Artículos relacionados a BlindSpots: 21 Good Reasons to Think before You Talk

BlindSpots: 21 Good Reasons to Think before You Talk - Tapa blanda

De Quincey, Christian

 
9781620554463: BlindSpots: 21 Good Reasons to Think before You Talk
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ISBN 10: 1620554461 ISBN 13: 9781620554463
Editorial: Park Street Press, 2015

Sinopsis

Examines 21 unquestioned assumptions that cloud our collective consciousness

• Reveals faulty thinking and conceptual blindspots that distort beliefs in science, philosophy, and spirituality--from “the universe exploded from nothing in a Big Bang” to “we create our own reality”

• Explains how “thought viruses” spread as we use these clichéd assumptions in our daily communications

We live in a world filled with clichés--convenient assumptions and unquestioned conclusions that many of us use without giving them a second thought. We all spread these “thought viruses,” infecting everyone we come in contact with. But many of these blindspots in how we think about ourselves and the world do not withstand rigorous scrutiny--or even casual scrutiny in some cases--yet they fall out of the mouths of scientists, religious teachers, journalists, and authors with dumbfounding frequency.

Over the years philosopher Christian de Quincey spotted these cognitive gremlins in books, blogs, websites, TV shows, movies, classrooms, and casual conversations--and he wondered: Why do so many people speak before thinking, spreading ideas that make no sense, yet fool us into thinking they do? How did these unquestioned beliefs about life, space, time, energy, consciousness, evolution, artificial intelligence, and even God take hold in our collective consciousness?

In this book, de Quincey deliberately provokes and illuminates the dark side of jumping to conclusions, casting a skeptical eye on 21 beliefs that keep science, philosophy, and spirituality in the dark--from “the universe exploded from nothing in a Big Bang” and “we create our own reality” to “nobody knows what consciousness is” and “everything is energy.” These ideas distort and block our understanding and openness to important questions about life, the universe, mind, matter, God, and the miraculous.

By exposing these thought viruses that take our minds hostage when we fail to think things through, de Quincey aims to help change the way we think not just about thinking but also about how we live our lives, interact with others, and contemplate the world around us.

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Acerca del autor

Christian de Quincey, M.A., Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy and Consciousness Studies at John F. Kennedy University and Dean of Consciousness Studies at the University of Philosophical Research. He is the award-winning author of Radical Nature and Radical Knowing as well as Consciousness from Zombies to Angels and Deep Spirit: Cracking the Noetic Code. The founder of the Wisdom Academy, he lives in Half Moon Bay, California.

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5
Time
The Future Is Now

Have you ever tried to capture and hold a special moment? Ever tried to freeze-frame time, only to discover you can never grasp it? The present moment is elusive--here now, then gone as soon as it arrives. The fickle finger of time pushes on, indifferent to our desires or fears. Omar Khayaam expressed it well:

The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

And yet, time does seem to be elastic. Ever notice how it slows down when you are waiting for a kettle to boil? Or how it zips by in a flash when you are really enjoying yourself? How does time speed up or slow to a crawl, yet the clock on the wall ticks away at its regular rate?

Time remains one of our deepest mysteries. It has inspired and frustrated philosophers, scientists, psychologists, and spiritual teachers the world over. Philosophers, in particular, have argued over the nature of time since . . . well, since time immemorial . . . and scientists have turned it into a dimension of space (thanks Einstein!).

Some folks even say time doesn’t really exist--it’s just an illusion. There is onlynow, including past and future. One thing seems clear: Somehow, time and consciousness are intimately connected.

The Paradox of Time

We know it intimately, yet when asked to define it, time leaves us scratching our heads. Even more than consciousness, attempts to define time pull us in circles. Time, it seems, cannot be precisely explained, expressed, or defined in language.

Try an experiment: See if you can come up with a definition of time that does not depend on a word that itself depends on the notion of time. I suggest it cannot be done. For example, “Time is the difference betweenbefore and after.” “Time is what flows from past to present to future.” “Time is thesuccession of moments or events.” “Time is duration.” “Time ischange.”

All the italicized words above require an understanding of time for their meaning. The very nature of time appears to be tautological--it requires itself for its own definition--and, therefore, resists precise, clear definition. Nevertheless, time is so central to our experience and way of life it seems too important to leave uninvestigated.

So, what is time? If we can’t define it, how can we know it? Perhaps we can indicate it or approach it along avia negativa--by describing what it is not, by pointing out its opposites, or its absence.

Without time, the world would be utterly static. Nothing could happen; we might say, whimsically, that time is the “hap” in “happening.” Yet even a totally static universe is unimaginable without enduring, and duration involves a sense of time. Even an eternally static universe must endure, and therefore must be threaded on some fiber of time.

The Future Is Now

There’s no time to wait, the future is now!

Blindspot: Besides the contradiction of tenses, we must decide “which future?”Do we mean the next second or fifty billion years from now? If we mean thatall futures are “now,” then we are effectively saying there is no distinction between any future moments. The next minute is no different from a moment fifty billion years hence. It amounts to saying the future has no future.

The same is true for every past moment that once was “now”--right back to the Big Bang. There would be no difference between the past, the present, and the future. In other words,NOTHING EVER HAPPENED! But for this absurdity to be possible, we would have to say that no time ever existed. Without time, what meaning do the wordspast, present, and future have?

If the notion of time is to preserve any meaning, a fixed relation between before and after must exist. If what was oncebefore were to become after, then language breaks down and those words lose all meaning and usefulness.

The Arrow of Time

Time implies, even requires, duration. In other words, time consists of moments not timeless instants. Each moment endures or “smears” itself out in time. Unlike instants, moments arecontinuous--they flow into each other, in one direction.

Duration extends into the past (and preserves it), but it does not flowinto the past. Its direction is future oriented; more accurately, it createsthe future, since there is no future yet for it to flow into.

Our lived experience of time defies the limits of language. Time is indefinable, the present moment forever ineffable. The best human minds can do, it seems, is to reach deep inside the psyche for metaphors that may communicate something of the essence of time, by-passing the intellectual faculties and touching a nerve of emotion or intuition.

Communication about time is a poetic affair, not a matter of technical discourse. Time is intimately related to consciousness and cannot be divorced from an experiencing subject. All efforts to objectify time yield a lifeless shell, an abstraction. Time and consciousness flow together.

To know time, it must be experienced.

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Editorial
Park Street Press
Año de publicación
2015
Idioma
Inglés
ISBN 10 
1620554461
ISBN 13 
9781620554463
Encuadernación
Tapa blanda
Número de páginas
352
Contacto del fabricante
no disponible
Persona responsable
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union
info@simonandschuster.nl

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