Rupert Sheldrake's Google Talk - The Extended Mind

I find the Google Talks held at Mountain View are more generous than the TED talks in terms of depth as they permitted to go on for longer. Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he was a Scholar of Clare College, took a double first class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He then studied philosophy and history of science at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University.

While at Cambridge, together with Philip Rubery, he discovered the mechanism of polar auxin transport, the process by which the plant hormone auxin is carried from the shoots towards the roots. 

From 1968 to 1969, based in the Botany Department of the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, he studied rain forest plants. From 1974 to 1985 he was Principal Plant Physiologist and Consultant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, where he helped develop new cropping systems now widely used by farmers. While in India, he also lived for a year and a half at the ashram of Fr Bede Griffiths in Tamil Nadu, where he wrote his first book, A New Science of Life.

From 2005-2010 he was the Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project, funded from Trinity College,Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, near San Francisco, and a Visiting Professor and Academic Director of the Holistic Thinking Program at the Graduate Institute in Connecticut. 

Books by Rupert Sheldrake:

A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (1981). New edition 2009 (in the US published as Morphic Resonance)

The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1988)

The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God (1992)

Seven Experiments that Could Change the World: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Revolutionary Science (1994) (Winner of the Book of the Year Award from the British Institute for Social Inventions) 

Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals (1999) (Winner of the Book of the Year Award from the British Scientific and Medical Network)

The Sense of Being Stared At, And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind (2003)

With Ralph Abraham and Terence McKenna: 

Trialogues at the Edge of the West (1992), republished as Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness (2001)

The Evolutionary Mind (1998) 

With Matthew Fox: 

Natural Grace: Dialogues on Science and Spirituality (1996)

The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet (1996) 

Possibly The Last Jack Nicholson Fan Photograph You'll Ever See

I was just listening to BBC World Service Outlook programme about a celebrity fanatics life of photographing himself with celebrities. I was about to change the 'channel' when  Richard Simpkins mentioned that Michael Hutchence was the most charismatic person he'd met over the decades. 

The official story of Hutchence' premature death has never sat comfortably with me and I thought it was an interesting comment Simpkin made so I hung in there. He then talked about the first time he met Jack Nicholson who declined his request for a fan photograph as he no longer does them and especially so as he'd mislaid his sunglasses on the golf course. Nine years later Richard Simpkin found himself at the rear of a Hollywood restaurant while Jack smoked a customary after-meal cigar . He reminded him about the first time they met in Sydney. Jack recalled losing his sunglasses and no doubt impressed by Richard's tenacity promised to do a photo with him at the front of the restaurant later. It's a quirky story and an anomaly in so much as I avoid celebrity topics. However the idea of Richard doing a 'Celebrity Fan Photographic Exhibition' is a brilliant example of 'But is it art?'.

In my view the world of art is so far up its backside it has neglected to address real issues in a way that is compelling, memorable and intelligent. The Independent recently asked us if contemporary art has 'Jumped The Shark' and the answer isn't hard to determine although I've always had a sneaky respect for Damien Hirst taking the piss out of the art world and charging as much as he could get away with.

Most of the art still housed in the National Gallery was commissioned by the 1% and so it's hard not to ask if the art world has changed that much? Hogarth was an exception but by and large I've never seen a more self obsessed bunch than contemporary artists who seem to have missed out on the point that great art taps into the times and articulates the unspeakable.

I tweeted as much earlier and there was a response to check out occuprint.org that I think is worth a mention. It's also worth mentioning that Richard Simpkin's body and style changes while snapping celebs from boyhood to man are oddly fascinating in their own way. You can see his photography exhibition in Liverpool. 

Maybe art is so up its own arse that anthropology is more interesting these days.

Snuff Movies We All Know & Love

In the mid 90's, Department of Defence Geologist Phil Schneider started doing presentations at UFO conferences about his role in the construction of underground bases that the military industrial complex has been building since the second world war to keep the Very Very VIPs nice and comfy in the event of extinction level events such as thermo-nuclear war. 

Phil's story was unusual and UFO related as he stumbled across that US military/non human intelligence working agreement/connection which is quite well documented and authenticated by the grand daughter of Eisenhower. Coincidentally the same person that came up with the term military industrial complex. 

Shortly after gaining notoriety in UFO circles at these talks and not before accusations of disinformation started to surface (his story is extraordinary to the max) Phil was suicided and is thus for me one of the more reliable witness testimonies on the internet. Suicided people are as good as it gets for authentication in my book and the nature of Phil's murder including torture is a little unusual.

I've only posted the clip with 2.6 million hits but there are full length presentation videos out there.