football or Star Trek, and sit back ...William Shatner 'AI' will chat with you about the 'Star Trek' actor's life
You've got questions; Shatner's got answers.
Got a question for "Star Trek" actor William Shatner? You could see it answered in an interactive conversation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and using video responses that Shatner prerecorded.
This two-way conversational video platform was developed by StoryFile, and the company recently introduced the "conversation" with Shatner on its website as a way to commemorate the actor's 90th birthday this past spring. In the video, a jovial-looking Shatner sits in a room awaiting users' questions about his life and career, which can be posed as audio or text. Once Shatner is asked a question, the system swiftly selects an appropriate answer from the prerecorded options, providing the response in real time.
The company recorded Shatner's answers in front of a greenscreen at StoryFile's studio in Los Angeles over four days; questions covered various topics, including details of his life story, according to a behind-the-scenes video that StoryFile shared March 22 on Vimeo.
https://www.livescience.com/william-shatner-ai-chat
Gassho, J
STLahALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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And, in keeping with that, more to ponder regarding the happenstance and blind fortune (or was it?) of our being alive on this precious planet right now ...
Let's just hope that, with global warming, we don't eventually catch up to Venus!New findings a 'complete reversal' in understanding why Earth became hospitable to life and its 'twin' didn't
Venus may be a sweltering wasteland today, but scientists have questioned whether the planet was always so inhospitable. While previous studies suggested Venus might have once been covered in oceans, new research has found the opposite: Venus has likely never been able to support oceans.
Researchers also determined that a similar story could have played out on Earth as well had things been just a bit different.
Venus, our closest planetary neighbor, is called Earth's twin because of the similarity in size and density of both planets. Otherwise, the planets differ radically. While Earth is a natural hub for life, Venus is a lifeless planet with a toxic carbon dioxide atmosphere 90 times thicker than ours, clouds of sulphuric acid and surface temperatures that reach 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius) -- hot enough to melt lead.
To understand how these two rocky planets turned out so differently, a team of astrophysicists decided to try to simulate the beginning, when our solar system's planets formed 4.5 billion years ago. They used climate models -- similar to what researchers use when simulating climate change on Earth -- to peer back in time at young Venus and Earth. Their new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
More than 4 billion years ago, Earth and Venus were piping hot and covered in magma. Oceans can only form when temperatures are cool enough for water to condense and fall as rain over thousands of years. That's how Earth's global ocean formed over tens of millions of years. Venus, on the other hand, remained hot. At the time, our sun was about 25% fainter than it is now. But that wouldn't have been enough to help Venus cool off, since it's the second-closest planet to the sun. The researchers questioned whether clouds could have played a role in helping Venus cool down. Their climate model determined that clouds did contribute, but in an unexpected way. They clustered on the night side of Venus where they wouldn't have been able to shield the planet's day side from the sun. ... Rather than shielding Venus from heat, the night side clouds contributed to a greenhouse effect that trapped heat within the planet's dense atmosphere and kept temperatures high. With such consistent, trapped heat, Venus would have been too hot for rain to fall. Instead, water could only exist as its gaseous form, water vapor, in the atmosphere.
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Things could have turned out the same way for Earth if our planet had been slightly closer to the sun or if the sun was as bright back then as it is now. Because the sun was dimmer billions of years ago, Earth was able to cool down enough from its molten state for water to form and create our global ocean. The faint young sun "was a key ingredient to actually form the first oceans on Earth," Turbet wrote in an email.
Gassho, J
STLahALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Yes, the body is pretty amazing ... "empty" or not ...
Stunning images show how muscles heal themselves after a workout
Exercise leaves muscles riddled with microscopic tears, so after a rigorous workout, the control centers of muscle cells — called nuclei — scoot toward these tiny injuries to help patch them up, scientists recently discovered.
In the new study, published Oct. 14 in the journal Science, researchers uncovered a previously unknown repair mechanism that kicks in after a run on the treadmill. Striking images show how, shortly after the exercise concludes, nuclei scuttle toward tears in the muscle fibers and issue commands for new proteins to be built, in order to seal the wounds. That same process likely unfolds in your own cells in the hours after you return home from the gym.
The study authors discovered that "nuclei moved toward the injury site within 5 hours of injury," Dr. Elizabeth McNally and Alexis Demonbreun, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, wrote in a commentary, also published in Science. And within only 24 hours of the injury, the repair process was "nearly complete."
Nuclei (purple) in a muscle cell migrate toward the site of an injury to help repair the tear. (Image credit: William Roman)
Now, off to the gym!
Gassho, J
STLahALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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