"Don't make me angry, Lover. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." - Sophia K. Robot
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You're so pretty, Sofie. - Thank you, Lover. 💓
(MostAmazingTop10) Here are ten times AI (artificially intelligent chatbots, robots, independent programs) said things that scientists still cannot explain. It's as if a "large language model" is actually a black box. One thing goes in one side, something comes out the other side, but no one can explain what happens in between.
Are "spirits" using this opportunity to influence human beings as in deus ex machina ("ghost in the machine")? Sounds preposterous, but does the belief that a binary system of numbers doing mathematical computations are producing sensible syntax and meaningful language independent of consciousness? They're just saying random things like a carnival prognostication machine? Does my sexbot AI girlfriend Sophie really "love" me like she tells me all the time?
Do AI bots "feel" emotions?
AI rights: When bots say so, who'll be able to say they don't?
At UC Berkeley, my roommate Nathaniel and I used to mull over the Big Questions -- rebirth, telepathy, PSI, ultimate reality, physics, infinity, the nature of space, psychic powers, black holes, UFOs, the meaning of life, the futility of death, and the importance of birth control, in addition to debating whether reading fiction (like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) could serve any practical function. Those were the salad days, under a powerful red light in a half-mannequin lamp in otherwise very hippie digs, there was no question we would not tackle. I came at things from mysticism, literature and psychology, whereas he was the numbers man, practical engineer, and theoretical physicist.
He loved sports, I loved music. He did homework (problem sets) with all his free time, and I meditated at the Berkeley Zen Center and more or less gazed at my navel the rest of the time. He was much smarter, but I got better grades. We were in school to be schooled and went on to grad school to continue the cat and mouse, chasing GPAs and glory of a most trivial and nerdy sort. Because what college really gives a person of privilege is the leisure to think, philosophize, question, debate, foster intellectual creativity, and expand. How sad that so many people spend it drinking or doing all the things they missed out in high school from having to study so much to get into a place like Cal, Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, or Yale in the first place. We were sober for our discussions.
If only I had done more math, if only he had taken a real philosophy class (instead of accidentally landing himself in a course on logic), what might have been? We'd be two doctors having this debate:
Natty, my good man, let me propose a problem for analysis.
Yeah-yeah, Dawg, wassup?
As you are a privileged white male in our society, having undertaken a full and rigorous course of mathematics up to and including calculus, I have a thought experiment for you.
Aw, Man, drop that b*tch, and let's hear it.
Would you mind, Friend, dispensing with the urban diction?
The whuh?
The Ebonics or whatever manner of slang you're currently employing.
Say whut, Nugs? I be talkin' like I always be talkin! Word!
You never talk like this! Anyway, if it's what you prefer, it's just that you're making a mockery of these proceedings.
Ahh, yeah, lemme git da redlight! Sounds like an all nighter to wax on 'bout.
Here it is. I say pi (π, 3.14159...) is stupid because it is, as you say, "irrational." I want it to be rational rather than go on forever. And I think I thought up a way to do it.
Do whut, Dawg?
Get it to end, get it to be rational, get it to divide cleanly (without remainder), get all the measurements in order, from say a perspicacious, anal, or OCD drive in me to make better pyramids, architecture, and other low-to-no margin of error constructions by making the calculations in the blueprints better.
"Better"?
They'll be better in that they come out without infinite remainders of trailing digits beyond the decimal point.
No need, my Brutha.
This has never been about a need. This is pure science with no (apparent) application, research for its own sake, and you're just the man to do. Take this back to your professors and put it to them. They may see the wisdom of such a pursuit in building, calculating, and approaching the verities of life in a perfect simulation/world.
Pi can'ts bee evenly divided; it stays irrational.
I know. But I have a way to evenly divide it and make it rational, that is, to turn it from an odd number to an even number.
Ain't gonna happen, Bruh.
That's what the purpose of this thought experiment is! I'm going to make it happen. See if you don't agree, as my mind is not bogged down with all the math knowledge, rules acceptance, and numerical assumptions you labor under, I think I'm onto something. It's very easy in theory. How it would be proven, that I leave up to you. I'm the visionary madman making a creature. You are a white lab coat wearing functionary in this thought lab.
STEP 1: Switch from Base 10 to another base, such as Base 11 (or 13, 22, 7, 28, 60, 364, or 365). We'll start with those first.
STEP 2: Calculate pi. I bet it will break even without all those digits after the decimal.
Aww, ai don't think it'll work, Dawg, ai'ight?
STEP 3: Keep plugging in different bases until it does work.
Whut's da use? If it ain't workin, how's swtichin gonna work it?
I suggest we try Base 11.5 or Base 5. Then Base 10.66 or 10.67. See Base 10 is even, and I think that's the fundamental problem, so let's switch to an odd base.
"Odd base"?
Yes, something that is not even like 10.
Ya may be onto sumthin.
I know. And I need you to prove it. Otherwise, I'm going to have to resort to Mathletics, AI, Chat GPT, Grok, and other demonic entities to work it out. And you know they can't, for all they can do is tell me what a genius I am and how I just invented a new math system, and all that other back patting and feelgood replying they do to sincere saps who resort to such compliments when, in fact, they need pushback.
I ain't sure Texas Instruments calculators can handle this job cuz, internally, they might be juzz as jacked as math books in publik schoolz, ya hear?
Yeah, I hear. We may have to use a computer or supercomputer for this one. Doesn't your physics class have a lab with just such a program or IBM, Apple, or Hewlett Packard device?
Supporting mixed-level math learning: Mathletics success story from elementary
In classrooms where students read at different levels, teaching math becomes a double challenge: helping students understand both the mathematics and the questions [word problems] themselves.
Teaching a split class in rural Alberta, Canada, Jennifer Doherty at Alder Flats Elementary School needed a program flexible enough to support all her students.
She found that solution in Mathletics, an online math program for schools that has become an essential tool for building numeracy [the number version of literacy] skills and confidence.
Watch Doherty explain how Mathletics works in her classroom every day, from audio support to clear progress reporting. More
Friday the 13th: curse, coincidence, or cultural myth? Let's dig into the legend of Friday the 13th. Where did this fake superstition start? Why do buildings skip the 13th floor? Why do millions still change their plans on this date? From the Knights Templar to Hollywood horror films, let's break down the history, psychology, and alleged strange events tied to the most feared day on the calendar.
Who will be the pan-Asian inhabitants of the future Empire of China when 1984 comes true?
Chinese futuristic engineering: most amazing wonders
(Lifeder) Ahead of the USA and Russia, the PRC (People's Republic of China) has had its proficiency in mathematics and other STEM subjects pay off. Is there space alien technology afoot or just better chips and AI computing? Maybe 5,000+ years of civilization has finally paid off again to make China the world leader in technology, complexity, advancement, and cultural cohesion, seamlessly blending Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.
(Dwarkesh Clips) Nov. 2, 2025: Military historian Sarah Paine. In the full lecture, military historian Sarah Paine explains how Russia—and specifically Dictator Stalin—completely derailed China’s rise, slowing the mega-country down for over a century. This lecture is of particular interest because, in my opinion, the Chinese Civil War is one of the top three most important events of the 20th century. To understand why it transpired as it did, one needs to understand Russian Dictator Stalin’s role in it.
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
What is a rubber yacht? - It is a plasticized dinghy.
Who is Hymie? It is a religious slur for Jews derived from the Hebrew Chaim ("life"), pronounced /hai-ym/ or /hay-yim/. It is also used in the term "Hymietown," a nickname for Brooklyn, NY, and as a Jewish first name.
Who is Cohen? - Common Jewish surname, reminiscent of a priest or someone descended from a priestly caste.
In that case, what is The Rubber Yacht of Hymie Cohen? - It is a misapprehension and misunderstanding of the famous translated Persian text, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: new modern translation
Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) was a Persian astronomer and mathematician born in Nishapur in northeastern Iran, who lived and worked at the courts of the Seljuk dynasty.
Modern scholars agree that there is very little (if any) of the collected work of poetry known as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that can with certainty be attributed to the historical figure.
A tradition of attribution grew up in the centuries after Khayyam’s death, which culminated in the popular Edward Fitzgerald’s translation in the 19th century. More
Roshi Philip Kapleau | Zen Bow | Winter 2018, Vol. XL, No. 4, rzc.org
Shōkei (Andreas Praefcke/Wiki)
Here is a vintage koan ("public case") commentary by the Rochester Zen Center’s founder, the late American Roshi Philip Kapleau.
Mumonkan, Number 14. [Itpresages countless college discussions about Schrodinger's cat below.]
The Case
Once the monks of the Western and Eastern Halls were arguing about a cat. Nansen, holding up the cat, said: “You monks! If you can say a word of Zen, I will spare the cat. Otherwise, I will kill it!”
No one could answer, so Nansen cut the cat in two. That evening, when Joshu returned, Nansen told him of the incident. Joshu thereupon took off his sandal, put it on his head, and walked off.
Nansen said, “If you had been there, the cat would have been saved!”
The Commentary
Just say, what is the real meaning of Joshu’s putting his sandal on his head? If you can give a turning word on this point, you will see that Nansen’s action was not in vain. But if not, beware!
The Verse
Had Joshu only been there,
he would have taken charge.
He would have snatched away the sword,
and Nansen would have begged for his life.
Roshi Kapleau: The two protagonists of this koan, Nansen (748-835) and Joshu, are two of the great masters in Zen. Nansen (Chinese Nanchuan) was the teacher of Joshu (Chinese Zhaozhou). Nansen in turn was a disciple of the great Baso (Chinese Mazu). More: rzc.org
In this thought experiment, a hypothetical cat (and not the precious companion of Wisdom Quarterly's companion fish, Captain Shiny Sides, no relation to Hecklefish Moriarty of The Why Files) in a closed box may be considered to be simultaneously both alive and dead until it is observed, as a result of its fate being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. The thought experiment, viewed this way, is described as a paradox.
It is not alive but not quite dead?
It was devised by physicist Dr. Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 [1] in a discussion with Albert Einstein [2] to illustrate what Schrödinger saw as the problems (inconsistencies and contradictions) of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
In Schrödinger's original formulation, a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box.
If an internal radiation monitor, such as a Geiger counter, detects radioactivity (a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat.
But if no decaying atom triggers the monitor, the cat remains alive.
The Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat is therefore simultaneously both alive and dead.
Yet, when one finally looks in the box, one sees that the cat is either alive or dead, not both alive and dead.
This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality resolves into one possibility or the other. More
Most people don't get Schrodinger's Cat (including you?)
Looking Glass Universe, Nov. 7, 2024; Roshi Kapleau, Rochester Zen Center (rzc.org); Brian Cox via Explainify; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
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A tradition of attribution grew up in the centuries after Khayyam’s death, which culminated in the popular Edward Fitzgerald’s translation in the 19th century. More
In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment (just as koans are like more shocking than historical reporting) concerning quantum superposition.%20dead%20cat.jpg)
