Stephen Hawking

We always knew when Stephen was coming to dinner. It was 1966, my first year studying mathematics at Cambridge, and I happened to be in the same college as Stephen – Gonville and Caius, College. One of the prescribed parts of college life was dining together. We all sat on long tables in the Great […]

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Get Real Ray

A Critique of Ray Kurzweil’s Predictions Ray Kurzweil recently announced his year-by-year predictions of the future. Here are just a few samples (full list here): 2020 – Personal computers reach a computing power comparable to the human brain. 2025 – The emergence of mass-market human implants. 2031 – 3D printed human organs used in hospitals […]

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Sat Chit Ananda

Sat-chit-ananda is a common theme in many Indian teachings, and is usually translated as truth-consciousness-bliss, or something along similar lines. It is often interpreted as some experience or state of consciousness to be attained. And a lot of spiritual literature reinforces this, leading people to look for, or hope for, some exceptional new experience. But […]

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Synchronicity and the ‘Support of Nature’

Back in the sixties I spent time studying Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at his ashram in Rishikesh, India. When he was assessing how we were each progressing in our practice, he was often not so interested in our experiences within meditation itself—whether we were noticing subtle levels of thinking, discovering the true self, […]

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