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I am an Alan Watts fan. I think he would agree with you.

by jes 6y ago

djedr 6y ago
He would definitely dig that. Curiously, I was drawn to this thread because I was just listening to him today, talking about crystals and the nature of reality. He would go thru so many topics in such detail and clarity, it's incredible.
- jes 6y ago
  Same. I often notice the precision with which he used language. Such a joy to listen to. I especially like the chill-step YouTube videos some people assemble and publish. I download them with youtube-dl and listen to them on my phone at night while drifting off to sleep. At 61 years of age, the philosophy he describes (Advaita Vedanta / Zen Buddhism / Taoism) brings me great comfort.
  - thepace 6y ago
    Out of the many people I have heard talk about vedanta, Alan Watts is one of the most original ones.
  - djedr 6y ago
    > I often notice the precision with which he used language. Indeed. Hard to find an inaccuracy, even when he's talking about some details of technical subjects. He had an exceptional ability to translate between the spiritual and the technical in a way which seems to make complete sense. > Such a joy to listen to. A true spiritual entertainer. Never boring. I imagine he could be a stand-up comedian today. > I especially like the chill-step YouTube videos some people assemble and publish. I download them with youtube-dl and listen to them on my phone at night while drifting off to sleep. Similar, I went thru a lot of the material on youtube. High-quality material with transcripts can also be found here: https://www.organism.earth/library/author/alan-watts https://www.organism.earth/library/author/alan-watts A lot of it I listened to many times over and I keep getting new insights out of it, it's so densely packed. > At 61 years of age, the philosophy he describes (Advaita Vedanta / Zen Buddhism / Taoism) brings me great comfort. Definitely helps to know these philosophical perspectives, especially if one gets tangled up in some harmful model of reality. Somehow the basic (non-religious, just philosophical) Taoism seems to most align with me at the moment. I credit the Dao for solving a very tough naming problem for me. ;)
jng 6y ago
I love Alan Watts too. In any case, I need to insert the necessary reference to recently passed John Conway's Free Will Theorem. I recommend every one to watch his 6-lecture long presentation on this, available on YouTube and underappreciated given the number of views, where he captivatingly describes his proof that, if we have free will, so do elementary particles. This is a purely mathematics- and physics-based proof which I understand is fully accepted by the scientific community, and while it, of course, does not provide an explanation of the underlying cause, it provides the best possible description obtained by scientific methodology so far. I like to think that, somehow, Alan Watts and John Conway were digging the same tunnel, just starting from the two endpoints, and bound to meet at some point in the future. We just need a few more diggers of that stature (tall order, I know).
- jes 6y ago
  Thank you for this reference. I’m a free will skeptic. Now looking forward to watching Conway’s series. I have a paper by Anthony Cashmore that I will cite here later.
- jes 6y ago
  Paper from Anthony Cashmore that I mentioned previously: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842067/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842067/

I am an Alan Watts fan. I think he would agree with you.

by jes 6y ago

I am an Alan Watts fan. I think he would agree with you.

He would definitely dig that. Curiously, I was drawn to this thread because I was just listening to him today, talking about crystals and the nature of reality. He would go thru so many topics in such detail and clarity, it's incredible.

jes 6y ago
Same. I often notice the precision with which he used language. Such a joy to listen to. I especially like the chill-step YouTube videos some people assemble and publish. I download them with youtube-dl and listen to them on my phone at night while drifting off to sleep. At 61 years of age, the philosophy he describes (Advaita Vedanta / Zen Buddhism / Taoism) brings me great comfort.
- thepace 6y ago
  Out of the many people I have heard talk about vedanta, Alan Watts is one of the most original ones.
- djedr 6y ago
  > I often notice the precision with which he used language. Indeed. Hard to find an inaccuracy, even when he's talking about some details of technical subjects. He had an exceptional ability to translate between the spiritual and the technical in a way which seems to make complete sense. > Such a joy to listen to. A true spiritual entertainer. Never boring. I imagine he could be a stand-up comedian today. > I especially like the chill-step YouTube videos some people assemble and publish. I download them with youtube-dl and listen to them on my phone at night while drifting off to sleep. Similar, I went thru a lot of the material on youtube. High-quality material with transcripts can also be found here: https://www.organism.earth/library/author/alan-watts https://www.organism.earth/library/author/alan-watts A lot of it I listened to many times over and I keep getting new insights out of it, it's so densely packed. > At 61 years of age, the philosophy he describes (Advaita Vedanta / Zen Buddhism / Taoism) brings me great comfort. Definitely helps to know these philosophical perspectives, especially if one gets tangled up in some harmful model of reality. Somehow the basic (non-religious, just philosophical) Taoism seems to most align with me at the moment. I credit the Dao for solving a very tough naming problem for me. ;)

jng 6y ago

I love Alan Watts too. In any case, I need to insert the necessary reference to recently passed John Conway's Free Will Theorem. I recommend every one to watch his 6-lecture long presentation on this, available on YouTube and underappreciated given the number of views, where he captivatingly describes his proof that, if we have free will, so do elementary particles. This is a purely mathematics- and physics-based proof which I understand is fully accepted by the scientific community, and while it, of course, does not provide an explanation of the underlying cause, it provides the best possible description obtained by scientific methodology so far. I like to think that, somehow, Alan Watts and John Conway were digging the same tunnel, just starting from the two endpoints, and bound to meet at some point in the future. We just need a few more diggers of that stature (tall order, I know).

jes 6y ago
Thank you for this reference. I’m a free will skeptic. Now looking forward to watching Conway’s series. I have a paper by Anthony Cashmore that I will cite here later.
jes 6y ago
Paper from Anthony Cashmore that I mentioned previously: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842067/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842067/