A file based on thecard index system is, on the other hand, a satisfactoryand economical system of dealing with every sort ofmaterial, and is moreover a thing alive, ready at alltimes to place at the disposal of those who consult itall that information which in the past was regardedas the special attribute of the man of long experience.
esp. note the idea of it being alive
begs the question of what "alive" means....
AI is it's both a kind of you Ponzi scheme, investment, you know, crime. Uh, [laughter] >> but it's it's also this real panic to scramble for a plausible narrative to keep people on the progress train.
for - AI - ponzi scheme - keep the progress narrative alive - while everything else is falling apart
The name of the practice is Lhatong, which can be translated as “further seeing” from Tibetan. Lhatong is traditionally practised with eyes open, focusing on the plane about 1.5 metres in front of you.
for - Buddhism - TIbetan - Dzogchen practice - Lhatong - arising forms are seen as empty and relational, alive, not isolated - from Medium article - Heart Sutra and the nyams of Dzogchen - Aleander Vezhnevets - 2022, Sept 7
Unexcelled Yoga Tantra
for - definition - unexcelled yoga tantra - the ultimate practice of simulating clear light meditation while still alive, in the Gelupa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism - from Youtube - Between Life and Death: Understanding Tukdam - John D. Dunne
So what's the first thing to do? It's to stop being ordinary. So they say, "tha mal gyi rtog shes spang ba," "abandon ordinary thoughts and ordinary attitudes," ordinary experience.
for - Buddhism - TIbetan - clear light meditation - practice - how to practice simulation of Tukdam while still alive? - Stop ordinary thoughts and feelings - from Youtube - Between Life and Death: Understanding Tukdam - John D. Dunne
The simulation, however, requires a high degree of control over the winds— "rlung" in Tibetan or "vāyuḥ" in Sanskrit, not "prāṇa," but "vāyuḥ" in Sanskrit—that are involved in the death process.
for - Buddhism - Tibetan - clear light meditation at time of death - can practice while alive a simulated version meditation - requires mastery of the internal "winds" - from Youtube - Between Life and Death: Understanding Tukdam - John D. Dunne
To rehearse that moment, essentially what one does, is you induce a simulated version of this clear light mind.
for - Buddhism - Tibetan - clear light meditation at time of death - can practice while alive a simulated version meditation - from Youtube - Between Life and Death: Understanding Tukdam - John D. Dunne
this feels like it came from your family line often we know that a baby is an egg inside their mother inside their grandmother so you can begin to feel through the ancestors that will show up in the present
for - body memory - ancestors are alive and living through us - Youtube - Prenatal and Perinatal Healing Happens in Layers - Kate White
when I've worked with pre and perinal psychology people think oh well this is psychology this is mental health but really it's not it's more than that it's a holistic Body Mind practice where implicit somatic memory is alive and active and actually informing how we behave and choices that we make in the present
for - prenatal and perinatal psychology - is not just mental health - it's holistic mind body practice - somatic memories are alive in our body right now - Youtube - Prenatal and Perinatal Healing Happens in Layers - Kate White
between 1944 and 1971 the Americans had a surplus the money that they were making from the Surplus they were giving to Europe and Japan that was what's happening until up until 197 71 after that the Americans had a deficit which they used to suck into the United States the surplus of Germany of France of Japan and then China this is what kept capitalism alive
for - quote - American surplus monetary flows kept capitalism alive til now - Yanis Varoufakis
quote - American surplus monetary flows kept capitalism alive til now - Yanis Varoufakis - (see below) - Between 1944 and 1971 the Americans had a surplus - The money that they were making from the Surplus they were giving to Europe and Japan that was what's happening until up until 1971 -After that, the Americans had a deficit, - which they used to suck into the United States the surplus: - of Germany - of France - of Japan and then - of China - This is what kept capitalism alive
Samuel Hartlib was well aware of this improvement. While extolling the clever invention of Harrison, Hartlib noted that combinations and links con-stituted the ‘argumentative part’ of the card index.60
Hartlib Papers 30/4/47A, Ephemerides 1640, Part 2.
In extolling the Ark of Studies created by Thomas Harrison, Samuel Hartlib indicated that the combinations of information and the potential links between them created the "argumentative part" of the system. In some sense this seems to be analogous to the the processing power of an information system if not specifically creating its consciousness.
https://writingslowly.com/2024/03/13/the-card-index.html
Richard ties together the "aliveness" of card indexes, phonographs, and artificial intelligence in an interesting way. He also links it to the living surroundings of indigenous cultures which see these things in ways that westerners don't.
People marveled at new invention after new invention and there was a tendency to see mechanical and especially electrical advances as somehow endowed with life. The phonograph, for example, was held to be alive and print adverts even claimed it had a soul.
I love the tying together of the "aliveness" of a zettelkasten with the "soul" of the phonograph here.
The sudden awareness of something that calls for an explanation, once the fog of habit has lifted, seems to be the real stuff revolutions’ sparkles are made of
!- revolutionary learning comes from : questioning basic assumptions - the art of asking questions about the simplest things - is the art of recognizing complexity in the obvious - is the art of not just taking things for granted - is the art of articulating wonder at the way things are
So we have come to the crucial point. The Socratic catharsis is a matter of letting death penetrate the self. It is the acceptance of the perishing of everything that will perish. In this acceptance a person imaginatively experiences the death of the body and the possibility of complete annihilation. This is “to ‘taste” death with the lips of your living body [so] that you … know emotionally that you are a creature who will die; “it is the passage into nothing” in which “a corner is turned within one.” And it is this very experience, and no other, that enables a person to act with genuine moral freedom and autonomy, guided by morals and not just attraction and impulses.
This is the age old principle of all wisdom traditions: To die while still alive.
It’s as if we need the gravitational pull of both worlds to keep us on track, locked on a good and righteous path. Without both worlds pulling on us, we would crash into one, or simply lose our way, hurtling through the universe on our own, intersecting nothing, helping no one.
As neuroscietist Beau Lotto points out, the Anthropocene is creating greater and greater uncertainty and unpredictability, but the one human trait evolution has created to help us deal with this is the sense of awe. See my annotation on Beau Lotto's beautiful TED Talk: How we experience awe and why it matters https://hyp.is/go?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdocdrop.org%2Fvideo%2F17D5SrgBE6g%2F&group=world
In short, the sacred is the antidote to the increase in uncertainty and unpredictability as we enter into the space of the Anthropocene. Awe can be the leverage point to the ultimate leverage point for system change that Donella Meadows pointed out many years ago- it can lead to rapid shift in paradigms, worldviews and value systems needed to shift the system.
When I was around eight years old, having recently made the trip with my family back ‘home’ to London from where I was born and lived my earliest years in Nairobi, Kenya, I contracted measles, the first of many childhood illnesses that confined me to bed and disrupted my schooling. My father sat by my bedside and read stories to me about the planets and outer space, infecting me with his love of scientific exploration. I was given books to read about natural history and I learned to identify the garden birds in the tree that grew outside my bedroom window. I made watercolour paintings of these and others that I had never seen from illustrations on the pages of ‘Collins Pocket Guide to British Birds’. Then, whenever I was well enough, I was taken out into the countryside and spent many happy days bird-spotting for myself. I was taken on my first ‘fungus foray’ to a place called Burnham Beeches, west of London. It was led by the redoubtable figure of a man called Bayard Hora and I was awestruck by what I many years later described as ‘The Fountains of the Forest’ as they erupted from ground and trees in manifold shapes and colours, not least the legendary ‘fly agaric’ (Amanita muscaria), the ‘parasol’ (Macrolepiota procera) and numerous ‘brittle gills’ (Russula spp). I found that their Latin names came easily to me and I delighted in showing off my recall to peers and teachers.
When we are young and provided with such opportunity to marvel and immerse ourselves in the patterns of nature, we keep the creative flow alive.
“No matter how it was collected, where it was collected, when it was collected, our language belongs to us. Our stories belong to us. Our songs belong to us,” Taken Alive, who teaches Lakota to elementary school students, told the tribal council in April.
The word which we most often use io talk about the quality without a name is the word “alive.”
It is interesting to me that this is being offered as a quasi-definition. Since reading [[notsof]] I've started to see spaces around the city (I love walking in cities) as "dead" or "alive" -- even without having a formal definition for those terms.
In 1953 I realized that the straight line leads to the downfall of mankind. But the straight line has become an absolute tyranny. The straight line is something cowardly drawn with a rule, without thought or feeling; it is the line which does not exist in nature. And that line is the rotten foundation of our doomed civilization. Even if there are places where it is recognized that this line is rapidly leading to perdition, its course continues to be plotted. ..Any design undertaken with the straight line will be stillborn. Today we are witnessing the triumph of rationalist know-how and yet, at the same time, we find ourselves confronted with emptiness. An aesthetic void, dessert of uniformity, criminal sterility, loss of creative power. Even creativity is prefabricated. We are no longer able to create. That is our real illiteracy. Friedensreich Hundertwasser