The Christmas Holidays are an opportunity for me to relax by reading some fun books unrelated to my normal research or work. This year, Kim and I have been absorbed in two books by Dan Simmons, one of my favorite science fiction authors: "Ilium" and "Olympos." Here's part of the slip-cover description:

"From the multiple award-winning author of the 'Hyperion Cantos' — one of the most acclaimed and popular series in contemporary science fiction — comes a huge and powerful epic of high-tech gods, human heroes, total war, and the extraordinary transcendence of ordinary beings.
From the towering heights of Olympos Mons on Mars, the mighty Zeus and his immortal family of gods, goddesses, and demigods look down upon a momentous battle, observing — and often influencing — the legendary exploits of Paris, Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, and the clashing armies of Greece and Troy. ..."

And here are the first few paragraphs of "Ilium":

Rage.
Sing, O Muse, of the rage of Achilles, of Peleus' son, murderous, man-god, fated to die, sing of the rage that cost the Achaeans so many good men and sent so many vital, hearty souls down to the dreary House of Death. And while you're at it, O Muse, sing of the rage of the gods themselves; so petulant and so powerful here on their new Olympos, and of the rage of the post-humans, dead and gone though they might be, and of the rage of those few true humans left, self-absorbed and useless though they may have become. While you are singing, O Muse, sing also of the rage of those thoughtful, sentient, serious but not-so-close-to human beings out there dreaming under the ice of Europa, dying in the sulfur-ash of Io, and being born in the cold folds of Ganymede. ...    more »

This is a fascinating website. Ulrich Mohrhoff teaches math, physics, and quantum philosophy at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry, India. He has developed a new perspective re the ontological implications of quantum mechanics known as the "Pondicherry Interpretation," which has been called "startingly original." ~ ron

...Scientists are the myth makers of our time. If a story is believed by a large fraction of the scientific community, it becomes part of our (socially constructed) reality.
Take electromagnetic waves. Even if you agree with me that we cannot observe them directly, you will probably insist that we can observe them indirectly: their effects are all over the place.
But it isn't their effects. The jiggling of that charge over there isn't the effect of an electromagnetic wave acting on it. It is the effect of my jiggling this charge here. The rest — the generation of an electromagnetic wave here, its propagation, and its action on that charge over there — is a myth. ...   more »

More evidence that the basic "laws of physics" favor evolution of life? (ron)

Nanoscale ice formations resembling the double helices of DNA will form when water molecules are frozen inside carbon nanotubes, detailed computer simulations suggest.
Researchers at the University of Nebraska, US, used a supercomputer to run detailed mathematical models of the behaviour of water molecules. In their simulations, they inserted the molecules into carbon nanotubes under high pressure, before cooling them to -23°C.
The scientists were surprised to see the molecules organise themselves into "spiral staircase" arrangements similar to those of a DNA helix. "It was very unexpected," Xiao Cheng Zeng, the computational nanotechnology expert who led the research told New Scientist. ...   more »

I'm posting this portion of Chap. 5 of "Trialogues at the Edge of the West" because I think it may relate to the discussion presently under way re the article titled: "Instruments of Knowledge and Post-Human Destinies." My hope is that some of the new theories now surfacing in contemporary science may support our work in deconstructing the insights presented both in traditional Hindu and Buddhist texts and in Sri Aurobindo's more recent writings.
For example, the initial section of "Trialogues" that I quote below raises some interesting ideas about the possible relationship between light, perception, mind and consciousness. (ron)   more »

There's a profound crisis in the scientific world at the moment that is going to change science as we know it. Two of the West's fundamental models of reality are in tremendous conflict. The existing worldview of science is an unstable combination of two great tectonic plates of theory that are crashing into each other. Where they meet, there are major theoretical earthquakes and disruptions and volcanos of speculation. ...    more »

...Teilhard speaks not only as a research scientist but also as a priest and poet who discerns with Meister Eckhart the ‘interdependency of all things.’ He shares with the medieval poet Dante the conviction that it is ‘love that moves the sun and the other stars.’
Claude Cuénot describes him as a ‘cosmo-mystic’ while Louis Barjon SJ speaks of him as ‘a mystic of the cosmos’ who rejoices in the wonder of an evolutionary creation that brings together love of God and love of the earth. He sees cosmic evolution telling us of the correlation between complexity and consciousness. ‘Consciousness,’ he says, ‘presents itself and requires to be treated, not as a particular and subsistent kind of entity, but as the “specific effect” of complexity.’
He combines scientific knowledge and mystical intuition to envision a universe in process towards its completion at a ‘centre of cosmic spiritualisation’ or ‘ultimate centre of personality and consciousness’ he calls Point Omega. ...   more »