For Session 4 August 4 2010

LOTS TO DO TONIGHT AND IT'S 106 miles to Chicago…




Jerusalem Temple 3-D Model
Inside the Temple is the Holy of Holies...and to our surprise, an empty room, for nothing can depict the grandeur and the presence of God...



Great Torah Lessons : About Abraham
(great series of brief lessons on the weekly Torah portion, by Rabbi Chaim Richman, from the Temple Institute in Jerusalem)

In this weekly lesson on Lech Lecha, Abraham is called out by God to leave his land, the land of idolaters, and to set out for a land God would show him. Each of the lessons are brief, clearly presented, and stimulating. Check them out.



The Jewish value and passion for justice and equality. The influence of Abraham Joshua Heschel--the Jew, the mensch, his thinking and writing on various African American leaders.

Watch this brief presentation on Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King, Jr.



Who do you think you are? Einstein?
Well, yes, without my brothers, and without the bagels. Listen as Albert Einstein explains his formula.



To heal the world: Jews and Medicine

Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine



Funny Business

Mel Brooks: Moses and the 10 Commandments


Dancing rabbis oppose the evils of HD TV in this commercial from Israel



Crazy Rabbis Remix Hava Nagila



Three Stooges
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfYp6BNAWCE


Serious about reggae and serious about piety?

Meet Matt Miller, or as this devout Hasid from the Lubavitcher Chabad movement calls him, Matisyahu as he is interviewed by CNN



HaDag Nachash interview: Israeli hip hop?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7Nzk6S_euM&feature=related

George Harrison for Hinduism section

Interview w/GH and RS from the 1990’s



No toking up! Background music for the inclass activity…



Raising money for UNICEF relief work in Bangladesh…



My Sweet Lord



While My Guitar Gently Weeps

More philosophy stuff for EMaass class or whatever

E--hope this has some use somewhere...Aaron's mom

The History of Philosophy in 5 minutes



introduction to western philospophy



Groening on Jay Leno's show explains what you can do with philosophy



Socrates: Ency. Channel



Socrates on self-confidence




***Kirkegaard (and not-really-a-nebesh-Woody Allen doing his usual depresso but funny shtick angst in background)

World Cup Fever brought to you by Monty Python and a number of heads on sticks

Monty Python Philosophy World Cup

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2TicMbH4OY&feature=fvw


And what's soccer without a pint? Here's Monty Python's
The Philosopher’s Drinking Song

Confucius say man who stand in busy road get tired

China's amazing Confucian revival from Rahul Venkit on Vimeo.

More on Confucianism



For fun: Barbara Walters interviews Confucius

Lobsters and philosophers

Lobsters and philosophers

They feel changes in water chemistry
with their attuned antennae and body hairs
these gangsters from the deep—
tough guys who take nothing on their carapace,
deep thought thugs
who mow down sea urchins, red rock crabs,
mussels herring, and sea cucumbers.
These garrulous creatures
will not hesitate to cannibalize.

This society lives in shadowy worlds,
uses gangland-style execution:
pulverizing shells and grinding fish bones
with big-toothed crusher claws,
atomizing weaker thoughts
ersatz systems, and ill-formed concepts
sticking it to ya like a steak knife
with their finer-edged ripper-pincher claw,
tearing soft flesh like good hit men
tearing soft schools like good think men
wearing their skeleton on the outside.

Then there’s the fateful “claw lock.”
Through Nietzschean will power
they are able to release a claw right out of its socket,
leaving behind a miniscule pink bud.
Their discarded body part drops with a thud like a meat offering.
The opponent, not even feigning remorse
over a one-clawed colleague,
simply eats his opponent’s arm,
becoming boss of the think-tank.

They are cold-blooded, territorial, aggressive, irascible.
They molt, shed, and eat their own old shells,
making themselves ever tougher and more callused.
In their lifetime, most lobsters don’t move far
from where they were spawned.
Most philosophers don’t either.

Their black-dot eyes are propped on movable stalks—
eyes with 10,000 facets.
All those tiny eyes within eyes
detect motion in dim light,
perceiving philosophical nuances,
reading the text behind the text inside the ocean floor.

Their whole body becomes a sense organ
detecting with its chemo-receptors
the moods of the waters, the Zeitgeist,
Weltanschauung, Weltschmerz.
They burrow by day
prowl by night
head out head first,
and live alone, except to mate.
and except to fight.

Ah but the fate of a lobster is to be boiled
just like Nietzsche was fated
to have a mother and sister
who boiled him in derision
and charged admission tickets
to ridiculing audiences who watched Frederich
claw and spar in his syphilitic madness.

An original thought like a live red lobster
occurs only once in every 10 million.
The rest are ensconced
in darkened crenellated calcified shells
of speckled black and green,
tossed without hesitation
into the common pot.


####

--Aaron's mom wrote this a long time ago. Says Arlene, "It's quite strange reading this poem after so many years...it's kind of an 'out of body' sensatio, as if a levitating Mahatma took over and wrote the piece on the orders of the quack theosophist Madame Blavatsky.

When Bob Dylan was interviewed not too long ago, he said something similar about his old stuff. 'Darkness at the break of noon,' he began to intone. Then he stopped, asking where this all came from. In short, Dylan admitted that he couldn't write that now.

Yeah. Good question. Where does poetry come from afterall? Maybe most poets are just channels for the muse, until the channels become structurally unsound and simply collapse into disuse. How's that for a morose outlook? Ha ha. Well. I am serious about the mystery of poetry. And the mystery of human consciousness. Keep musing/amusing/bemusing/confusing!"

Variety of Clips E Asian Culture, Confucianism, etc.

CPD Educational Video: East Asian Culture


Dao shall not name da Dao or it ceases to be da Dao...

Welcome to China!!


Things Europeans Never Invented: Ancient Chinese Invetions



Shanghai


Huston Smith explains the 5 Relationships in Confucianism



The answer provided by Huston Smith to the above first part



Do Business in Asia



Western-Chinese Business: You May Be in Deeper than you think



Western -Chinese Business: Why Westerners Just Don't Get It



Asian Business Culture: Etiquette and Politeness



Doing Business in China: The meeting



Western-Chinese Business: Contracts, Cultural Differences



Do not try this at home--or anywhere! Jackie Chan breaks all barriers by doing his own stunts...and breaks his back and other vital organs in the process. How does he manage to get up and do another movie?



For your listening enjoyment!

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Here is the Script for this Allegory, created by E and A Maass of Harper College:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIUNrASQfb4
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave:
An Explanation and Interpretation

We stumble into a cave. It takes a moment for our eyes to adjust to its gloomy interior. A shocking sight comes into view: prisoners. Since childhood, these shackled human beings have been sitting upright, chains wrapped around their legs. Likewise, they cannot turn their heads because of the chains wrapped around their necks.

In the back of the cave burns a fire. Raised above and behind the prisoners is a low, brick railing. Up and down the length of this parapet men, acting like puppeteers, hold up a number of objects. The prisoners cannot see any of this activity going on behind them. They can only watch this puppet show of weird, shadowy images the objects cast on the cave wall.

The prisoners talk among themselves. They name the images paraded in front of them, and reward each other for their cleverness. But they all mistake the shadows that they can see for the real objects that they can’t see. Writes Plato, “All in all, then, what people in this situation would take for truth would be nothing more than the shadows of the manufactured objects” (The Republic Book VII 515c). But if the cave dwellers turned around, would they see their category mistakes and admit that their thinking was wrong? Would they trade shadows for substance?

Now, imagine a prisoner suddenly set free. What will he do? Well, first he’ll have to decide whether or not he wants to leave the cave. Once he makes up his mind, he will need to ascend the long, curved passageway toward the light. The defused sunlight makes him squint; once outside, the glare of the sun stings his eyes.

Will he be able to see what others in the light call “real”?

No. At least not right away. He is disoriented. Maybe he is terrified by the liberty of clear, uncluttered thought. He still gravitates toward shadows, reflections, and echoes. He feels threatened, and swears that the cave is reality. He tells himself that the shadow-land is true, and he might even turn around and go back.

But then as he grows accustomed to the light, his curiosity begins to overpower his fears. He starts to understand. It’s as if he is waking up, becoming enlightened.

But by what?

According to an Indian proverb, “Nothing purifies like knowledge.” Jesus spoke of the “truth that makes you free.” The Buddha spoke of awakening. Plato points to the Forms, in particular, “the Good.” Perhaps all of these parts and more constitute true education. What does the process of true learning look like? Becoming transformed. Changing. Evolving. Grasping and internalizing knowledge. Reasoning. Apprehending reality for oneself. Taking the road less traveled. Ascending to a higher consciousness. Understanding. Turning toward the “sun” (the Good) to contemplate truth.

According to Plato’s Allegory, “this turning the eye away from the darkness and towards the light can only be accomplished by turning the whole body. The entire soul has to turn with it, toward—and until it is able to bear the sight of—the Good…This would be ‘true philosophy.’”

Now what happens if the freed prisoner decides to return to the cave? He can be thought of as a liberator championing the oppressed and setting captives free. He can be thought of as a Buddhist bodhisattva helping other sentient beings.

The freed prisoner determines to go back to the others. To do so, he must reverse the process; instead of ascending, he descends; instead of moving from darkness to light, he now moves from light to darkness. He retreats from the realm of substance and re-enters and must re-acclimate to the region of shadow.

How do you think the freed prisoner will be received by his fellow prisoners? Will they be persuaded? No. The returning prisoner is treated as a laughing stock. First the message is ridiculed, then the messenger is murdered. Not a very happy ending, is it?

What are we to make of the symbolism in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave?

Some students thought the cave is shaped like the human brain. We are stuck in our minds, concocting reality from our perceptions and opinions; we are shackled with the chains of distorted thinking. We live with our vague notions in the shadow-land. Our ideas might portend to the real, and point to the greater, if not the greatest that exists somewhere.

The cave is also thought to be the physical realm. Outside of the cave and independent of us is the intelligible realm. Somewhere there exist corresponding, but perfect and complete Forms. The Forms can be thought of as unchanging absolutes in an impermanent, ever-changing world. The low fire at the back of the cave only hinted at the sun. For Plato, the sun symbolized the Form he called “the Good.”

Plato’s Republic is an argument for a political ideal or utopia. Callipolis is Plato’s ideal city, and the educated Philosopher-King is the ideal ruler. It is outside of the cave where one elevates the soul and becomes educated. It is the duty and responsibility of the freed prisoner who finds understanding in the intelligible realm to go back to rule and educate in the physical realm—provided, of course, that he doesn’t get killed!

Plato’s ideal is the educated Philosopher-King. As a leader, he is not a tyrant or despot. Like the Confucian ideal, Plato’s ideal must rule and teach with equanimity, respect, fairness, and justice. As a true sage, he enlightens and elevates his people to new understanding. He leads them to “the good.”

Plato’s cave is the physical, one-dimensional realm. It is outside Plato’s cave where one elevates the soul and becomes educated. What about you and me? To learn, to grow, to self-actualize and self-realize, must we not escape the cave of ignorance?

I love the 90's

I could spend a lot of time blabbing about the 90's, but I'll save that for another night.  Here's a song that really reflects the upbeat mood of late 90's music.  Here's You Get What You Give by New Radicals.




Peace

Ah, the Sweet Sounds of Childhood

Here's to all you guys and girls raised in the 90's, the best decade ever. For the next 7 days, I'll be featuring some great songs that we all remember from when we were young(er).

Also, I put up a poll on the left column asking which N64 game was the best. If you select 'other', please leave a comment in a post (any post) saying which game it was.

I'm sure many of you have played the Original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. You know, the game title without any numbers after it. Aren't they on like Tony Hawk 10 now? This series reminds me so much of NOW That's What I Call Music! since they keep pumping out new ones every 8 months.  Anywho, if you're like me, you loved The Warehouse.  And what better song was there to skate to in the Warehouse than Superman by Goldfinger.

Ahh memories.

Peace