TEDxSantaCruz: Nancy Abrams and Joel Primack - Changing The World Through A Shared Cosmology

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1. Actually, the Planck Length is on the order 10^-35 meters [1] whereas the Observable Universe is on the order 10^26 meters [2]. The median of those scales is 7.1 micrometers or the size of a bacterium [3], not a human. Besides, the median of these scales physically (and philosophically) irrelevant.
   
   1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe
   3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_%28biology%29
2. The one, and only, time I ever took psilocybin mushrooms was the single most profound, humbling, and meaningful spiritual experience of my entire life, by far. Everything they talked about in this presentation was laid bare in the most excruciatingly lucid manner possible. I could literally FEEL the deep deep evolutionary time of the cosmos. I could FEEL the massively complex and interconnected biosphere. Psilocybin is a massive antidote to our current apathy and lack of connection to reality.
3. Rybot9000..........you need a hobby. :/
4. Thank you. Information from the 'invisible' realm to certain humans has long revealed that Creator and creation is one. Dec 21.2012 our species subtly returned to the spiral of evolution, and truth of our origin. Scientific cosmology opens the door for more humans, as individual cells of a single Conscious cosmos, the one and only Power responding unconditionally to our thoughts and feelings, to transform the human predicament into a coherent new world and greater possibilities.
5. Incredible
6. I saw these guy at Santa Cruz TEDx. I still need to check out their book. Check it out. 
7. your video assumes that we actually came from apes and monkeys and as the human form we are today has only been 100,00 years or so. You're not taking the possibility that are form has been around for millions of years and may have had some help from other non terrestrials as I believe we are in a sense. 
8. It should be evidently clear that all world religions focus on overcoming a delusional sense of self-hood; between Christianities constant cries for "selfless-ness", Islams practice of Jihad bil-Saifs, Hinduisms myriad references to the "True Self" which is "Brahman (God)", Buddhist Koans like "See the face you had before you were born" and Taoist sayings like "He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty. " So science hasn't exclusively brought us this truth at all.
9. In Islam the practice of Jihad is a "struggle", primarily a struggle with the "Nafs" or "Self". Jihad bil-Nafs is the critical practice of all Muslims. Jihad bil-Saif (Struggle with the sword) is a last resort, only to be employed when someone attempts to take your life or that of your family's, and possibly if they try to destroy your cultural values, which was the position taken by Sayyid Qutb, The Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaida. bil-Nafs remains the primary "strong" form of Jihad.
10. This does not give the observer "Free-will" the observer is incidental to existence, playing a critical part, but not having any power to choose what part is played. We are all playing the part of an observer, manifesting definition. As the late comedian Bill Hicks said: We are all of one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. This is, was and will continue to be the truth shared by religions and invariably concluded by science, whether people accept it has always been the crisis. 
11. @Rybot9000 The infinitely unlikely probability of our existence is solves by a realization of the fact that whenever we say "existence" we are referring to the appearance of some definite phenomena, which only acquires concrete definition through the act of observation. In other words; nothing exists unless it presents an appearance within consciousness. As reflected by the Latin root word "existere" which means; To present an appearance. Everything is ordered toward the necessity of an observer
12. The Hindu Brahmanic tradition has a parable that relates to the "central" role played by Humanity, it says; In the beginning Brahma (God) created Man perfect, but Man realized he was God and unmade himself. Then Brahman created Man ignorant and existence was born. John Wheeler's Participatory Anthropic Principle approximates this reality. Self-consciousness is the constraint that mediates existence, it is necessary for "existence", such that all phenomena must be ammenable to experience.
13. I can keep relating popular culture to drive the point home, but once you are aware of the "Truth", it should be obvious that is what these things are about.
14. In Dante's Divine Comedy; upon reaching the summit of pergatory and entering the gates of Heaven, Virgil - Dante's Guide - "crowns and mitres" Dante "master over himself". Which is another way of saying that he has been freed from the veil of delusional self-hood. The Genesis story reflects this by use of a parable; Adam and Eve having acquired knowledge of Good and Evil (duality) become aware of self and nakedness, henceforth they are beset by fears and desires relating to self-consciousness.
15. Some people prefer to call universe "God" and to speak of the relationship in more human terms without losing sight of the fact that God is not a human and cannot be known in human terms, but only as God relates to human consciousness (i.e. observation and reason). Benedictus XVI insists that God is rational and discernable by human reason. What fundamentalists faithheads in the continental USA claim to be the crux of religion is not representative of the bulk of it.
16. Albert Einstein wrote: "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us "universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us..." So actually, science has taken the long route of arriving at the Truth (with a capital T).
17. @Rybot9000 Shakespeare wrote in "As You Like It" "All the world's a stage And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts." The simple phrase "God is omnipotent" reveals this; Omnipotent means All-powerful and implies the non-existence of human free-will, if humans had free-will God would not be omnipotent. Rather God is like a potter who "molds some vessels for honor and others for dishonor" (Romans 9:22)
18. All of this was already known before science. That reality is a singularity of which we are only parts manifested in time and space. "The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me." Meister Eckhart What they've discovered is actually the basis of all religion, the "Truth" religion has been trying to hammer home to us for eons years. As Akhenaten wrote in the Great Hymn to the Aten: According as thou madest them for thyself, The Lord of them All...