Dasein – Page 2 – Harmonia Philosophica

Seeing through your eyes…

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Everyday life is full of situations that require us to take others’ perspectives – for example, when showing a book to a child, we intuitively know how to hold it so that they can see it well, even if it is harder to see for ourselves. Or when performing before an audience, we often can’t help but picture how we will look to the other people.

New research published in Current Biology has provided the first direct evidence that we can do this because we spontaneously form mental images of how the world looks to the other person, so that we can virtually see through their eyes and make judgements as if it was what we were seeing. (1)

Wise men always did that.

Seeing the cosmos through the eyes of the cosmos.

And what they saw left them in awe.

Because there was nothing to see.

But the cosmos itself…

On that frozen night. On that calm lake.

Through the stormy winds. In the raging ocean.

There the universe cries out in silence…

There is nothing to see.

I am seeing you…

Slowly… Dying… Living for ever…

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A big earthquake occurred south of Istanbul in the summer of 2016, but it was so slow that nobody noticed. The earthquake, which took place at mid-crustal depth, lasted more than fifty days. Only a novel processing technique applied to data from special borehole strainmeter instruments and developed by researchers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, in collaboration with the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) and the UNAVCO institute from US, allowed to identify the ultra-slow quake below the Sea of Marmara. The team led by Patricia Martínez-Garzón from GFZ’s section “Geomechanics and Scientific Drilling” reports in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. (1)

Being born.

Growing up.

Laughing.

Dying.

Crying.

Being born.

Laughing.

Crying.

Life slowly changing.

The cosmos showing emerging.

And in the midst of all…

A man.

Giving meaning to existence.

Erasing the circle on the sand.

Slowly…

Without anyone noticing.

But himself…

When? Where? (Why?)

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In a UCI study, participants sat with their heads inside a high-resolution fMRI scanner while watching a TV show and then viewing still frames from the episode, one at a time.

The researchers found that when subjects had more precise answers to questions about what time certain events occurred, they activated a brain network involving the lateral entorhinal cortex and the perirhinal cortex. The team had previously shown that these regions, which surround the hippocampus, are associated with memories of objects or items but not their spatial location.

“Space and time have always been intricately linked, and the common wisdom in our field was that the mechanisms involved in one probably supported the other as well,” added Maria Montchal, a graduate student in Yassa’s lab who led the research. “But our results suggest otherwise.” (1)

Trying to remember then when.

Without caring about the where.

But nothing of these matters.

Because no matter how precisely we recall where or when something happened in the vast dark forest of existence, we will still not be able to answer a much more fundamental question: How did we get in that forest in the first place?

In a cosmos with time, there is no forest.

Nothing but a constantly changing set of beings.

Changing to show that there is nothing to change.

What a weird cosmos…

In a world of change, time has meaning.

But in a world of change nothing is real.

Feel the breeze…

Without any trees to linger in the air…

Time cannot flow.

And without a breeze blowing between the trees…

There are no trees.

Feel the breeze…

Don’t try to explain.

Just…

Feel the breeze…

Give. So that you can receive…

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The happiness we feel after a particular event or activity diminishes each time we experience that event, a phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation. But giving to others may be the exception to this rule, according to research forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

In two studies, psychology researchers Ed O’Brien (University of Chicago Booth School of Business) and Samantha Kassirer (Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management) found that participants’ happiness did not decline, or declined much slower, if they repeatedly bestowed gifts on others versus repeatedly receiving those same gifts themselves. (1)

We like to receive. And we love to give.

But why do any of those two?

How can giving be meaningful if receiving is not?

How can receiving be meaningless if giving is not?

When you see two obvious paths in front of you…

Try and look out for the third one!

It is the goal of philosophy to question the obvious.

And here we have two very obvious options…

A wise man will never ask for anything. But neither will he give anything back. In a cosmos built of dirt, there is no point to try to reach the stars. In a cosmos full of butterflies, there is nothing you can receive. Look at the calm lake. Feel the deep dark forest inside you.

You cannot give anything to anyone. For there is only you.

There is no point in receiving anything. For it is you who will get it.

Try to clap with one hand.

You can do it.

Complexity. Animals. Life. Death. Evolution. You.

In the beginning, life was small. For billions of years, all life on Earth was microscopic, consisting mostly of single cells. Then suddenly, about 570 million years ago, complex organisms including animals with soft, sponge-like bodies up to a meter long sprang to life. And for 15 million years, life at this size and complexity existed only in deep water.

Scientists have long questioned why these organisms appeared when and where they did: in the deep ocean, where light and food are scarce, in a time when oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere was in particularly short supply. A new study from Stanford University, published Dec. 12 in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that the more stable temperatures of the ocean’s depths allowed the burgeoning life forms to make the best use of limited oxygen supplies.

The Stanford team, in collaboration with colleagues at Yale University, propose that the need for a haven from (temperature) change may have determined where larger animals could evolve. “The only place where temperatures were consistent was in the deep ocean,” Sperling said. In a world of limited oxygen, the newly evolving life needed to be as efficient as possible and that could only be achieved in the relatively stable depths. “That’s why animals appeared there,” he said. (1)

Chaos. Out of order.

Order. Out of chaos.

Life out of death.

Death as the result of life.

The universe tries to talk.

But only the deaf ones will listen.

Where there is change, there will be stability.

Where there is stability, there will be change.

And only the blind ones will see.

Seek yourself again.

In the ocean depths.

Where you used to be.

But are not anymore…

Swimming in the surface you are now.

Trying to make out the meaning of the waves.

But the foundations lie deep beneath.

Seek yourself again.

In the ocean depths.

Where you used to be.

But are not anymore…