Posts Tagged ‘wu-wei’

10
Apr

Put us in our place

by adminadam in education, home, videos

Thank you Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and of course Alan Watts, for this epic short film.

It is a film that touches on: Evolution, the nature of intelligence and the self, and the hoax of our modern success-centered lives.

It is a video meant to put us in our places, and also ask us to evaluate what we have built for ourselves.

Is this what I wanted to be doing?
Am I missing out?
What is my focus?

And hopefully we can, with honest answers, begin to shift our trajectory or maybe just dance a little more in life; have some fun, eat drink and be merry, that’s where I see the value in this film.

3
Apr

Wu-Wei @ 8%

by adminadam in articles

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“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” – Loren Eisley

Water is a metaphor for both power and humility, bending around obstacles, seeking the path of least resistance. Water always seeks to lower itself below all else, flowing downhill to appease gravity. It this way it gains power from humility. Water is thus the prime example of wu-wei in nature.

The best human equivalent of this is a person that acts along the path of least resistance, applying wu-wei, not forcing his or her will upon the world. We as individuals can also draw great power from humility by training our minds and bodies.

When I tried Aikido my second year of college, I could see the power in moving with the forces of the universe, instead of pushing against them. Here we see Steven Seagal applying the wu-wei type principles inherent in Aikido to subdue his multiple attackers. To me his demonstration of non-doing is very effective.

Quotes by Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido:

“If your opponent tries to pull you, let him pull. Don’t pull against him; pull in unison with him.”

“Though surrounded by many enemies, view them as a single foe and so fight on.”

Quotes by Alan Watts on Water & Wu-Wei:

“Wu-wei is the lifestyle of a person who follows the Tao and should be understood first of all as a form of intelligence — that of being aware of the principles, structures and tendencies of the human activity and of the natural phenomena so well that you could use a minimum amount of energy when you have to deal with them.”

“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”

28
Mar

Wu-Wei @ 7%

by adminadam in art, home, music, videos

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THE AVATAR/MONONOKE/RÖYKSOPP CONNECTION

Ever since watching Avatar I have been drawn back to Mononoke, the classic Miyazaki film about human greed versus the full force of nature. In Avatar, the Atokirina represent the planet’s life force; in Princess Mononoke, we have the Kodama (こだま、反響音: echo). Both kinds of wood-sprites act as the eyes and ears of the forest, and sometimes as its messengers, as we see here with Jake Sully:

"We love Jake Sully! Don't kill him!" — Woodsprites

As you may have figured by following this site, I am a huge fan of Röyksopp. So when I found this little number below I was clickin’ like a kodama, just stoked, you know. What could be better than seeing the little gangsta sprites dashing through the forest to uber-chill electronica? Really. It was just *so easy*.

open source video, online video platform, video streaming, video solutions

27
Mar

Future Shock (Minus Two)

by adminadam in art, articles, home, music, videos

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“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

The Ways in Which We Change, by Nick Lepard

FUTURE-WISE

As we saw in Minus One, the future can be a very shocking proposition when it is extrapolated far out enough. But we all have to deal with the day-to-day just like anyone else. This, I believe, is why stuff like the iPad and it’s raved successors won’t be progressively more exciting, but less — these things won’t noticeably change our lives while the pace of innovation is so high (not that the iPad is the best representation of innovation, of course).

NOW-WISE

I just hope we can hang on if things really do get fast, like the futurists believe will happen. Say, if we have a computer that can improve itself, jump to the next generation in a year, and keep pace. If one existed, and many attempts (and approximations) are underway, then the second generation computer could spawn a third in six months. Continue this trend and by the tenth generation (around two years from initial boot-up), the thing is up to one-new-generation a day and greater. Can we even prepare for this? (Is there a possible answer here, at the Singularity University?)

THE PROGRESSION OF THE GENERATIONS

One year until generation two.
Six months until generation three.
Three months until generation four.
45 days
22 days until a great great grandchild is born.
11.3 days until generation seven.
5.6 days
2.8 days until generation nine.
1.4 days
Now it’s only 17 hours until generation 11, and it’s been roughly two years.

BUT WHAT WILL IT MEAN?

Say the first generation from above is a human-level intelligence. Just humor me. If we could, let’s also assume a doubling time of one year initially. We get to 1000 times human capacity after around 623 days, or 1.7 years. We just can’t imagine what an intelligence of 1000 times the human capacity would do, nor can we easily grasp how swiftly it would continue to evolve.

This is the essence of the singularity — not even being able to guess at what’s next when we’ve got relentlessly evolving intelligences around. Pretty vaguely, this seems to be telling us this: In the future, we are nearly equally as likely to be shocked because of our ignorance as we are to be apathetic from seeing too much change in too short a span. Indeed, these are some strange times, and the future isn’t even here yet…

SO UNTIL THEN, I SAY, EVERY DAY IS EXACTLY THE SAME

Something I felt to be perfect for these curiously-lagging-times:

18
Mar

Wu-Wei @ 6%