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April 29, 2018

Gnostic Centre, Savitri Bhavan, SACAR, SAFIC, and Esalen courses

Assorted tweets for general information:

Indian Psychology - online course starts on 2nd June 2018 - Sign up NOW (elearn@gnosticcentre.com)  https://t.co/BHiTwg374l

Savitri Bhavan: May 2018 Sun 10.30–12.00: Savitri Mon & Tue 3-4pm: Jai Singh Tue, Fri, Sat 4-5pm: Gangalakshmi Tue 4.45-5.45pm: ‘Mudra Chi’ Anandi; 5-6pm: Savitri, Buvana in Tamil Wed 5-6pm: Gita & Thu 4-5pm: Savitri, Shraddhavan Fri 3-4pm: Gita, Jai Singh https://t.co/yVfhFSV5ao

स्पन्दनम् - Feeling the Pulsation of a Divine Language
Sri Aurobindo Foundation for Indian Culture (SAFIC) announces its second-level Sanskrit Intensive Course to be held in Pondicherry from May 20 to 26, 2018. For details please visit: https://t.co/nhb1UJ8bNO https://t.co/NdpTs7NgVj

On our way to Esalen for a magical weekend workshop on Saivism and Sri Aurobindo, with Stefanos… https://t.co/NZe31p3yIg

[The fourth way was to live like Solomon and Schopenhauer — life is a stupid joke, and still to go on living, washing oneself, dressing, dining, talking, and even writing books. This was to me repulsive and tormenting, but I remained in that position.] -Leo Tolstoy (A Confession)

[Alan Lightman Immortality and Why We Long for Permanence in a Universe of Constant Change]
[John Cage “No why. Just here.”
[George Lucas “There is no why. We are. Life is beyond reason.”]
[Stuart Firestein “thoroughly conscious ignorance”]
Flannery O’Connor "religion and faith"]

[Much of Blaise Pascal's skepticism in his Pensées has been traditionally attributed to his reading Montaigne's Essais]
[Pierre Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations - Synthesizing forty years' work this book links sociological theory, historical information, and philosophical thought]

[Maqbool Hasan Khan (1938-2018) lived and breathed Shakespeare. He considers Iqbal that of the exalted self. He also links Iqbal’s philosophy with voluntaristic and vitalistic thoughts in Europe; high regard for Nietzsche. He also finds parallels between Iqbal and Sri Aurobindo.]

Outstanding piece Josh Marshall on Ulysses S. Grant and fine writing: https://t.co/goT00iKj7L

[Alphonso Lingis: “Go outside on a starry night and get a sense for the vastness of the universe...Your brain is wired to do something that nothing else in the universe can do. And if you don’t do it, it’s not going to get done.”] from Graham Harman's blog https://t.co/WgFwwSg2nn

[José Ortega y Gasset (9 May 1883 – 18 October 1955) is one of the best philosophical stylists]
[Donald Woods Winnicott (1896–1971) was a better prose writer than Freud]
[Jorge Luis Borges (24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986).]
[Alphonso Lingis (November 23, 1933) is a superb stylist]

"I will now turn to Hegel’s interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita which offers interesting challenges even today." | Read Rahul Govind's #BookReview of Hegel's India https://t.co/5wWehSnqix

Heard Ababahikara Swapna by Manoranjan Das yesterday @AkashvaniAIR after three decades where Jharana Das recites Juan Olivarez's [If I had wings on which to fly, Up in the clear blue sky] & Percy Bysshe Shelley's [The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean]

[As for the playlet, The Ascent to Truth, it grew out of a painting made by the Mother of the Hall of Aspiration. (of Sri Aurobindo Ashram) - Prema Nandakumar] #MirraAlfassa Cf. "Jacob's Ladder" by William Blake (1757–1827). https://t.co/1TJTucOimb https://t.co/Mn3VtlqopJ

[Erasmus wrote In Praise of Folly (1511) in space of a week while sojourning with Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535) in London.]
[David Hume (7 May 1711 – 25 August 1776) offered refuge to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) but the friendship soured.]

[George Granville Bradley (11 December 1821 – 13 March 1903): Bradley's Arnold]
[Francis Herbert Bradley (30 January 1846 – 18 September 1924): Appearance and Reality (1893)]
[Andrew Cecil Bradley (26 March 1851 – 2 September 1935) is best remembered for his work on Shakespeare.]

[Samuel Alexander (6 January 1859 – 13 September 1938): Space, Time and Deity (1920) emergent quality and emergent evolution]
[Henri-Louis Bergson (18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941): Creative Evolution (1907)]
[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955): Omega Point]

[George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) was quoted extensively by Whitehead in Process and Reality.]
[A.J. Ayer (29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989) was known for Logical Positivism.]
[Roy Bhaskar (15 May 1944 – 19 November 2014) was initiator of Critical Realism.]

Kuhn said, [science itself evolves and is far from absolute; must be understood the context in which its theories are created.] Feyerabend rejected [existence of universal methodological rules.] Randall Collins probed [intellectual networks and their inner divisions & conflicts.]

[arithmetic is far beyond all effective theories. It is important to understand that mechanism is a vaccine agents reductionism.] [Both Changeux and Connes remain still Aristotelians, but the contradiction becomes apparent as they think deep indeed.] -Bruno Marchal, Apr 17, 2018]

[William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910): Varieties of Religious Experience (1901-2)]
[Josiah Royce (November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916): Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885)]
[James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941): Ulysses (1922), Finnegans Wake (1939)]

BTW, those who fancy such things might like to read this book: https://t.co/aJC3ZiaPLX

Unity:  The Basis of Life https://t.co/70jUbBBFrE

National Language and the Example of Modern India https://t.co/hKMv25kzzv

The Effects of the Loss of a National Language:  The Example of Ireland https://t.co/TwP2kPTD3a

The Difficulties of Achieving Unity While Maintaining Diversity https://t.co/yknF5ZFKdl

21-CSRadhakrishnan-7(11-4-18)_AVR-SACAR_Vedanta–In the Light of Sri Aurobindo: https://t.co/3hHzqJ0iWe via @YouTube

How the missionaries became scholars of Hinduism in an effort to ‘overthrow‘ it. https://t.co/Sw5YQrSvpN

The Left may have entered electoral politics with the revolutionary intent of changing the system, but are now part of the system itself. https://t.co/1QsRSAv7JR

Our new columnist @DrShobha explains the citizen-state disconnect in the nation since the British era, which is causing a societal dissonance https://t.co/fcwGcygpNw

Gandhi : A Spiritual Journey  explores the search for the truth and the spiritual transformation of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Know about his spiritual ideas, in the book GANDHI here at Indus Source Books.

All political parties, mostly for vote bank considerations, have joined the race to glorify Ambedkar, without ever bothering to check the facts. | @SudheenKulkarni https://t.co/XCDZigS1rk

Yes, it is a shame that parliament is not functioning. But wasn't it already irrelevant because of a law passed in 1985?
@amitvarma has more. https://t.co/jLCyMWRQco

Issues Surrounding Adoption of a Unified World Language https://t.co/ytEXgSSjdq

The Value of a Unique Language for a People or Nation https://t.co/XkDezgumba

ALL INDIA MAGAZINE (AIM)
Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (SAICE) celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2018. A brief historical background of SAICE is shared in this edition. Since 1971 Society has ceaselessly published AIM with words of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. https://t.co/zEXNcLcCz3

#AurovilleToday issue featuring PM Shri @narendramodi's historic visit & his inspiring address while inaugurating the  #Auroville50 celebrations.After his speech, many in the audience, residents of #Auroville walked up to say, "he has laid for us a roadmap for the next 2 decades" https://t.co/ZsObEe4bvF

Sri Aurobindo on the Peril of the World-State: Democracy/
Apropos the Idiot & the Non-Conformist https://t.co/2cFME4PEm0

Sri Aurobindo on The motive of Evolution--The first terms of Life

16_Sampadananda Mishra Part-1 (10-4-18)AVR-SACAR_Vedanta–In the Light of Sri Aurobindo: https://t.co/tKsYvmCzvM via @YouTube

['Instant Karma'—Moral Decision Making Systems in Digital Games: T Knoll - Religions, 2018 … Aurobindo Ghose “the karmic process is an evolutionary, cosmic self-development of the mind to a higher consciousness force, which is supramental consciousness” (Bergunder 2001, p. 712)]

My new book "Life over Two Beers" deals directly (albeit in a satirical way) with how intellectual hierarchies in India can be manipulated because of this need for external validation.

Once he ridiculed a "reader" as a failed leader. Same can be said about a "writer" too. Arun Nehru (24 April 1944 – 25 July 2013) used to write a lot of columns.
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[When Bipin Chandra Pal was speaking of China and Japan overthrowing European civilisation, how many understood or appreciated great issues? We have lost the faculty of great ideas, outlooks, which divines the great motions of the world.] Sri Aurobindo BANDE MATARAM April 1, 1908

Arya–4 No 9—April 1918 #SriAurobindo
Future Poetry - Poetic Vision and Mantra
Life Divine XLIII. The Order of the Worlds
Synthesis of Yoga XLI. Love and the Triple Path
Essays on the Gita - The Determinism of Nature
Ideal of Human Unity XXXII
Psychology of Social Development XXI

[Sri Aurobindo, like many postmodern thinkers, is aware of the need to go beyond Aristotelian/Euclidean logic in  what he calls a “logic of the infinite” fleshed out by looking at the ideas of Alfred North Whitehead and the French philosopher, Edgar Morin] https://t.co/XQtFXfSHaY

[comparative and cross-cultural studies in philosophy, religion, psychology, counseling, cultural anthropology, organizational studies, health studies, and the arts. Chaudhuri was the first to publish in the West on Integral Psychology, during the 1970s.] https://t.co/h9hy4RsxdZ

[California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS, 1968, San Francisco) grew out of the earlier American Academy of Asian Studies (1950-1967). Its historical roots lie among followers Sri Aurobindo, Human Potential movement, Esalen, Holism and Consciousness] https://t.co/0GqouApWzQ

[what is most compelling about this volume is reading an influential 19th century thinker’s creation of the oriental outlook that was to dominate western scholarship; even fashion sustaining the self image which many orientals imbibed under colonial rule.] https://t.co/jk1umN36X0
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[Patterns of the Present by Georges van Vrekhem is a profound and inspiring account of the present situation of mankind and the world it lives... - Integral Yoga/ Mother & Sri Aurobindo]

[On 13th APRIL '18  at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication: Beyond the Present] https://t.co/jhb8q5eUYi

SYMPOSIUM "Beyond the Present - 2 edition" Discussions, Film Screenings, Workshops, Music Concert and Photo Exhibition at Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication > 13th, 14th & 15th April 2018 : https://t.co/5uLmFKrKd7https://t.co/zEYmEjlIDG

Workshop on Rhythms of modern music @SACACIndia Beyond the Present 2nd Edition 2018 @toxicslink @Mixtapelive #SriAurobindo https://t.co/e5PDv2dIJl

Beyond the Present at Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication https://t.co/lXktrGJmdb


The Mother & Sri Aurobindo's writings are freely available online. Besides many blog sites exist where one may come across varieties of views and debates on diverse subjects including comparative perspectives https://t.co/ozk7R5SD4v https://t.co/GemIvBfATR https://t.co/yKPTpHJU3U

Reimagining and Refashioning Integral Management - Tusar Nath Mohapatra, Savitri Era Learning Forum (SELF) Ghaziabad https://t.co/YGoEhdLyp7

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April 04, 2018

Replicability crisis and Methodological terrorism

[Shyama Kanungo, Deepak Samantray, Gadadhar Mishra, Namita Nayak, Ajay Ku. Barik, Bandita Ray, Prasad Tripathy] 48th All Orissa Sri Aurobindo Study Circle Conference: 4th to 7th April 2018, Matrubhaban, Cuttack. 9437023407, 9437120220 matrubhaban@gmail.com https://t.co/c7nasZEPLz

[What Sri Aurobindo represents in World's History: Biswanath Ray, Archana Nayak. Role of India in preparing a New Creation: Alok Pandey, Biswanath Ray. Harmony at any Cost: Malabika Ray, B.N. Mohapatra, Rabi Padhi. One day the Victory is Certain: CH. Nirakar, Saroj Kanta Mishra.]

[Foundations of  Indian Culture: Alok Pandey, Rabi Padhi, Sk Abdul Kasam, Mahendra Nath Swain, Suprakash Choudhury, Prakash Chandra Panda, Rita Chand, Mamata Dash, Pravakar Mishra, Biswanath Ray] 48th All Orissa Sri Aurobindo Study Circle Conference 4-7 April 2018 Matrubhaban Cuttack

[Indian Culture: Bhagirathi Mohapatra, Kapilash Prasad Dash, Soudamini Nanda, Ramesh Chandra Sahu, Golak Bihari Sahu, Radhakanta Mishra, Sanjaya Kumar Mohapatra, Bimal Prasanna Das, Alok Pandey] 48th  All Orissa Sri Aurobindo Study Circle Conference 4-7 April 2018 Matrubhaban, Cuttack

[Indian Culture: Subas Chandra Kar, Prasant Kumar Swain, Sangeeta Pattanaik, Debidutta Kar, Santosh Gahan, Bijayeeni Mohapatra, Dharanidhar Pal, Biranchi Narayan Mohapatra, Archana Nayak] 48th All Orissa Sri Aurobindo Study Circle Conference, 4-7 April 2018, Matrubhaban, Cuttack.
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108 YEARS AGO: In the afternoon of April 4, 1910, the Pondicherry pier witnessed a scene which will remain etched in history: Le Dupleix steamer arrived from Calcutta, carrying the ‘most dangerous’ man on board. (photos of the actual steamer and of Pondicherry port at the time)

108 years of Sri Aurobindo's arrival to Pondicherry- an important milestone in the history of the synthesis of East and West but more importantly marks a decisive stride towards the next step of mankind in the process of evolution through Integral Yoga. A day to express gratitude
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[Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts Cordially invites you to the Inauguration of Prof. Devendra Swarup Personal Book Collection on Wednesday, 4th  April, 2018 4:00 p.m. Kala Nidhi: Reference Library (First Floor) 11, Mansingh Road, New Delhi – 23388333, 23388362] @igncakd
Inauguration of Prof. Devendra Swarup Personal Book Collection at IGNCA Reference Library, 11, Mansingh Road, New Delhi 
4 April, 2018; 4 pm https://t.co/eRduoxPrAT

IGNCA is holding an exhibition on Rahul Sankrityayana’s antiquity collection in collaboration with Patna Museum, Bihar till 9 April. IGNCA Twin Art Gallery, C.V. Mess, Janpath; 11 am - 7 pm https://t.co/345tbp0ufs
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On Tue, Apr 3, 2018 at 4:09 PM, georgeweis via Matters Of Mind wrote:
I think Thomas Kuhn points the way here. He says paradigm shift is not only possible, but is the principal way science progresses. That is the "optimist" perspective. But he also says, supporting the "pessimist" perspective, that a fundamental paradigm shifts (at a sociological level) mostly by the old paradigm adherents dying out (there are some open-minded exceptions), not by changing their minds.  

I think Menas was thinking of both the optimist and the pessimist angle when he called it half a joke. The sapientia (wisdom) necessary for being open to changing one's mind is all too often missing Right, Menas?

Specifically regarding psi, the materialist-objectivist-"realist" family of paradigms is particularly immune to contrary evidence. It is a sad joke (not half a joke) that most of those who label themselves "skeptics" are the very least truly skeptical (i.e. the least appreciating the effect of paradigm and presuppositions on their own personal reality), and therefore the least able to identify, let alone challenge, their own presuppositions. 

But as I said before, there are open-minded exceptions, and they might make Stan's project worthwhile for someone so inclined (as they indeed do for me). But I understand that high-powered psi researchers such as Dean, given their limitations of time and money, are more interested in exploring the vast unknown (to conventional science) terrain of consciousness than in convincing those who have already shown themselves to be incapable of opening their mind and letting in evidence that threatens their hallowed beliefs.

Kathy: Maybe Dean can best answer your question. But his second objection is based on extensive experience of interactions with skeptics, and is empirically well grounded. As to Dean's first objection, no mainstream scientist has to my knowledge ever been asked to have an "objective" (i.e. "skeptical") observer present throughout the experiment. The very idea would be considered insulting and ridiculous. Instead, in mainstream science, when a scientist is skeptical of another scientist's results, and is motivated enough, he/she tries to replicate the experiment independently, or waits for others to do it. So Dean rightly rejects that demand  as an inappropriate double-standard, and the underlying presupposition about psi researchers as false (and insulting, I would add). 

George
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Hi George, 

Many thanks for sending your thoughts on replicability in standard science. Have you been following the incredible action in that topic in the past few years? It is mainly in social psychology but also in lots of other fields including pre-clinical trials. I strongly recommend looking at:     


The good news is that mainstream science has woken up to the major replicability issues and there is lots of action now to do a lot better monitoring of the problem.  Everyone interested in replication problems should have a look at that web site and similar ones. 

Stan
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Hi Stan,

Presence of skeptics at the experiments may or may not be important. But if requirement of reproducibility, especially for the so called hard sciences, is not required, it will be indeed crisis for science, in my opinion. I think the fundamental basis for science is that the results should be reproducible by any person anywhere when all other variables are controlled in the same manner. What do you think?
Best Regards.

Kashyap
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For hard science (inanimate systems), yes. For soft science (animate systems), no.  

If strict reproducibility were possible for human performance then watching sports would be boring. Even at the Olympics level there is no guarantee on who will win an event.  And Olympic champs know that a key factor in their competitive strategy is psychological strength, not just physical strength.  

When it comes to psi, the phenomena are explicitly psychophysical, not just psychological or physical. This makes repeatability even more difficult. Still, with enough replications in hand (as there are) it is possible to show to high levels of confidence that effects are repeatable (on average).

- Dean

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