Critical Thinking and Logic Mp3

I wanted to share a few recent podcast episodes that feature an enormous wealth of knowledge on improving ones ability to think, learn, de-program, use logic, the Trivium, Hegelian dialectics, Philosophy, free thinking and more with out trying to sell you anything! I believe any and every one can benefit their mind by simply from listening these podcasts. Thank you Jan Irvin, Dr. Michael Labossiere, Lisa Arbercheski, Richard Grove, Paul Verge and everyone else who help make these recordings possible!

If you find these useful, please support these podcasts & websites

 Peace Revolution episode 002: The Million Dollar Education
Download: MP3
Tragedy and Hope Magazine & website

REFERENCES:
Gorgias  by Plato 386 B.C.E.
The Republic by Plato 380 B.C.E.
Phaedrus by Plato 370 B.C.E.
The Art of Rhetoric by Aristotle 322 B.C.E.
The Metalogicon: A 12^th Century Defense of the Trivium by John of Salisbury 1159 C.E.
Utopia by Sir Thomas More 1516
The Last Will and Testament of Cecil J. Rhodes by William T. Stead
Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann 1921
Propaganda by Edward Bernays 1928
The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph 1937
The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers, Oxford 1947
Great Books of the Western World edited by Dr. Robert M. Hutchins
The Reece Committee Report by Norman A. Dodd, Carroll Reece 1954
Tragedy and Hope, a History of the World in Our Time by Carroll Quigley 1966
The Hidden Agenda: How the Foundations controlling Education are also creating a World Government - An Interview with Norman Dodd (Transcript and Video) by G. Edward Griffin 1981
Dumbing us Down by John Taylor Gatto 1992
Outcome-Based Education by Ron Sunseri 1994
The Underground History of Education by John Taylor Gatto 2001
(you can also read The Underground History of Education on his site)
The Trivium Study Guide by Gene Odening 2009
Gnostic Media Podcasts 49, 50, and several recent podcasts
The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations: Shaping the Moral, Spiritual, Cultural, Political, and Economic Decline of the United States of America by Dr. John Coleman 1991

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Gnostic Media Podcast #62
Download: Mp3

What would happen if everyone in society received an immunization against all of today's media and political propaganda? Is there a simple, logical process to arm ourselves against such attempts at mind manipulation and control? What if you had the ability to quickly and easily break down words and sentences to identify lies and untruths and propaganda? What do grammar and rhetoric have to do with logic and critical thinking, or, for that matter, marketing, PR and propaganda spin, and more importantly, exactly how can they help you? If someone presents evidence of a claim, do you have a mental duty to study it before you attack it? How can we make our minds sharper? Is it possible to level the playing field against corporate and government propaganda by creating a critical thinking meme? Today we launch the critical thinking meme into society and I ask for your help to spread it, to share today's talk with all you know: friends, co-workers, family, business associates and school mates. If you want to help make an immediate change in your own and other people's lives for the better, today's show is one of the primary ways to do it. We're going to continue our study of the trivium with Dr. Michael Labossiere who is here to discuss logical fallacies. Micheal will be back in the next week or two to also discuss the subject and predicate. This show is being released on Monday, January 25, 2010. My interview with Michael Labossiere was recorded on January 09, 2010. Michael LaBossiere is a guy from Maine who went to school in Ohio and ended up in Florida. Professionally he is a philosophy professor at Florida A&M University. He started teaching there in the Fall of 1993 and greatly enjoy his choice of careers. He teaches a wide variety of classes that range from Aesthetics (theories of art and beauty) to Theory of Knowledge. His first philosophy book, What Don't You Know? hit the shelves in the spring of 2008. He also blogs for The Philosophers' Magazine and has numerous academic publications.

Links:
Philosophy blog: http://aphilosopher.wordpress.com/
The Philosophers' Magazine Blog: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com 
website: www.opifexphoenix.com

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Gene Odening on the gnostic media podcast

Podcast #49: The Trivium
Download: Mp3

Podcast #50: The Quadrivium
Download: Mp3

Juan Enriquez: The big reboot is yet to come

Even as mega-banks topple, Juan Enriquez says the big reboot is yet to come. But don't look for it on your ballot -- or in the stock exchange. It'll come from science labs, and it promises keener bodies and minds. Our kids are going to be ... different.

Juan Enriquez is a broad thinker who studies the intersection of science, business and society. He has a talent for bridging disciplines to build a coherent look ahead. Enriquez was the founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project, and has published widely on topics from the technical (global nucleotide data flow) to the sociological (gene research and national competitiveness), and was a member of Celera Genomics founder Craig Venter's marine-based team to collect genetic data from the world's oceans.

Formerly CEO of Mexico City's Urban Development Corporation and chief of staff for Mexico's secretary of state, Enriquez played a role in reforming Mexico's domestic policy and helped negotiate a cease-fire with Zapatista rebels. He is a Managing Director at Excel Medical Ventures, a life sciences venture capital firm, and the chair and CEO of Biotechonomy, a research and investment firm helping to fund new genomics firms. The Untied States of America, his latest book, looks at the forces threatening America's future as a unified country.

"Juan Enriquez will change your view of change itself." - Nicholas Negroponte

Link: TED Talks

WTBDWK!? Down the rabbit hole!

What the BLEEP Do We Know aka WTBDWK!? is part documentary, part story, and part elaborate and inspiring visual effects and animations. The protagonist Amanda, finds herself in a fantastic Alice in Wonderland experience when her daily, uninspired life literally begins to unravel, revealing the uncertain world of the quantum field hidden behind what we consider to be our normal, waking reality.

The film employs animation to realize the radical knowledge that modern science has unearthed in recent years. Powerful cinematic sequences explore the inner-workings of the human brain. Quirky animation introduces us to the smallest form of consciousness in the body – the cell. Dazzling visuals reinforce the film’s message in an exciting, powerful way.

WTBDWK!? Is one of the most successful documentaries of all time. Now distributed in over 30 countries, it has stunned audiences with its revolutionary cinematic blend of dramatic film, documentary, animation and comedy, while serving up a mind-jarring blend of Quantum Physics, spirituality, neurology and evolutionary thought. Its success has spanned a massive extended DVD set ("Down the Rabbit Hole") a companion book, study groups, a resource outlet (BLEEP Store), and a host of transformational films that continue to appear around the world.

THE SCIENTISTS

PHYSICISTS
William Tiller, Ph.D.
Amit Goswami, Ph.D.
John Hagelin, Ph.D.
Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D.
Dr. David Albert

NEUROLOGISTS, ANESTHESIOLOGISTS & PHYSICIANS
Dr. Masaru Emoto
Stuart Hameroff M.D.
Dr. Jeffrey Satinover
Andrew B. Newberg, M.D.
Dr. Daniel Monti
Dr. Joseph Dispenza

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Dr. Candace Pert

SPIRITUAL TEACHERS, MYSTICS AND SCHOLARS
Ramtha
Miceal Ledwith, Ph.D.

www.whatthebleep.com

Barry Schwartz Ph.D.: The Paradox of Choice

Professor Schwartz assembles his argument from a variety of fields of modern psychology that study how happiness is affected by success or failure of goal achievement. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis. And in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression.

"Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically." —quoted from Ch.5, "The Paradox of Choice", 2004

Wikipedia.org/The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

The Esoteric Agenda

For those of you who found films such as The Pharmacratic Inquisition, Zeitgeist & the Addendum interesting, I would like to recommend The Esoteric Agenda. While there are a couple of inaccuracies and some of the claims are are pretty far out. Its maker defiantly does an excellent good job of presenting a possible "big picture" by weaving the Illuminati, occult, world banks, governments, churches and corporations into one giant network of conspiracies.

While I prefer to think along the lines of Terence McKennas idea that "what's even more frightening then conspiracy theory is the possibility that nobody is in charge". However also being a student of Robert A. Wilson, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and Dr. Timothy Leary's work I believe that governments, corporations, religious and educational institutions have their own dark agendas that by one means or another. Essentially enslave all of humanity for their own benefit. So with that being said, my recommending this film does not mean I believe all of it to be the truth. But the ideas being presented are worth your consideration. If they interest you, do your homework and form your own version of reality. Think for yourself, question authority.

Download the torrent

Susan Blackmore: Memes and "temes"

Susan Blackmore: Memes and "temes"
Don't think intelligence - think replicators!

Watch this talk as High-res video (MP4)
From: SusanBlackmore.co.uk

Susan Blackmore from TED 2008, where she presented some ideas on "Memes in the Cosmos". Getting a new replicator is always dangerous for any planet because it means a new evolutionary process is let loose. We humans are earth's "Pandoran species" who let the second replicator - memes - out of the box. We then became meme machines, protecting, copying and working for memes.

Susan says, "Earth now has three replicators - genes (the basis of life), memes (the basis of human culture) and temes (the basis of technology). I argued that the information copied by books, phones, computers and the Internet is the beginning of this third replicator and consequent new evolutionary process. We already have plenty of temes. We are on the verge of having true teme machines, that is machines that carry out all three processes of copying, varying and selecting information without us. This new teme evolution is fast, and powerful and we would do well to try to understand it.

At the moment temes still need us, but if teme machines became self-replicating then we humans would be redundant and they could carry on without us. The two talks before mine, by Craig Venter and Paul Rothemund, suggested that this step is closer than I had thought. This is important because temes currently use us to propagate themselves. In the process they are sucking up the planet's resources and threatening to make it uninhabitable. If anything of our civilisation is to survive then either we have to ensure that climate change and environmental degradation do not kill us off, or self-replicating teme machines must appear before this happens.

When thinking about civilisations on other planets we should not concentrate on intelligence (as in SETI) but on replicators. In 1961 Frank Drake proposed his famous equation to estimate the number of civilisations in our galaxy capable of communicating with us. Instead I proposed a new equation - the number of planets times the fraction that acquire a first replicator, times the fraction that acquire a second replicator, times the fraction that acquire a third replicator. For it is only with temes that a planet can send out information into the cosmos and hence communicate with anyone else out there.

Every new replicator brings its dangers, which might explain why we have not yet heard from any other teme creatures. Life here on earth pulled through the first step, we humans pulled through the appearance of memes and hence culture. Will we pull through the third step? I don't know.

Within hours these ideas were already out on the web. See, for example, Boingboing, the TEDblog, or a Q and A in Wired.

Within a couple of days the word "teme" brought up several hundred relevant Google entries. So the teme meme seems to be spreading. But help please!!!

I don't think "teme" is a very good word. I wanted a word that would describe information that is copied outside of human brains by some kind of technology. These are technological memes, or techno-memes, or .... an obvious abbreviation is "teme" but it's so easily confused with "team" (indeed Wired mis-spelt it this way). What about artemes (artificial memes - but really they are no more artificial than we are). Or ... If you can think of a better name for the third replicator then please let me know."