Without our genetic heritage, cultural traditions, and previous experiences, we do not possess an implicit repertoire of psychophysical skills shaped by environments and changes that have been previously experienced.

Smart cities are as stupid as the people who make them.

from here

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness — though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

image Ariel Schlesinger CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Behind every question of philosophy there lurks a gnarl of unacknowledged emotional cravings which act as a powerful motivation for conclusions in which reason plays at best a supporting role.

To bring such hidden emotional cravings out into the open, as philosophers have felt it their duty to do, is to ask for trouble. Philosophical disclosures are frequently met with the anger that we reserve for the betrayal of our family secrets.

From Indiscrete Thoughts (Modern Birkhäuser Classics)

Thus, the form may seem pleasant, unpleasant, beautiful, harmonious, disharmonious, skillful, awkward, fine, coarse, and so on, and yet, it must neither be accepted nor rejected by virtue of qualities considered to be positive or negative. All these concepts are perfectly relative, which can be observed at first glance in the infinite series of interchange of forms already present.

Equally relative is the form itself. Thus, the form is to be appreciated and understood. One has to place oneself in such a way that the form acts on the soul. And through the form the content (mind, inner sound).

Otherwise, one elevates the relative to the absolute.

When it came to judgments about the true self, however, we found a surprising degree of cross-cultural similarity. Across all four of the cultures tested, we found evidence that participants shared an intuition that, deep down, human beings have a true self that is morally good.

From: “Consistent Belief in a Good True Self in Misanthropes and Three Interdependent Cultures”, Julian De Freitas, Hagop Sarkissian, George E. Newman, Igor Grossmann, Felipe De Brigard, Andres Luco, Joshua Knobe, 2017, link

To the place that I love, there My feet lead me

Talmud – Mas. Sukkah 53a

I invite anyone here to think of a moment in life when a dry period brought on rebirth.

Back to Nature / חוזר לטבע from HyperMedia Films on Vimeo.

Don’t send a rabbit to kill a fox.

キツネを殺すのに、ウサギをよこすな。
Kitsune wo korosu no ni, usagi wo yokosu na.

How to determine the size of a tree? According to its height? The diameter of its trunk? Scope of its crown? None of these is an absolute criterion, but when you see a large tree, you know what it’s like, and you hear: the wind’s noise is different and more pleasant than the sound it makes with the branches of its little brothers. And also feel, all the plants emit oxygen, freshness, various aromas. But the great trees also emit calm and confidence and a hard to contain pleasant surprise.

Image CC Dom Crossley