Category Archives: …and other stuff

miscellaneous postings by Lawrence R. Spencer

...and other stuff, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, POETIC NONSENSE, READING MATTER, UNIVERSES

WHAT IS THIS WORLD?

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“What is this world? A complex whole, subject to endless revolutions. All these revolutions show a continual tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings who follow one another, press forward, and vanish; a fleeting symmetry; the order of a moment.  You judge of the continuous existence of the world, as an ephemeral insect might judge of yours. The world is eternal for you, as you are eternal to the being that lives but for one instant. Yet the insect is the more reasonable of the two. For what a prodigious succession of ephemeral generations attests your eternity! What an immeasurable tradition! Yet shall we all pass away, without the possibility of assigning either the real extension that we filled in space, or the precise time that we shall have endured. Time, matter, space—all, it may be, are no more than a point.”

Denis Diderot (5 October 1713 – 31 July 1784), Lettre sur les aveugles [Letter on the Blind] (1749)

...and other stuff, ART, FREE ADVICE, LIVES, SOUNDS, UNIVERSES

Déjà vu

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Déjà vu, from French, literally “already seen”, is the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced had been experienced in the past.

Here are two examples of very young children who “already know” how to play the piano, masterfully! How can an adopted 3 year old, blind girl “already know” how to play the piano, instantly accompany a vocalist without ever having heard the tune before? She also plays the piano and sings.

This 5 year old “just knows” how to play the piano — without any training — like a classical master. How can this possible happen? They remember. It cannot be more obvious. Everyone has lived before, a thousand, thousand times. You and I may not be able to remember how the play the piano because we never played it before. However, there are thousands of examples in history of people being able to “just know” how to do things.

Computer scientists “just know” how to manufacture and program computer circuitry — even though ELECTRICITY wasn’t even “invented” until 150 years ago! How does a planet make the quantum leap from burning wood and candles, riding in horse carts and sailing ships to atomic bombs and global satellite systems in 150 years?! There is no “evolutionary process” involved.

It’s too simple: we have done all of these things before on other planets, in other times, in other galaxies. It’s Déjà vu.

...and other stuff

THE MANY SELVES OF KATHERINE NORTH

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Many Selves“The Many Selves of Katherine North” is one of the most unique and important novels ever written.  The subjective experience of sentient existence on Earth, spirits embodied as flesh in a menagerie of creatures of land, sky and sea, is eloquently observed and described by the author Emma Geen. I have read thousands of books: not one can be compared to or approach the description of sentience awareness and subjective perception of the myriad living creatures of Earth, including the human animal.  This book should be read, regurgitated, savored, digested and assimilated into the essence of every spirit: the beings of Earth will rejoice with understanding and thanks for being perceived as their Many Selves.

— Lawrence R. Spencer, Author of The Oz Factors and Editor of Alien Interview