YouTube

At one point my detachable hard drive broke and I had to replace it, which meant a friend bought a new one (which I reimbursed him for) and then took it to another friend to copy everything onto it. In the interim, my only source of music was youtube. This proved useful, because they included a number of songs I wanted but don't have in the regular music collection.

Help Wanted: YouTube

After immersion in other avocational pursuits, I've recently arrived at a new bucket list item, specifically:

Getting More Conversant with Current Frontiers of Science, where various highly speculative theoretic scientific disciplines invite novel interpretive approaches

For organizational sake, I'm thinking in terms of 5 major categories:

1) quantum origins & interpretations ( iow, beyond q. mechanics, interpretive approaches like Copenhagen, Bohm, etc & especially open to minority positions & not just current consensus)

2) cosmic origins (incl reconciling quantum, gravity, etc, again, not put off by minority approaches but maybe more interested in those that are closer to being empirically validated - even if a tad indirectly)

3) life origins

4) consciousness origins including philosophies of mind

5) symbolic language origins

Here's the deal, I've not even scratched the surface of how much free lecture, seminar & conference talk material is out there, high caliber stuff by well credentialed scholars. BUT, while I don't want to consume popularized, sensationalized pablum, neither can I digest overly technical, specialized academic stuff. So, I'm hoping to thread an accessibility needle, where material is presented intelligently but intuitively and in a way that would make me more conversant & possibly invite me to dig deeper.

Specifically, then, I'm looking for names of scientists and/or of channels, whose works meet such criteria, whether via YouTube, Vimeo, TEDTalks or similar streaming media sources, even mp3 podcasts. And, I'm hoping folks may come to this thread from wherever over a period of time to advance this endeavor for all who may be interested.

For example, regarding cosmology, I discovered Janna Levin on NOVA and now have a library of her videos, etc I see N. D. Tyson pop up in searches but only know him from cameos on the Big Bang. Would he meet my criteria? Anybody love or despise him? Regarding language origins, I'm very partial to the approach of Terry Deacon, who's got some material. Any other candidates come to mind, who might question his hypotheses?

For another example, regarding cosmic origins, I've listed what seems yet unknown. I've similar lists in my head for the other categories but will place it here, again, as an example:

As we interrogate physical reality, for example, we might ask such questions as whether it’s NECESSARILY
volumetrically in/fnite,
geometrically un/bounded or un/closed,
topologically un/re/curved,
spatialized temporally,
temporalized spatially,
essentially or emergently spatio-temporal,
a/symmetric,
essentially non/inflationary,
quasi/exponentially expansionary,
dimensionally 2/3/4/more-D,
homo/hetero/genous,
an/isotropic,
uni/multi/versial,
with dimension/less physical constancy,
with non/universal constancy, nomologically im/mutable and on and on and on. Answers to certain of these questions will necessarily implicate answers to certain others.

In other words, I'd appreciate any pointers to resources for science's outstanding questions! per the vague criteria above. Thanks for any kind assistance.

I’ll definitely check her out. And welcome to our sandbox.



For what it’s worth, JB, I love the calm, reasonable metaphysics of John Lennox. I’ve read his God and Stephen Hawking. God’s Undertaker, and Gunning for God.

I’ve had experience of late with a couple long-time Christians friends of mine who have had a “crisis of faith.” One of these is my older brother. I told him to try one of these books after cringing listening to him regurgitate a bunch of Tyson pablum.

I once had a friend warn me about reading some Richard Dawkins books. But it was necessary for a better understanding of today’s confused (and often downright militant) metaphysics that some hold. Tyson could fit in some Master Thesis work you're doing. But I find him insufferable.

For what it’s worth, I think modern physicists have little to offer us in terms of understanding our place in the universe. I suggest we ditch it all and start a St. Francis thread.

But if I run into anything on YouTube that I think you’d like, I’ll definitely post it here. They have a lot of stuff on there now. The other day, Mr. Kung suggested a movie to watch. I couldn’t find it available for streaming anywhere, free or for pay. But then on a lark I checked YouTube. And they had the whole movie and a good quality print of it.



As astounding as this is, it’s difficult to see life origins as anything less than an information problem. It is difficult to conceive of any natural force that could, in principle, create enough information all-at-once to form the first cell. I find this area interesting if only because few are taking it seriously. Most parse it in terms of Darwinism. And even if one accepts natural selection/mutation as important in the realm of micro evolution, the theory (such as it is actually a theory) can tell us nothing about the formation of complex biological information in the first place. The operating system inside of each cell — which is arguably far more complex than any computer operating system ever written — is what SETI has long been searching for. This is prima facie evidence of a mind beyond our own.



Really, I’ve only ever heard pablum on this subject. Materialism is the paradigm of most scientists and they tend to dismiss consciousness as anything important. It’s inconvenient to them. It's the round hole that doesn't fit their square pegs. I think because we can say almost nothing useful about the mind itself, it shows how incredibly mysterious it is even while being central to our being.

This is my St Francis thread.

What we could do in this corner of the stardust box is to focus first on the descriptive, speculative, theoretic angles toward the end of cultivating shared evaluative, affective, relational dispositions toward the cosmos, others and even ourselves!

One might take up any supposedly clear implications for deep metaphysical commitments in another corner, though, as you more than hinted, there might be fewer of those than many seem to imagine?

Years ago I read (skimmed through is the more honest description) Stephen Pinker’s How the Mind Works. I am a little suspicious of incantations and magic words. But then there are more things in heaven and earth, etc.

But it should come as no surprise that declaring “How the Mind Works” is not the same thing as showing how the mind works. Suffice it to say, after having read substantial parts of this book (and skipping sections that didn’t interest me), I did not find out how the mind works.

It then occurred to this mind that if even the smartest people don’t know how the mind works — not even a hint of practical knowledge — then I figure we’re dealing with one of those ontological discontinuity thingies where we’re left declaring in book titles knowledge that we do not have. But it sells books.

How the brain works is certainly an interesting subject. We can say things about that. We can say “the vision center” is here. We can even do interesting things like determine some of the techniques the brain uses to resolve images. But nowhere in the brain is there even the barest hint of “vision” going on.

At the end of the day, we’re left using this magnificent thing without even the barest hint that we can ever in this lifetime know what it is.

I have too fairly basic assumptions, JB. The first one is very Kungian:

1) Life is complicated.

2) If you wait until every nuance of something is sorted out, you couldn’t possible get out of bed in the morning.

There are therefore two, not one, errors to be avoided: Too much navel-gazing and not enough.

We do lots of navel-gazing here so your ongoing project will surely be of interest to this membership. Mr. Kung often says “Life is complicated” in response to often simplistic thinking. And yet sometimes life is (or needs to be) as simple as: If you have male sexual organs, you are a man. If you hit your thumb with a hammer, that’s not Donald Trump’s fault. If you believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, perhaps you should extend that to the unborn as well and not treat them like nuanced balls of extraneous cells.

In many cases, our society has taken straightforward things and tried to find nuance and have taken nuanced things and turned them into simplistic, high-contrast, either-or things.

This is not a refutation of what you are saying. As the gang here has learned (by suffering me), I tend to speak my point-of-view at every opportunity and this is often interpreted as a commentary or critique. But I use the “quote” blocks quite liberally.

The trick is being able to make discernments according to the Kenny Rogers principle: You have to know when to hold them and when to fold them.

I can honestly say I’ve never heard that one.

This is more along my taste for Kraut songs:

Here it is in German.