#alan lightman

[csmsdust]

Dance for Two by Alan Lightman

Being You by Anil Seth

How story, God, and Your Lying Brain Turn Chaos into Order by Nancy Mimeles Carey

Your Brain is a Time Machine by Dean Buonomano

Some of the books I've read recently + the covers

#books #mine #whats up with the circles #alan lightman #anil seth #buonomano #Nancy Mimeles Carey #psychology #physics #Neuroscience #studyspo #books to read #academia

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Egon Schiele

* * * *

“In this world, time has three dimensions, like space. Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions, corresponding to horizontal, vertical, and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three perpendicular futures. Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real. At every point of decision, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people, but different fates for those people. In time, there are an infinity of worlds.” ”

— Alan Lightman, American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Einstein’s Dreams, London, Vintage, 2004. (via amiquote)

#Egon Schiele #about art #space and time #parallel universes #infinity or worlds #Alan Lightman #Einstein's dreams #amiquotes #amiquote #quotes

[swartzmark]

"The greatest trick of all is what happens inside our minds." --Alan Lightman, Screening Room (2015)

#alan lightman #movies

[sihirlisuperisi]

"Bu dünyada iki zaman var. Biri mekanik zaman, diğeri bedenin zamanı… Birincisi bir sağa, bir sola, bir sağa, bir sola sallanan kocaman bir demir sarkaç kadar katı ve metalik. İkincisiyse körfezde balık misali kıvrılıp bükülüyor. İlki aman vermez, boyun eğmez ve mukadder. İkincisiyse kararlarını ilerledikçe alıyor."

"In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time... The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along."

#einstein düşleri #einstein dreams #alan lightman #zaman #time #mechanical #body #beden #book quotes #books #kitap alıntıları #kitap #roman #modern klasik #modern classics #zamangeçiyor #zamanlar #times #time is passing #zaman kavramı #time concept #novel #kitap alıntısı #quotation #book excerpt

[emma-li]

"Time was measured by heartbeats, the rhythms of drowsiness and sleep, the recurrence of hunger, the duration of loneliness" - Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman

#words #quote #Einstein's Dreams #alan lightman

[dk-thrive]

Life in our universe is a flash in the pan, a few moments in the vast unfolding of time and space in the cosmos…A realization of the scarcity of life makes me feel some ineffable connection to other living things.

Alan Lightman, Probable Impossibilities: Musings on Beginnings and Endings (Pantheon (February 9, 2021) (via Alive on All Channels)

#Alan Lightman #gratitude #life #nature #conservation #climate change

[saintxian]

Alan Lightman, Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine

#quotes #book quotes #alan lightman #literature #poetry

[chrismoulton]

[untitled?]

If we are to part, I'd like we stay away. Not to screen or stalk, even seven days. I've been blindfolded for so long, I'm so small. So, so long. I've no need to dwell, my first night of widow-hood. I'll take a scotch and soda and wonder if it's for good. Cos' I've had this trauma handed down from a god who may not exist alive in the alcove. I'm never loving again. Now that you're gone, I've no need for friends. Spend all my time working towards the end, of this lie that I claimed was my life. There was a gentle breeze today, like if to soften the blow of her exit. I think I'm far past the point of help, hurdling towards whatever's next. I'm getting used to the pain of abuse but the loneliness never goes away, as if itself cursed to stay. I've been worked like a cornfield dry and all I want back is my time so cut you out like a razor to wrist of my life. It was so repetitive with you as my bride.

(Written a few months ago. Doin a lot better.)

#james joyce #house of leaves #yankee hotel foxtrot #ernest hemmingway #hari kunzru #don delillo #david foster wallace #jeff buckley #alan lightman #ghost posts #emily dickenson #rumi love quotes #tom robbins #the illiad #the odyssey #the aeneid #emily wilson #emily bronte #the bell jar #elements of style

[anditendshowyoudexpect]

got a couple more books in the mail

got this one specifically for Chris Riddell's illustrations (that and i never owned any edition of this book) i was browsing his work trying to distract myself from waiting impatiently for my deck of his Paths 🎴

well after i finally listened to the audiobook of Einstein's Dreams, i went ahead and read a digital copy and then went to abebooks and found this little one to put on my shelf

i also got Alan Fletcher's Picturing and Poeting, but much like his Art of Looking Sideways, it's difficult (for me) to explain

#books #the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy #douglas adams #chris riddell #einstein's dreams #alan lightman

[lunamarish]

La tragedia di questo mondo è che nessuno è felice. Sia che attraversi un periodo di sofferenza che di gioia.

Alan Lightman

#Alan Lightman #citazione #sofferenza

[geopolicraticus]

Alan Lightman on the Transcendent Brain

I listened to the audiobook edition of The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science by Alan Lightman. There is something of a minor industry of scientific writers on traditional ideas of religion and spirituality. The conceptual framework of our time is dominated by science and the Enlightenment, so that when a scientist writes on religion, he speaks, as it were, ex cathedra; and his pronouncements are accorded what is believed to be their appropriate weight given the scientist’s prominent place in the conceptual framework. The pre-modern conceptual framework, by contrast, was dominated by theology and philosophy, which today carry little or no prestige. That means the scientists take up ideas previously treated, and usually created by, theologians and philosophers. The result is not always a happy one.

This book was a real mixed bag, with a few good moments and a loit of not-so-good moments. Chapter 1 was a discussion of the soul without any attempt to relate the soul to the author’s introductory remarks on consciousness. As a result, this discussion was stranded without much of a connection to the rest of the book, and it would have been better simply to leave off Chapter 1 entirely; nothing of value would have been lost by its elimination. Chapter 3, in contrast, was quite good, though often frustrating as potentially interesting arguments trail off, often ending with an assertion of a belief, with something like, “Most neuroscientists believe that…” which is beside the point of any rational argument about consciousness. Chapter 4 was all over the place, something of a grab-bag of ideas that weren’t brought together in the synthesis that the author seemed to be aiming at. However, the time I invested in this book was ultimately worth it for me because of the opening anecdote in which the author describes his experience of locking eyes with an osprey, which is an experience much like some that I have written about, and I will probably reference this anecdote at some point in time.

Lightman mentions in the book a debate he had with Richard Dawkins (I haven’t listened to this yet, but this may be the debate that Lightman references in his book: Richard Dawkins & Alan Lightman on Science & Religion), but I don’t see how Lightman’s “spiritual materialism” is in any way different from Dawkins’ view. Lightman advocates a scientific understanding of spiritual experiences; he makes no argument for theism; his “argument” for the soul in The Transcendent Brain goes nowhere. There is nothing to distinguish his account of spirituality from that of Dawkins other than rhetoric. Lightman seems to be merely concerned with tone-policing Dawkins, who expresses himself in a way that Lightman finds objectionable.

After thinking about my dissatisfaction with this book I listened through the whole think for the second time. I didn’t listen to this again because it was such a great book, but to try to figure out what it was that the author was trying to say. After a second listening this is still unclear to me: the book seems pointless. The author seems to be indicating (in very vague terms) that he likes the idea of spirituality, but he wants to keep his cake and eat it too, by endorsing formulations of scientific reductionism no less thorough-going than any logical positivist.

#Alan Lightman #The Transcendent Brain

[johnesimpson]

Time Passes. This Could Be the Start of Something Big, and/or of Something Small...

Octavio Paz/Elizabeth Bishop, Billy Collins, Alan Lightman: 'Time Passes. This Could Be the Start of Something Big, and/or of Something Small…'

[I recently came across a small, grimy tin box which had originally contained cough drops; folded up inside were several sheets of lined “notebook paper,” as we called it, obviously stashed there for safekeeping (if not posterity). That’s my “handwriting,” of course. To the best of my recollection, therefore, this would have been from around 60 years ago; by sometime in 1966, I’d switched to block printing…

View On WordPress

#Elizabeth Bishop #Billy Collins #childhood #New Year #Octavio Paz #Alan Lightman #beginnings #looking back and ahead #setting out

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

jupiter

Jupiter inlet. Jeff Biege Photography

* * * *

Life in our universe is a flash in the pan, a few moments in the vast unfolding of time and space in the cosmos...A realization of the scarcity of life makes me feel some ineffable connection to other living things.

- Alan Lightman

#Alan Lightman #ephemeral #quotes #Jupiter Inlet #Jupiter #Jeff Biege Photography

[roesolo]

Isabel and the Invisible World: Great for STEM Storytime!

Isabel and the Invisible World, by Alan Lightman/Illustrated by Ramona Kaulitzki, (Apr. 2023, MIT Kids Press), $18.99, ISBN: 9781536223330 Ages 4-6 Isabel only wants one thing for her sixth birthday: something that will let her see “invisible things” that are invisible. Her scientist mother knows the perfect gift for Isabel: a prism, so Isabel can see the colors that make up light. This readable…

View On WordPress

#Alan Lightman #Isabel and the Invisible World #light #MIT Kids #prisms #Ramona Kaulitzki #science #STEM

[sihirlisuperisi]

"Hayat mevsimde tek bir an çünkü.Tek bir kar yağışı.Tek bir güz günü.Hayat,kapanan bir kapının gölgesinin kırılgan,keskin kenarı.Hayat kol ve bacakların kısacık bir hareketi.

#alan lightman #zaman #hayat #roman #kitap #book excerpt #book quotes #novel #einsteins dreams #Einstein'nin düşleri #hayata dair #hareket #mevsim #season #sonbahar #auttumn #snowfall #kar #karma #mixed #keskin #sharp #kırılgan #fragile #kitap sayfaları #kitaplık #roman sayfaları #modern classics #classic #modern klasik

[emma-li]

"Some few people are born without any sense of time. As consequence, their sense of place becomes heightened to excruciating degree. They lie in tall grass and are questioned by poets and painters from all over the world. These time-deaf are beseeched to describe the precise placement of trees in the spring, the shape of snow on the Alps, the angle of sun on a church, the position of rivers, the location of moss, the pattern of birds in a flock." Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman

#words #quote #Einstein's Dreams #Alan lightman