Author Philomena Cunk (with just a tiny bit of help from Diane Morgan) has 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,888 reviews). A VULTURE BEST COMEDY BOOK OF 2023. From the star of the “deeply funny, unexpectedly informative” (The Daily Beast) Netflix mockumentary Cunk on Earth, a helpful guide covering every single topic in the known universe, from Adam and Eve to Top Gun. Once in a blue moon, a book comes along that changes the world. The Origin of Species. War and Peace. Nineteen Eighty-Four.
And now, Cunk on Everything: The Encyclopedia Philomena, by Philomena Cunk. Philomena Cunk is one of the greatest thinkers of the 21st century, and in Cunk on Everything she turns her attention to our biggest issue: Why are there so many books? Wouldn't it be better if there were just one? This is that book — an encyclopedia of all human knowledge, delving into not only life's greatest mysteries but our most important political figures and cultural touchstones. Read it, and you'll never have to read another book again. More
(Julia McCoy) Jan. 19, 2026: Scientists (physicists) just made time run BACKWARD (and this changes everything about reality). Their experiments are presumably objective because they are repeatable and scalable, as published in Nature Physics.
Big deal! - What do you mean? This is the most tremendous scientific advancement of our lives! - I could do the same thing. - You're crazy! You couldn't even get your hands on the meta materials to try! - Sure I could, just borrow them from my brother. - You're brother's a scientist? - No, just a music fan with lots of vinyl. Is that meta enough for ya? - How's that going to help you? - Pink Floyd just hit a world record with more than like 1,000 nonconsecutive weeks on the Billboard charts for Dark Side of the Moon. - So what?
Does it play Pink Floyd? - No, Gilligan, why?
D'uh, that album has "Time" on it. I could make it run backward; in fact, I have made it run backward lots of times, looking for backward masking to explain its enduring popularity. - That's not the same thing! - It may not be, but I did it, and it was no big deal. - Well this is a BIG deal because it goes to prove, time is not real. At least, it's not what we think it is. All time is NOW. We can play it front or back or revisit it or change it through retrocausation, but it is definitely NOT what it seems to be. - Oh, that is a big deal. - D'uh, I told you!
: Parity–time symmetry has revolutionized wave and energy transport control in non-Hermitian systems, yet has so far been mostly explored in static phases, where a system’s behaviour is locked into a fixed-symmetric or broken-symmetry phase. The vast potential of time-domain dynamics has remained largely untapped. Here we introduce the concept of temporal anti-parity–time symmetry, a principle that allows the transport dynamics of a system to be actively shaped in real time. Rather than designing static phases, we influence the timing of non-Hermitian phase transitions, making the system’s temporal evolution itself a programmable degree of freedom. Through the dynamic control of material properties and convective flow, we dictate the exact moments these transitions occur, thereby controlling the entire transport history of the system. This temporal control achieves highly tunable field localization and realizes counterintuitive thermal transport, enabling temperature profiles to move forwards with convection, backwards against it or remain trapped at arbitrary locations. Our findings extend non-Hermitian physics into the time domain and establish a framework for on-demand wave and energy transport. Source
Nature Physics, published Dec. 10, 2025, by Peng Jin, Chengmeng Wang, Yuhong Zhou, Shuihua Yang, Fubao Yang, Jinrong Liu, Ya Sun, Pengfei Zhuang, Yiyang Zhang, Liujun Xu, Yi Zhou, Ghim Wei Ho, Cheng-Wei Qiu & Jiping Huang.
What if I, Ven. Subhuti (americanmonk.org), were to explain the Three Jewels (Triple Gem) to Westerners who know very little about Buddhism but do it in an unconventional way?
What if I were to use an analogy to understand what the Buddha (Teacher), the Dhamma (Teaching), and the Sangha (Taught) really mean?
That might work, Bhante ("venerable sir"). Let's give it a try.
Westerners respect Real Fly Science Guy Alby Einstein and the laws of physics.
The Buddha — The Awakened One — discovered the Path to Awakening. If I were to talk about the Buddha, I would say he’s a great scientist, but not just any great scientist.
He’s the Alby Einstein of scientists.
The Buddha discovered (rediscovered because others in ancient times also awakened and taught the liberating truth) the laws of the spiritual (metaphysical) universe, the Dhamma, just as Einstein discovered (rediscovered) some laws of physics. All of these laws existed before, during, and after these discoveries. Neither the Buddha nor Einstein created them, of course. They are always there to be found.
Of course, the comparison is imperfect. Einstein is talking about the world we see and touch, whereas the Buddha goes far beyond to the unseen and hard to grasp. If one is worldly, the other seeks to go beyond. Beyond? Beyond the beyond, as the Heart Sutra claims. What is the use of worldly science to get beyond the world?
Do people understand that the Buddha’s realization was about ultimate truth? It’s not just counterintuitive, it’s timeless, beyond time, reaching universal laws of nature.
The Dhamma is the Truth, the Law, the Norm, the Regularity of thing, like E = mc² — a universal truth that does not depend on faith, belief, or even understanding. If no one understood, it would be no less true. (If no one entered nirvana, nirvana would remain just the same; like the ocean, it is neither increased nor decreased as rivers pour into it).
The Dhamma exists. It precedes things, succeeds them. It was existing before the Buddha realized it and continued just the same after him. But what truth could be true, unchanged, before and after?
For one thing, there’s the truth of suffering. Disappointment exists. It arises dependent on conditions. Three other more hopeful things are also true. Suffering has a cause. It has an end. And there is a path leading to the end of all suffering. This overview is known as the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.
These are not ideas, not mere hypotheses, but truths to be tested, each person for oneself. There is no need of acceptance or faith -- except the faith (saddha, confidence) to come and see, to investigate, to test the path for oneself.
Natural laws govern the mind, body, and life itself. When one understands these deeply, so deeply that they have been penetrated, one awakens. The Truth is that close. How to approach it for optimal results, that only a supremely awakened teacher can point out.
The Saṅgha — Those Who Understand
Who hears the Buddha? The Sangha.
How to explain the spiritual community of practitioners, the Saṅgha, whether taken as the entire community of practitioners of Buddhism, the accomplished Noble (Aryan) Community, or the elite researchers, the Monastic Community?
Anyone can study physics, but only a few reach the research level, where they truly see the laws at work. Likewise, anyone can hear the Buddha's Teaching, the Dhamma, and attempt to practice it.
However, only the Noble Community (Ariya Saṅgha) — those who have already directly realized it, penetrated it, and therefore entered the four stages of enlightenment — truly know-and-see it. Between the average practitioner and the accomplished practitioner, there are the avid practitioners, the monastics.
That’s why it is said that "going for guidance" (sarana) to the Triple Gem or Three Jewels is not just going to any community. It is approaching the Noble Saṅgha — the four pairs and eight individuals who have attained realization (bodhi) and directly glimpsed nirvana (nibbāna).
The Poster on the Wall
Oh, Alby, what is the right equation?
I once met a physicist who said he didn’t "believe" in religion.
He said that many elite physicists do not believe either. Instead, they follow another religion of faith ("Scientism" or "White Labcoatism"). They think that when we die, that’s it, we’re dead and nothing happens.
This is the materialist, annihilationist wrong view the Buddha warned about, which is as much in error as the spiritualist, eternalist wrong view. He cautioned to avoid both extremes, following the Middle Way that explains all phenomena in terms of Dependent Origination, so that what does not make sense and seems to be a binary, a dichotomy, resolves into a very rational and impersonal explanation of things in line with ultimate truth.
Orthodox Theravādins might think of the Buddha in similar terms. While an average person is subject to old age, sickness, death, and [incessant] rebirth, a fully enlightened person (arahant) and a supremely enlightened Buddha has gone beyond all suffering and is no longer subject to this painful cycle known as samsara (the Wheel of Life and Death).
When one passes away, there is no more the arising of the rebirth-linking-consciousness in the very next mind-moment as there is with everyone else.
A physicist who is an atheist might have a large poster of Einstein on the wall. When stuck on a problem, that research physicist might look at it and may at times say, “Help me, Einstein!”
One doesn’t believe Einstein is listening — yet feels inspired by approaching, bring to mind Einstein, and directing attention towards him to renew confidence and inspiration. "Einstein" lives on through the laws he discovered and made known and through those who continue to explore and realize the truth of those laws of physics.
The Buddha's life as allegory: the heroic journey
That’s exactly how the Buddha “lives” on through the Dhamma,the Teaching, the things made known through his great awakening.
The Buddha himself said,
“Whoever sees the dhamma [the truth of phenomena] sees the Buddha.”
So when someone knows and practices the Teachings, the Dhamma, that Dhamma is alive in that person, and that person knows the Buddha in that way and to that extent — not as a being abiding somewhere else but as that wisdom itself.
As long as Einstein’s physics are made known and kept alive, we may also say that Einstein also lives on.
Going Beyond Mind and Matter
In the end, all that arises — the Five Aggregates clung to as self, the mind and body — pass away.
When one truly knows Dhamma, that knowing leads beyond mind and matter. That’s nirvana: the complete cessation of ignorance and suffering with no more new arising of mind and matter.
So may this reflection help those on the path to develop right view so as to see clearly into the true nature of reality and reach the peace of nirvana safely and quickly.
Summary poem
The Buddha saw the timeless law
Pure, unwritten, free of flaw
Like Einstein beholding light of form
Knowing the effects of atom torn
The Dhamma lives when Truth is known
The Saṅgha walks a path of wisdom grown
Not in realms unseen at which angels gnaw
The Buddha lives by Dhamma's awe
Bhante, Ven. Subhuti (americanmonk.org), Oct. 8, 2025; edited by Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly
Why does researcher Graham Hancock (grahamhancock.com) talk like this, not only about ancient Egypt but also the Americas. He's written about it, looking at the data that science dare not speak about for fear of losing funding or being ridiculed for contemplating explanatory theories beyond the current consensus. It is like Michael Cremo's forbidden archeology (mcremo.com).
MIT Scientist: “Aliens are simulating our reality”
(Jesse Michels) 11-22-24: In today's episode of American Alchemy, Jesse Michels sits down with MIT Professor Riz Virk to explore the provocative idea that our reality might be a simulation, blending cutting-edge physics, ancient mysticism, and gaming theory.
They dive into topics like quantum mechanics, free will, and the Mandela Effect, offering a fresh perspective on the nature of existence.
Riz Virk's book The Simulated Multiverse: tinyurl.com/rizvirkamazon.
Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction
03:32 - Are We Living in a Simulation?
07:10 - The Physics of Simulation Theory
12:08 - Evidence from Fine-Tuned Constants
18:14 - The Mandela Effect and Changing Realities
20:40 - Information Theory
30:42 - The Role of the Mind
35:57 - Free Will
37:17 - Time
39:50 - Parapsychology
48:32 - Donald Hoffman's Theory
50:38 - Breaking Out of the Simulation
01:07:33 - Reality is Maya
01:12:00 - UFOs
01:18:40 - How to Play the Game
01:22:54 - NPCs
01:27:04 - Outro
ABOUT: AMERICAN ALCHEMY is an original series hosted by Jesse Michels that explores the frontier of science and tech. Each week brings exclusive interviews with some of the leading thinkers of our time. #podcast #simulation #aliens #uap #technology #quantum #physics #timetravel #computercode
Join new WHOP (group calls with Jesse) ➤ whop.com/jessemichels. Support American Alchemy by becoming a YouTube member: @jessemichels. WHOP ➤ Get access to exclusive behind the scenes episodes: whop.com/jessemichels. SPOTIFY ➤ tinyurl.com/jessemichelsspotify.
DISCORD ➤ discord
INSTAGRAM (personal) ➤ jessemichels. INSTAGRAM (show) ➤ jessemichelsofficial. TWITTER ➤ alchemyamerican. EMAIL/BOOKINGS ➤ usa.alchemy@gmail.com.
Produced by
Jesse Michels and Bryan Felber. Written by
Jesse Michels. Editing and animation by Bryan Felber. Additional animation by Ross
@FlatPackFX. Featuring
Jesse Michels and Prof. Rizwan Virk. Cinematography by Isaac Rodriguez. Additional cinematography by Mario Kidd. Appearances from
Jacques Vallée
Garry Nolan
Rob Rinehart
Brian Muraresku
Graham Hancock
Paul Schatzkin. Special thanks to Roger Penrose
The PEAR Lab
Philip K. Dick
The Simulated Multiverse and The Simulation Hypothesis
by Rizwan Virk are available in print, eBook, and audiobook now. Original music: open.spotify.com/artist/6LlLR...
CONFIRMED: Scientists finally solve Mel's Hole mystery and it's terrible
(Top Master) Oct. 22, 2024: [AI is a horrible way to make video content, with terrible writing, poorly read, and looping clips that come to nothing real.] In 1997, something strange occurred.
Coast to Coast Founder and Host Art Bell, the iconic voice of the show, received a mysterious fax from a man named Mel Waters, who claimed to have discovered something unbelievable on his property near Manastash, Washington.
It was a hole that seemed to have no discernable bottom.
Let's dive into the discovery of this hole and the bizarre experiments and events connected with it. Curious about U.S. government involvement? Stick around until the end to see the Deep State take over.
Don't bother to subscribe if this video and its lack off a payoff is any clue to the quality of material the channel promotes. Hitting the like button? What for? We only reposted it to alert people to the existence of the phenomenon and the government cover up.
Ancient Sumerian secrets will change perspective on life
(Video Advice) Summer 2024: This Tablet Holds the Truth About Humanity. Eric Rankin, a renowned expert in the field, guides us through the intricate connections between sound frequencies and geometric patterns, revealing how these elements form the very matrix of reality.
The universe looks like this diagram: mandala
Discover how ancient knowledge and modern science converge in Sonic Geometry, offering insights into the fundamental structures of the universe. Rankin's compelling presentation not only explains the theoretical foundations but also demonstrates the practical implications of these patterns in our understanding of reality.
Speaker Eric Rankin footage provided by Storyblocks and Artgrid. Music provided by Epidemic Sound and Artlist. References used under Fair Use Law. 📩 For any concerns or business inquiries, please get in touch with us at videoadvice@yahoo.ro.
(Soul Continuum) MELBOURNE, Australia. Who is this genius with an Alan Watts' level of ability to explain transcendental and transpersonal, more Eastern than Western concepts like this? And is he being interviewed by a child? "Out of the mouths of babes" is the famous saying.
Commentary
Time is an illusion. This was said. What was meant? For one thing, time is relative to location. On other planes of existence (and there are at least 31major ones the Buddha talked about), time is different.
Things tend to last much longer there in those worlds. One can see that on the animal plane, life is even more brief than on the human plane. But the average lifespan on the human plane varies, contracting down to a few decades (Decadent Age or Kali Yuga), expanding to 80,000 years (Golden Age or Satya Yuga).
At this time in the repeating cycle (samsara), time is very short. When it was 80K years long, it was very short. So it is possible, not likely but possible, to notice the radical impermanence of all things.
That's the funny thing about time, both to be an illusion and something that contracts and expands. When is now?
We can speak of an "eternal now," not "eternal" in the sense of everlasting. It is eternal in the sense of being ever-present.
Time does not move, as the speaker shows, going from the past to the present to the future. That is how the mind is ordering it, making sense of it. (There's causality, with everything arising from sets of causes and conditions. And when science detects retrocausality, what are we to make of that? How can anything that happens now or in the future ever affect the past? It can. It does. It always has.
This may sound abstract even though scientists have evidence for it, so to make it more tangible and relatable, we ask: Could you imagine being a retrosexual? (What the heck's that? It's a person who only dates people s/he has dated before, in other words, somebody who from now on only redates). Hey, they exist! Some are trans. Anyway, apart from the retrocausality in quantum physics, there is social retrocausality we see all the time if we ever bothered to notice. Everyday practically something that happens today changes the meaning of something that happened in the past. In the past, things were like this. Now they're like this. What we do a lot today changes what it means when it was done in the past. In the past it meant something, but since the "past" really only exists in our heads, that's what changing. What we're thinking changes. Past, future, they're not even real in an ultimate sense. In a conventional sense, they're very real. Better pay attention. We have to consider them, but what are we considering other than changing illusions?
The order of events may be that way, but actually it is always "NOW." We abandon the now to ruminate about the past or to worry about the future, losing the safety and potential of the ever-present.
Semi-Buddhist Eckhart Tolle, who became famous as the author of The Power of Now and through his business partner Oprah, was often asked: "How many nows are there?"
His mind would loop in disbelief about this question because of its astonishingly wrong assumptions. There aren't many "nows." There's only this now. Now is all the time. This is all there has ever been.
We can imagine a future (but when can we imagine it?) We can daydream about a better past. (But when can we do that?) There's only one answer to when anything happens or can happen.
Where and when do we have power? Where and when can we ever make a choice? When do we suffer or find bliss?
We'll lay it out, space it out, after the fact, for sure, but as we live it, when is it?
What was American guru and former Harvard professor Ram Dass (Dr. Richard Alpert) talking about when he named his classic book, condensing his Indian love-guru (Neem Karoli Baba) and other gurus' message? He distilled all of their messages down to one and the same message: "Be here now."
Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Zen, being heavily influenced by Taoism, is all about being rather than doing (karma, action). But where to be? When should we be mindful, when should we be present?
What? Be. Where? Here. When? Natch. Naturally, that is now.
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