Life-Affirming Talks by Cultural Mavericks Presented at The School of Life

in Life, Philosophy | December 8th, 2011

Since the late 1990′s, Alain de Bot­ton has been break­ing down dif­fi­cult philo­soph­i­cal and lit­er­ary ideas and see­ing how they apply to people’s every­day lives. He did this with his 1997 best­seller, How Proust Can Change Your Life. And he took things a step fur­ther with his tele­vi­sion series called Phi­los­o­phy: A Guide to Hap­pi­ness.

Then, in the sum­mer of 2008, de Bot­ton and some col­leagues set up The School of Life, a Lon­don-based insti­tu­tion that offers cours­es “in the impor­tant ques­tions of every­day life,” in areas we all tend to care about: careers, rela­tion­ships, pol­i­tics, trav­els, fam­i­lies, etc. The school also hosts a series of “Sun­day Ser­mons” that fea­ture “mav­er­ick cul­tur­al fig­ures” talk­ing about the virtues they cling to, and the vices to be wary of.

Today, we’re fea­tur­ing sev­er­al of these ser­mons. Above, the actress, writer, and direc­tor Miran­da July takes an off­beat and endear­ing look at strangers, and the role they play in our lives. Then come some notable men­tions:

Physi­cist Lawrence Krauss on Cos­mic Con­nec­tions. (Also don’t miss this oth­er unre­lat­ed but splen­did talk by Krauss.)

Author Rebec­ca Sol­nit on Hope.

And Alain de Bot­ton him­self on the impor­tance of defy­ing pes­simism.

Again, you can find the full list of ser­mons orga­nized chrono­log­i­cal­ly here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

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Philosophy in Prison: Weighty Conversations about Right and Wrong

in Life, Philosophy | December 7th, 2011

When not found­ing tech com­pa­nies, Damon Horowitz teach­es phi­los­o­phy through the Prison Uni­ver­si­ty Project, bring­ing col­lege-lev­el class­es to inmates of San Quentin State Prison. In three min­utes, Horowitz raps about phi­los­o­phy meet­ing real life — about how pris­on­ers con­vict­ed of seri­ous crimes come to terms with Socrates (who fin­ished his days in prison), Hei­deg­ger, Kant, cat­e­gor­i­cal imper­a­tives, ques­tions of right and wrong, and the rest. The “talk” was orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed at TED 2011 last March.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Noam Chom­sky & Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature & Pow­er (1971)

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps

Bertrand Rus­sell & Oth­er Big Thinkers in BBC Lec­ture Series (Free)

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Can Ants Count? Do They Have Built-In Pedometers? Animated Video Explains

in Animation, Video - Science | December 7th, 2011

Saha­ran desert ants are known to wan­der great dis­tances in search of food. Twist­ing and turn­ing on their way, the ants man­age to return to their nests along sur­pris­ing­ly direct paths. They sense direc­tion using light from the sky, but how do they judge dis­tance? By count­ing steps, appar­ent­ly.

As Nation­al Pub­lic Radio sci­ence cor­re­spon­dent Robert Krul­wich explains in this engag­ing lit­tle car­toon, a group of Ger­man and Swiss sci­en­tists have dis­cov­ered that by manip­u­lat­ing the stride of the ants halfway through their trip–by either length­en­ing or short­en­ing their legs–the ants would invari­ably over­shoot or under­shoot their return des­ti­na­tion. As Prince­ton biol­o­gist James Gould told NPR, “These ani­mals are fooled exact­ly the way you’d expect if they were count­ing steps.”

The exper­i­men­tal results were orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in 2006. You can lis­ten to Krul­wich’s radio report on the research here.

via Phi­los­o­phy Mon­key

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ant Archae­ol­o­gy

Fire Ants Cre­ate Life Raft in 100 Sec­onds Flat

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Ryan Adams Live at the Ed Sullivan Theatre (Free Pass)

in Music | December 7th, 2011

The Live on Let­ter­man con­cert series has brought you Peter Gabriel, Cold­play and Wilco (click to watch con­certs), and now it returns with Ryan Adams play­ing solo at the Ed Sul­li­van The­atre in New York city. Dur­ing the 70-minute con­cert record­ed Mon­day night, Adams per­formed “Lucky Now” from his new album Ash­es and Fire, plus some fan favorites “Oh My Sweet Car­oli­na” and “New York, New York.” Enjoy, and don’t miss Adams on his tour that kicks off Thurs­day in Boston.

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The Seven Wonders of the Microbe World

in Video - Science | December 7th, 2011

This video has been removed at the request of open uni­ver­si­ty.

After pro­duc­ing 60 Sec­ond Adven­tures in Thought and The His­to­ry of Eng­lish, the Open Uni­ver­si­ty returns with a new video series, Sev­en Won­ders of the Microbe World.

Microbes have giv­en us some dev­as­tat­ing dis­eases, every­thing from the Black Death to cholera, syphilis, typhoid and the occa­sion­al yeast infec­tion. But our micro­bial friends have also done us some good. With­out microbes, we would­n’t have wine and beer (some­thing the Ancient Egyp­tians start­ed pro­duc­ing some 6,000 years ago), nor much oxy­gen and fix­at­ed nitro­gen, all essen­tial for plant, ani­mal and human life. And don’t for­get antibi­otics, fine cheeses and the rest.

You can watch the Sev­en Won­ders of the Microbe World in sev­en install­ments on YouTube (see list below) or via iTunes. Or, sim­ply sit back and watch the 25 minute con­sol­i­dat­ed video (above) that brings it all togeth­er for you.

1. The His­to­ry of Beer
2. The Black Death
3. Food Preser­va­tion
4. Nitro­gen Fix­a­tion
5. Antibi­otics
6. Genet­ic Engi­neer­ing
7. Life on Mars

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Animated Video Shows Curiosity, NASA’s Mars Rover, in Dramatic Action

in Astronomy, Science, Video - Science | December 6th, 2011

In late Novem­ber, NASA’s Curios­i­ty, the world’s biggest extrater­res­tri­al rover, began rock­et­ing toward Mars (see pho­tos of the launch here) in search of any hint that the red plan­et might have pro­vid­ed a home for micro­scop­ic life. The Curios­i­ty will even­tu­al­ly reach Mars in August after cov­er­ing 345 mil­lion miles. Ear­li­er this year, an artist released a rather dra­mat­ic ani­ma­tion depict­ing key moments in the mis­sion — the voy­age, the land­ing (don’t miss this part!), the explo­ration, and all of the rest. It’s anoth­er can­di­date for our col­lec­tion of Great Sci­ence Videos.

via Coudal.com

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Miniatur Wunderland: The World’s Largest Model Railroad

in Video - Arts & Culture | December 6th, 2011

The con­struc­tion began in the year 2000, and over the years, Miniatur Wun­der­land, locat­ed in Ham­burg, Ger­many, has staked its claim as the largest mod­el rail­way in the world. Watch as you take a ride across the sev­en sec­tions: Harz, the fic­ti­tious city of Knuffin­gen, the Alps and Aus­tria, Ham­burg, Amer­i­ca, Scan­di­navia, and Switzer­land.

As the video attests, it took more than 500,000 work­ing hours to cre­ate this mas­sive minia­ture world. The most recent addi­tion is the Knuffin­gen air­port, locat­ed on 150 square meters, and boast­ing 40 air­planes that can taxi, take off, and land.

Miniatur Wun­der­land is con­stant­ly evolv­ing: the final phase of the project is slat­ed to be com­plet­ed in 2020, by which time the mod­el area will grow to near­ly 25,000 square feet. No won­der Miniatur Wun­der­land is Ham­burg’s most pop­u­lar attrac­tion.

via Giz­mo­do

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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Crowded House: How the World’s Population Grew to 7 Billion People

in Current Affairs, History, Video - Politics/Society | December 6th, 2011

This fall, the world’s pop­u­la­tion reached sev­en bil­lion. A sober­ing thought. How did we get to this point? Pro­duc­er Adam Cole and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Mag­gie Star­bard of Nation­al Pub­lic Radio have put the world’s accel­er­at­ing pop­u­la­tion growth in per­spec­tive in a two-and-a-half minute video, above.

In those two and a half min­utes, 638 babies will be born world­wide, accord­ing to sta­tis­tics from the Unit­ed States Cen­sus Bureau, and 265 peo­ple will die. That’s a net gain of 373 peo­ple, just while you watch the film. The biggest growth, accord­ing to NPR,  is hap­pen­ing in sub-Saha­ran Africa, where access to fam­i­ly plan­ning is low and infant mor­tal­i­ty rates are high.

It may seem counter-intu­itive that pop­u­la­tion growth rates are high where infant sur­vival rates are low, but as Swedish glob­al health expert Hans Rosling put it dur­ing a recent TED talk, “Only by child sur­vival can we con­trol pop­u­la­tion growth.” Because pop­u­la­tion growth and infant mor­tal­i­ty rates are both cor­re­lat­ed to pover­ty rates, he argues, elim­i­nat­ing pover­ty is the key to achiev­ing a sus­tain­able world pop­u­la­tion. You can learn more in our Novem­ber 1 fea­ture,  “Hans Rosling Uses IKEA Props to Explain World of 7 Bil­lion Peo­ple.”

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Conformity Isn’t a Recipe for Excellence: Wisdom from George Carlin & Steve Jobs (NSFW)

in Comedy, Life, Psychology | December 6th, 2011

Dur­ing the 1960s, George Car­lin had some­thing of an epiphany. Con­front­ed by the coun­ter­cul­ture, the young come­di­an real­ized that he was­n’t stay­ing true to him­self — that he was try­ing to be Dan­ny Kaye, a very main­stream star, when he was real­ly an out­law and a rebel at heart. (Watch him on The Tonight Show in 1966). Even­tu­al­ly, Car­lin learned “not to give a shit,” to break with mil­que­toast con­ven­tions that restrained oth­er come­di­ans, and that’s when his com­ic genius bloomed. Note that some of Car­lin’s com­ments here are … not sur­pris­ing­ly … not safe for work.

Steve Jobs, anoth­er child of the coun­ter­cul­ture, did­n’t learn Car­lin’s les­son over time. As Wal­ter Isaac­son makes clear in his new biog­ra­phy, Jobs under­stood from the begin­ning that excel­lence is rarely achieved by walk­ing down the path of con­for­mi­ty. In a 1995 inter­view, Jobs boiled down his basic approach to life. The mas­ter­mind behind the leg­endary Think Dif­fer­ent tele­vi­sion cam­paign (watch the ver­sion nar­rat­ed by Jobs him­self) said:

When you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice fam­i­ly, have fun, save a lit­tle mon­ey.

That’s a very lim­it­ed life. Life can be much broad­er once you dis­cov­er one sim­ple fact: Every­thing around you that you call life was made up by peo­ple that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influ­ence it, you can build your own things that oth­er peo­ple can use. Once you learn that, you’ll nev­er be the same again.

You can find more pearls of wis­dom from Jobs over at Brain­Pick­ings, and we’ll leave you below with more cul­tur­al fig­ures med­i­tat­ing on life:

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18

Paulo Coel­ho: Suc­cess Nev­er Hap­pens With­out Tak­ing Risks

One of the Biggest Risks is Being Too Cau­tious…

Bono Tells Grad­u­ates “Pick a Fight, Get in It” (2004)

Conan O’Brien: Through Dis­ap­point­ment You Can Gain Clar­i­ty

J.K. Rowl­ing Tells Har­vard Grad­u­ates What They Need to Know

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This is Your Brain on Sex and Religion: Experiments in Neuroscience

in Psychology, Science | December 6th, 2011

If you attend­ed the recent Soci­ety for Neu­ro­science con­fer­ence, you had the chance to see some unprece­dent­ed 3D imag­ing of the brain — images that showed the exact order in which wom­en’s brain regions (80 in total) are acti­vat­ed in the sequence lead­ing to an orgasm. For Bar­ry Komis­aruk (pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­o­gy at Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty), this imag­ing isn’t gra­tu­itous. The whole point is to demys­ti­fy how the brain expe­ri­ences plea­sure, some­thing that could even­tu­al­ly inform our under­stand­ing of addic­tion and depres­sion. Komis­aruk said:

It’s a beau­ti­ful sys­tem in which to study the brain’s con­nec­tiv­i­ty. We expect that this movie [above], a dynam­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the grad­ual buildup of brain activ­i­ty to a cli­max, fol­lowed by res­o­lu­tion, will facil­i­tate our under­stand­ing of patho­log­i­cal con­di­tions such as anor­gas­mia by empha­siz­ing where in the brain the sequen­tial process breaks down.

Mean­while, back at the neu­ro­science ranch, researchers are also using imag­ing tech­nol­o­gy to observe the human brain in anoth­er state, the state where peo­ple expe­ri­ence mys­ti­cal awak­en­ings dur­ing prayer and med­i­ta­tion or oth­er spir­i­tu­al epipha­nies. Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can took a fair­ly deep look at this cut­ting-edge field sev­er­al years ago (read the full piece here), and now NPR has pro­duced a mul­ti­me­dia glimpse into the evolv­ing sci­ence of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. The pre­sen­ta­tion (click here or the image above) com­bines audio, video, arti­cles, book excerpts, etc. and delves into the fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: Is God a delu­sion cre­at­ed by brain chem­istry, or is brain chem­istry a nec­es­sary con­duit for peo­ple to reach God?

If you want to learn more about the brain and neu­ro­science, don’t miss the cours­es list­ed in the Psychology/Neuroscience sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

Time and The Guardian have more on the first sto­ry above here and here.

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Malcolm McLaren: The Quest for Authentic Creativity

in Art, Creativity, Current Affairs | December 5th, 2011

In ear­ly Octo­ber of 2009, Mal­colm McLaren was near­ing death but did­n’t know it yet. He showed up at the 2009 Hand­held Learn­ing con­fer­ence feel­ing fatigued, but man­aged to deliv­er a provoca­tive and heart­felt speech titled, “Nev­er Mind the Bol­locks, Here’s the Txt Pis­tols,” in which he reflects on his life grow­ing up in post-World War II Eng­land and express­es dis­may over the rise of what he called “karaoke cul­ture.”

“All pop­u­lar cul­ture today,” said McLaren, “goes to great lengths to pro­mote the idea that it’s cool to be stu­pid.” He cham­pi­oned instead the “messy process of cre­ativ­i­ty” in which strug­gle, fail­ure and the acqui­si­tion of skill and knowl­edge are val­ued above instant fame. You can watch the com­plete speech above. A few days after it was giv­en, McLaren went into the hos­pi­tal and learned that he had can­cer. He died six months lat­er, on April 8, 2010. The next day Hand­held Learn­ing founder Gra­ham Brown-Mar­tin  wrote:

The talk from Mal­colm at the Hand­held Learn­ing Con­fer­ence 2009 will, I believe, stand the test of time. The speech does­n’t elab­o­rate about the peri­od of the Sex Pis­tols, New York Dolls, Vivi­enne West­wood, his impact on design, fash­ion and music cul­ture and many oth­er impor­tant achieve­ments of Mal­colm’s life that will be report­ed in obit­u­ar­ies over the com­ing days. Instead and in keep­ing with the theme of the con­fer­ence, Mal­colm dis­cuss­es in his inim­itable style–his life, learn­ing, authen­tic­i­ty vs karaoke cul­ture and what we gain from the expe­ri­ence of fail­ure. Iron­i­cal­ly, fail­ure was some­thing Mal­colm nev­er achieved. The talk was any­thing but ordi­nary, it polarised our audi­ence and instant­ly trend­ed glob­al­ly on Twit­ter but what else would you expect?

via TED/Best of the Web

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