Dream Time

Quantum particles are the dreams that stuff is made of
-- David Moser

One of the themes that seemed to pop up a lot recently has been the quantum universe. As we look into our theoretical microscopes at ever smaller particles , I am getting more and more convinced that the most basic particle in our universe is consciousness. It ultimately makes up time, space and inertia, which in turn makes up quantum physics, which ultimately creates the more familiar Newtonian physics, and everything that we see here in time-space.

Perhaps dreams really are the basis of our reality.

Big Stories work best

The lesson of the week seems to be that our species has an incredible ability to ignore the obvious when a different story is more convenient. Professional magicians (also known as illusionists) trade on that. Apparently many other professionals or their institutions also do.

Religions, military, history books, politicians, news organizations, our entire culture survives by creating stories that don’t hold water. We believe them because it is easier than believing the truth.

Our brain is designed to believe what we experience. If it is repeated enough times, it is true. Once we decide what is true, it takes enormous energy to change our minds, so it is much more convenient to just believe the original story.

I have seen tons of apparently well documented evidence about the biggest stories in modern history being faked, or being mere distractions from the real objectives; World War 1, Pearl Harbor, JFK assassination, even 9/11. The story is so big and replayed so many times, and we saw it live. We know how and why it happened. Don't try telling us otherwise.

The bigger the story, the more completely we accept it. Evidence to the contrary can freely circulate with little chance of penetrating our collective consciousness. Our most powerful leaders and marketers know this well. They often get away with preposterous things because their story is bold and the truth is inconvenient.

Global Warming

Tonight Lynn and I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.
Afterwards I looked up a few videos on the web. These two really stood out.

A short and fun message from the Blue man group.

After scanning many of them, only one video in google was rated full 5 stars. It made me curious. If you have 45 minutes I totally recommend watching Robert Newman's History of oil.
He is a comedian doing a great job of using comic relief to make powerful learning palatable. It is smart and fun.
WARNING: It takes mental energy to pull all the lessons out of this performance. Even the second time I watched it I had to set aside all distractions to fully follow the meaning within his acting.
Have fun

Steep

Quote from Ryan regarding the challenging enterprises we are working on:

"If your learning curve doesn't require ropes and rock climbing equipment, you are in the wrong job."

Good conditions don't breed addicts

Lab rats have been used for a long time to teach us about addiction. We should be learning from these ones.

Emily

Tonight we met our new house guest / temporary daughter. She is 17, the ninth of 13 children, intelligent, creative, likes to write, was home schooled.
Church social services were looking for a place where she can get a break from her home while she works through some teen turbulance.

We are spending the evening getting to know each other.

TED

I have really been enjoying the high quality presentations at TED conferences.

Each year they gather 1000 interesting people to share ideas. Lately they have been making the videos available; neat little 15 minute presentations, usually very powerful.