One of my mentors during my time in academia was a brilliant teacher, anthropologist and Hindu religion scholar who often dazzled us with stories of his diverse travels in Asia. He is an interesting and deeply knowledgeable man. Of his many tales none were more amazing than those dealing with his experiences traveling in and through the Himalayan mountains in Tibet.
Below is a BBC documentary looking at the flora and fauna of the most stunning mountain range in the world, the Himalayas. This 2000 mile mountain range is home to snow leopards, Himalayan wolves, Tibetan bears, and some of the most fascinating life-forms on this planet.
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4 comments:
reminds me of my old anthro prof:
http://www.theradicalhumanist.com/index.php?option=com_radical&controller=article&Itemid=56&cid=416&task=single
I had a Hindu religion scholar for a professor that used to tell stories like this, his name is Justin McDaniel. He entered a monastery instead of going to Harvard at 17. Then he went to Harvard at 19.
He asked me once when I was 18 if there was such thing as non-conceptual states of consciousness. I was deeply perplexed by the question. It led me to study philosophy, enter a monastery after college, and keep up on contemporary thought such as Archive Fire.
I agree that Merleau-Ponty is important. I also went to Ojai California to visit the Krishnamurti Center. I've thought a lot about several volumes of his complete works. Krishnamurti's 1980s discussions of the future of computers and genetic science are far-reaching. He thought the human brain needed to be re-designed.
Nice video, btw.
Cameron
Hey Cameron, been a long time.
I bet our former professors know each other.
"non-conceptual states of consciousness" is a very important topic for me. In fact, my own experiences of non-conceptual affectivity through illness, meditation and martial arts combat is at the core of my philosophical outlook.
Related to this, I think Merleau-Ponty is important because he opened the door wide for realist epistemologies by showed how pre-reflective perception has a visceral tangibility that a) limits the sovereignty of conceptual subjectivity, and b) grounds human inter-activity on a plane of immanent access. These two insights provide a way through correlationism and open up the possibility for all sorts of consequential (pragmatic) ontographic explorations.
I like Krishnamurti. That same professor introduced me to K’s teachings. We had many long talks about Vedanta and Buddhism and K and how they dealt with the problem of ego and pointed towards a dynamic monism. There is a profound wisdom to K’s teaching that helped me early in life let go of certain intellectual baggage and become more of a psychonaut. I especially enjoyed K’s dialogue with Bohm.
Thanks for reading and staying in touch.
Drop me a line some time at ambientdisorder[at]gmail[dot]com
With regard to MP above:
A = partiality
B = directness
Contra Harman, direct but partial interactions are a ubiquitous feature of the life of things.
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