The Cosmic Serpent

 

Jeremy Narby – The Cosmic Serpent, DNA, Knowledge & Intelligence in Nature

Brought to you by Red Ice Creations

and DNA

We have anthropologist and author Jeremy Narby with us today from Switzerland who back in 1999 released the book “The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge”, in 2006 “Intelligence in Nature” was released and he talks with us about his research and anthropological work in the Peruvian Amazon, living next to the Quirishari and studying the source of their knowledge about plants. We talk about DNA, the roots of knowledge, intelligence in nature, communication with the entities beyond this world from deep within, experiences on Ayahuascha, difference in cultures and more. Topics Discussed: Ayaschanica People, Ayahuasca, Quirishari, Carlos Perez Shuman, Visionary Journeys, Anthopology, Visions, Art of Scientific Investigation, Computer, Origins of Knowledge, Francis Crick, LSD, Double Helix Structure, The Realm of Visions, Molecular intelligence, Serpent Symbolism, Coding System of Genes, Biospheric DNA Television, Ayahuasca DMT, di methyl-tryptamine, Datura, Dreamworld, Modification of Consciousness, Studying the Cosmos, Avatar, Shamanism.

Art:  Amaruspirit

The Cosmic Serpent

Astronaut’s Eye View: Time Lapse Videos from Space

A NASA astronaut on the Space Shuttle Endeavor brought space back down to Earth. Astronaut Don Pettit took over 85 time-lapsed videos of Earth from his stint on the International Space Station to highlight features of the changing planet.

“There is phenomenology that happens on a timescale that you can’t see in real time,” he said. “It occurred to me that making time-lapse movies on the space station would bring out things that you normally don’t observe.”

Pettit also wanted to capture what it feels like to be in space. “You feel like you’re on a frontier,” he says. “I like to define a frontier as a place where your intuition does not apply. It’s a place where the answers are not in the back of the book. As a result, a frontier is a place that’s rich in discovery.”

Space has been called a frontier before, of course — “But it’s not the final frontier.” Frontiers can be anywhere, he says, from under the lens of a microscope to the bottom of the ocean. Space “will only be the final frontier when human beings stop looking at our world and wondering what’s going on.”

Here are some of our favorite time-lapsed videos of Earth from space.

Above: Out of all his footage, Pettit says this video, encompassing a sunset, a moonrise and the northern lights, is one of his favorites. The camera took one image every 15 seconds, so this 38-second video captures about 9 and a half minutes of real time. Because the space station and its crew orbit Earth once every 90 minutes, they see 16 sunrises and sunsets every day.

Video: NASA/Don Pettit

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Pettit flew on space shuttle mission STS-126, a 16-day trip to the International Space Station that launched in November 2008. Among other things, Pettit and his co-crew members brought up an advanced life support system that converts urine into drinkable water.

Pettit got tips from scientists on the ground for when aurorae, the brilliant lights that dance on the Earth’s upper atmosphere in response to solar winds and magnetic storms, would be visible from space, so he knew which nights to set up his camera.

Video: NASA/Don Pettit

More videos 

 

 

Rainbows

The Money Tree

It’s not the first time a tree offers a window into humanity. Anyone who has read Shel Silverstein’s classic knows that. But, even so, this little video by Amy Krouse Rosenthal says a little something about what we see and what we actually notice. It was filmed this past summer in Chicago…

via Michael Wesch

by Dan Colman | Open Culture

 

John Cleese on the Origin of Creativity

by Maria Popova

British actor John Cleese is best known for his comedic talent as one of the founding members of Monty Python, which makes his intellectual insights on the origin of creativity particularly fascinating. This talk from the 2009 Creativity World Forum in Germany is part critique of modernity’s hustle-and-bustle, part handbook for creating the right conditions for creativity.

“We get our ideas from what I’m going to call for a moment our unconscious — the part of our mind that goes on working, for example, when we’re asleep. So what I’m saying is that if you get into the right mood, then your mode of thinking will become much more creative. But if you’re racing around all day, ticking things off a list, looking at your watch, making phone calls and generally just keeping all the balls in the air, you are not going to have any creative ideas.” ~ John Cleese

Cleese advocates creating an “oasis” amidst the daily stress where the nervous creature that is your creative mind can safely come out and play, with the oasis being guarded by boundaries of space and boundaries of time.

Another interesting point Cleese makes is that knowing you are good at something requires precisely the same skills you need to be good at it, so people who are horrible at something tend to have no idea they are horrible at all. This echoes precisely what filmmaker Errol Morris discusses in “The Anosognosic’s Dilemma,” arguably one of the most fascinating psychology reads in The New York Times this year.

Curiously, Cleese’s formula for creativity somewhat contradicts another recent theory put forth by historian Steven Johnson who, while discussingwhere good ideas come from, makes a case for the connected mind rather than the fenced off creative oasis as the true source of creativity.

Maria Popova is the founder and editor in chief of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of eclectic interestingness and indiscriminate curiosity. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Magazine, BigThink and Huffington Post, and spends a disturbing amount of time on Twitter.

via Open Culture

 

Nilson Sato

via flickr.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yy7779/

The Art of Scientific Investigation

Although this book was published in 1957, and does not even mention DNA or Watson and Crick, it still provides what is in my mind a very accurate picture of how scientific research is really performed. It takes some getting used to Beveridge’s style and the old examples can appear to be ancient at first, I found that in the end I could not put this book down. It offers a complete overview of all the steps involved in scientific discoveries (reason, chance, intuition and strategy) that still holds true for the 21st century. 

This is a great book for anyone starting in science and also for those who are going through a rough time when results are not coming along as smoothly as one might hope: it is a strong reminder that science really is an art!  (Renee | Link)

Mary Virginia Carmack

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Flickr | Livejournal