Mind Revolution (B. Alan Wallace video)

AlanWallace.org; via Buddhist Geek VincentHorn.com

B. Alan Wallace (Roads to Bliss)

“…This is something that had been postponed for 300 years from the time of Copernicus. Can you imagine 300 years of the development of science -- of physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, etc., etc., 300 years before they actually started the scientific study of the mind?

“That should throw you back for a moment if you’ve not quite thought of it in those terms. This is bizarre. The mind is that with which you’re doing all the science. It would be like somebody giving you an instrument and saying, 'Use this instrument; you will discover a lot of things' then waiting 300 years before you actually look at the instrument itself.”

This video and quote come from B. Alan Wallace’s talk “Toward the First Revolution in the Mind Sciences.” 

  

The cool thing is that he is giving this talk to Google employees! Vince Horn met Alan in July and had a chance to listen to this talk in Boulder. It’s an excellent talk on the history of the physical and biological sciences in the West.

  

His theory on how the mind sciences are about to go through an equally profound revolution like the revolutions related to Galileo and Darwin in the physical and biological sciences respectively.

   

Meditation, of course, is first person introspection. So it -- refining the instrument -- has a lot to do with empirical Western sciences. Reading Wallace’s superb book The Attention Revolution goes a long way to examining the instrument as well.

Who in the world is?

Google TechTalks August 8, 2006 B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. has been a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970. He is currently seeking ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices and Western science to advance the study of the mind. He is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies ( http://sbinstitute.com ). ABSTRACT Galileo took a seminal role in launching the first revolution in the physical sciences, and a key element in this revolution was the rigorous, sophisticated observation of physical phenomena. Darwin likewise launched a revolution in the life sciences on the basis of decades of meticulous observation of biological phenomena. Although scientists have been studying the mind for more than a century, no comparable revolution has taken place in the mind sciences, and the missing element that may account for this delayed revolution is the absence of rigorous, precise observations of mental phenomena. By integrating the third-person methodologies...all »B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D. has been a scholar-practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, at one time serving as translator for the 14th Dalai Lama. He seeks ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices with Western science to advance the study of the mind. He is the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies (sbinstitute.com). 

(Think and Be Happy) How are mental wellbeing and hedonic pleasure to be

distinguished? What types of mental, verbal, physical behaviors support and/or

undermine the cultivation of mental balance?  How does it relate to wellbeing?

ABSTRACT 

Galileo and some nearby planets

Galileo played a seminal role in launching the first revolution in the hard physical sciences. A key element in this revolution was the rigorous and sophisticated observation of physical phenomena. Darwin likewise launched a revolution in the life sciences on the basis of decades of meticulous observation of biological phenomena. Although scientists have been studying the mind for more than a century, no comparable revolution has taken place in the mind sciences. The missing element that may account for this delayed revolution is the absence of rigorously precise observations of mental phenomena as established in the Buddhist Abhidharma. By integrating third-person methodologies common in the cognitive sciences with the first-person modes of examining the mind, which have been developed in Buddhism and other contemplative spiritual traditions, our present generation may bring about the first real revolution in the mind sciences

UFOs: "Vatican looks for alien life" (AP)

Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life
VATICAN CITY — E.T., phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists, and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its exis-tence elsewhere in the cosmos. More>>

Space walking

This NASA handout shows Astronaut Tim Kopra. US space shuttle Endeavour astronauts were to venture into open space today on the mission's second spacewalk aimed at helping complete the International Space Station (AFP).

• New Galileo book raises religious, science issues
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• Crowds flock to Bangladeshi town for full solar eclipse
  DHAKA (AFP) - A tiny town in northern Bangladesh is braced for a rare taste of mass tourism as thousands of people pour in to witness a full solar eclipse this Wednesday.
• Solar eclipse: Of celestial mechanics and the Eye of God
  PARIS (AFP) - Total solar eclipses have struck awe or fear into hearts for millennia, but scientists are more interested in the unusual mathematics behind the gold-and-indigo lightshow.
• Asia will witness 21st century's longest eclipse
  BANGKOK - Millions of people across Asia will witness the longest total solar eclipse that will happen this century, as vast swaths of India and China, the entire city of Shanghai, and southern Japanese islands are plunged into darkness Wednesday for about five minutes.
• NASA Secretly launched Apollo 11 Moon rock to space
  Forty years to the day after it was found and collected by Neil Armstrong, a moon rock is helping NASA mark the anniversary of the first lunar landing from onboard a perch that is closer than any Apollo-returned lunar sample has ever come to its original home.
• Astronauts to mark Apollo Moon landing with spacewalk
  Astronauts will unload some spare parts for the International Space Station Monday in a spacewalk that comes 40 years to the day of the first moon landing by men from Earth.
• China dust cloud circled globe in 13 days
  HONG KONG (Reuters) - Dust clouds generated by a huge dust storm in China's Taklimakan Desert in 2007 made more than one full circle around the globe in just 13 days, a Japanese study using a NASA satellite has found.

Galileo - Science Comedian (video)

The impact of Galileo Galilee on astro-nomy and space (the akasha deva loka in Buddhist cosmology) exploration is commemorated. Galileo first used his telescope 400 years ago; the science comedian says 2009 may be the most exciting year in astronomy since 1609.

• Related: Top 10 Hubble photos (TIME.com)

Astrophysics and Math (made fun)

Astronomers observe phases of red-hot exoplanet

(Discover) -- Four hundred years ago, Galileo observed the phases of Venus as the planet orbited our sun and caught its light in different ways, helping to disprove the idea that all celestial bodies twirled around the Earth. Now, the profes-sional descendants of Galileo have observed the phases of an exoplanet for the first time, observing the distant planet in the act of orbiting a foreign star. More>>

(kissmymath.com)