The Sloww Sunday newsletter just hit issue #100!
Each highlight below links to the original newsletter issue where you can learn more.
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Sloww Sunday Summary: 100 Highlights from Newsletter Issues 51-100
🧠 Modern Knowledge
Nature & Biology:
1. Evolution isn’t the “March of Progress” (Issue #088):
“If you had to express it visually, the human story would probably look more like an incredibly complex tree or fractal.” — SciShow
2. What is Biomimicry? (Issue #056):
“The idea is that perhaps we should be looking at (our) biological elders—they have figured out how to create a sustainable world.” — Janine Benyus
3. The Uniqueness of Humans & Human Behavioral Biology (Issue #058 & Issue #098):
“I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.” — Robert Sapolsky
4. Making Your Own Meaning of Life (Issue #081):
“We don’t feel motivated to pass on our DNA. We have other goals which can be very moving, very important—they could even be called spiritual in some cases. We want to understand the riddle of the universe. We want to understand consciousness. We want to understand how the brain works … They are a far cry from the fundamental, biological goal which is the propagation of DNA. But, the machinery that enables us to set up these higher-level goals is originally programmed into us by natural selection.” — Richard Dawkins
The Body & The Brain:
5. The Regenerative Wisdom of The Body (Issue #062):
“There are hidden patterns in things that are not apparent until you look at them in the appropriate way.” — Michael Levin
6. The Divided Brain, Who Are We?, & The Matter With Things (Issue #051, Issue #061, Issue #074, & Issue #085):
“My thesis is that for us as human beings there are two fundamentally opposed realities, two different modes of experience; that each is of ultimate importance in bringing about the recognisably human world; and that their difference is rooted in the bihemispheric structure of the brain. It follows that the hemispheres need to co-operate, but I believe they are in fact involved in a sort of power struggle, and that this explains many aspects of contemporary Western culture.” — Iain McGilchrist
7. My Stroke of Insight & The Secret to Using Your Whole Brain (Issue #053 & Issue #070):
“I’m often asked: ‘How do I know which hemisphere I’m in at any moment?’ This is the litmus test: Our left brain would rather be right than happy, and our right brain would rather be happy than right. I wish for you the perfect balance … Our left brain offers us our individuality, while our right brain connects us with the consciousness of not only the collective whole of humanity but the vast expansive consciousness of the universe.” — Jill Bolte Taylor
Pair with: The Four Characters of Your Mind: “Whole Brain Living” by Jill Bolte Taylor (Book Summary)
8. You aren’t at the mercy of your emotions (your brain creates them) (Issue #100):
“(You) do not and cannot detect any emotion in anybody, ever … Emotions are not what we think they are. They are not universally expressed and recognized. They are not hardwired brain reactions … No brain on this planet contains emotion circuits … Emotions are guesses that your brain constructs in the moment where billions of brain cells are working together.” — Lisa Feldman Barrett
9. The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain (Issue #055):
“Consider that whole beautiful world around you, with all its colors and sounds and smells and textures. Your brain is not directly experiencing any of that. Instead, your brain is locked in a vault of silence and darkness inside your skull.” — David Eagleman
Intentional Living:
10. In Praise of Slowness (Issue #73):
“Sometimes it takes a wake-up call to alert us to the fact that we’re hurrying through our lives, instead of actually living them; that we’re living the fast life, instead of the good life.” — Carl Honoré
Pair with: 🔒How to Slow Down with “In Praise of Slowness” by Carl Honoré (+ Infographic)
11. Stressed Out? Try the 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise (Issue #77):
“The perfect breath is this: Breathe in for about 5.5 seconds, then exhale for 5.5 seconds. That’s 5.5 breaths a minute for a total of about 5.5 liters of air.” — James Nestor
12. What is Voluntary Simplicity? (Issue #73):
“The new roadmap says that there is something called ‘enough’ … Your ‘enough point’ is having everything you want and need, to have a life you love and full self-expression, with nothing in excess. It’s not minimalism. It’s not less is more (because sometimes more is more), but it’s that sweet spot or Goldilocks point … Once people start to pay attention to the flow of money and stuff in their lives in this way, their consumption drops by about 20-25% naturally because that’s the amount of unconsciousness that you have in your spending. So, when you become conscious, that falls away and many people say they don’t even know what they used to spend their money on.” — Vicki Robin
Pair with: A Deep Overview of “Voluntary Simplicity” by Duane Elgin (Book Summary)
13. Alone in the Wilderness (Issue #75):
“I suppose I was here because this was something I had to do—not just dream about it but do it. I suppose too I was here to test myself—not that I had never done it before but this time it was to be a more thorough and lasting examination. What was I capable of that I didn’t know yet?” — Richard Proenneke
14. The Hero’s Journey of Financial Independence (Issue #067):
“The work of existence is to metabolize the energy that’s coursing through you, and make it into something that you yourself deem as worthy. And, most often, it’s making a contribution in the lives of other people.” — Vicki Robin
Pair with: FIRE 101: A Beginner’s Guide to FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early)
15. Habit Building (Issue #052):
“One of the central things I talk about in Atomic Habits is the idea of starting with identity rather than results … Start with the identity you want to have or the lifestyle you want to live, and then start doing small habits that reinforce that identity.” — James Clear
Pair with: 🔒How to Build Effective Habits with “Atomic Habits” by James Clear (+ Infographics)
16. How to Optimize Your Life & Ancient Wisdom Book Summaries (Issue #079 & Issue #080):
“Start here. This is the best of what I know of ancient wisdom, modern science, practical tools. This is how we move from theory, to practice, to mastery. This is how we close the gap between who we’re capable of being and who we’re actually being … I playfully (emphasis on playfully) decided to give myself my own Ph.D. in Optimal Living—integrating ancient wisdom, modern science and practical tools across a range of domains (from nutrition and psychology to business and peak performance) to Optimize and actualize.” — Brian Johnson
Lifelong Learning:
17. The Idea of The Great Ideas (Issue #066):
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.” — Mortimer Adler
Pair with: 🔒How to Read Intelligently with “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler (+ Infographics)
18. The Computer is a Bicycle for the Mind (Issue #080):
“A human alone isn’t the most efficient natural creature, but nothing is more efficient than a human on a bicycle … We humans are tool builders. We can fashion tools that amplify these inherent abilities that we have to spectacular magnitudes. For me, a computer has always been a bicycle of the mind.” — Steve Jobs
19. An Introduction to Multidisciplinary Thinking, The Latticework, & How to Think not What to Think (Issue #059, Issue #092, & Issue #096):
“Why do you need to be multidisciplinary in your thinking? Because as the Japanese proverb says, ‘The frog in the well knows nothing of the mighty ocean.’ You may know everything there is to know about your specialty, your silo, your ‘well,’ but how are you going to make any good decisions in life—the complex systems of life, the dynamic system of life—if all you know is one well?” — Peter Kaufman
Pair with: Synthesizers: Why the Future Belongs to the Idea Connectors
20. Why Specializing Early Doesn’t Always Mean Career Success (Issue #066):
“The question I set out to explore was how to capture and cultivate the power of breadth, diverse experience, and interdisciplinary exploration, within systems that increasingly demand hyper-specialization, and would have you decide what you should be before first figuring out who you are.” — David Epstein
Pair with: 10 Insights to Inspire Your Inner Generalist from “Range” by David Epstein (Book Summary)
21. The Power of Polarities & Polarity Thinking instead of Polarization (Issue #060 & Issue #085):
“We are in an evolving universe of interdependency. Everyone belongs. We belong to our own sub-group, and we belong to the universe. When we can see a person more completely, we see them as part of the larger universe in which our interdependence exists. All of us are connected, and all of us are unique—a key polarity.” — Barry Johnson
Pair with: Polarity Thinking 101: An Introduction to the Power of Polarities (+ Visuals)
22. Supercharge Your Creativity with Janusian Thinking (Issue #067):
“Simultaneity of multiple opposites or antitheses is a cardinal feature of the janusian process.” — Albert Rothenberg
23. Seeing Whole Systems (Issue #084):
“Usually people describe emergence as ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ … The phrase is better translated as ‘the whole is other than the sum of its parts’ … Emergence is not going to be a theory of everything, but it could be a theory of everything in between.” — Nicky Case
24. The Beginning of Infinity & What is Truth? (Issue #068 & Issue #083):
“All progress, historically and today, comes from the quest for good explanations.” — David Deutsch
Mental Mastery:
25. The Backwards Law (or Law of Reversed Effort) (Issue #090):
“The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed. Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent Unknown Quantity may take hold. We cannot make ourselves understand; the most we can do is to foster a state of mind, in which understanding may come to us.” — Aldous Huxley
26. Building a Cognitive Immune System (Issue #099):
“One of the things that happens as people start to get the aspect of media literacy is that they get a memetic immune system—they see that the thing that’s being called ‘news’ and even a lot of what’s being called ‘communication of science’ is actually narrative and information warfare for specific economic or political agendas. And, they start to recognize the tools of that like cherry-picking of data, or decontextualization of a fact, or Lakoff framing the fact—all that will make it through a fact checker and you can still lie with that stuff.” — Daniel Schmachtenberger
Pair with: The Consilience Project 101: An Introduction to the Catalyzing of a Cultural Renaissance
27. The Psychology of Human Misjudgment (Issue #097):
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time—none, zero.” — Charlie Munger
28. 180+ Cognitive Biases Visualized (Issue #082):
I’m getting fairly deep into cognitive biases, fallacies, misjudgments, mental models, and more. The link above takes you to a visualization of 180+ cognitive biases—and each bias is linked to its Wikipedia page for quick access!
Pair with: 🔒Mental Mastery Cheatsheet: 500+ Cognitive Concepts Curated
29. Protecting Your Mind from Propaganda (Issue #087):
“When the dangers and mechanism of propaganda are made clear, it then becomes possible to reflect, ‘disengage,’ and reorient towards the informational environment in a new way.” — The Consilience Project
Pair with: 🔒The Consilience Project Synthesis: How to Think Clearly in the midst of Information Warfare
Human Development:
30. The Latest on Ego Development Theory (Issue #083):
“Mature integration as a human being entails an increasing capacity to notice ego’s workings … You have to develop a mature ego before you can transcend and let it go.” — Susanne Cook-Greuter
Pair with: An Intro to Ego Development Theory (EDT Summary) & Humanity’s Critical Evolution to the EDT “Watershed Stage”
31. What is Integral Theory?, 8 Perspectives You Can Take On Anything, & Making Sense of Everything with Integral Theory (Issue #064, Issue #071, & Issue #086):
“The Integral Approach involves the cultivation of body, mind, and spirit in self, culture, and nature … What if we took literally everything that all the various cultures have to tell us about human potential—about spiritual growth, psychological growth, social growth—and put it all on the table? … We have gone through incredible specialization and division of knowledge and the separation of fields … My one common theme in all 30 books I’ve written is there has to be an integral drive hidden in there somewhere. Evolution is a process of transcending and including … There is a drive toward an integral capacity in our world. And, that’s what I would simply like us to keep in mind.” — Ken Wilber
Pair with: An Intro to Integral Theory: “A Theory of Everything” by Ken Wilber (Book Summary)
32. What is Emotional Intelligence? (Issue #057):
“Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection—or compassionate action.” — Daniel Goleman
Pair with: What is Spiritual Intelligence? The Twenty-One Skills of “SQ21” by Cindy Wigglesworth (Book Summary)
Civilization Development:
33. What is the Mimetic Theory of Desire? (Issue #072):
“Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.” — René Girard
34. Is there a limit on meaningful relationships? (Issue #069):
“The single most important factor affecting your psychological health and well-being and your physical health and well-being—even how long you live into the future—is predicted by one thing and one thing only: the number of close friendships you have.” — Robin Dunbar (on Dunbar’s Number)
35. Steering Civilization Away from Self-Destruction (Issue #065):
“A good social system would be one where the organism of the individual and the organism of the group of individuals are synergistic to each other. So, what’s best for the individuals and what’s best for the whole are aligned.” — Daniel Schmachtenberger
Pair with: 🔒Daniel Schmachtenberger Synthesis: How to Think Holistically about Civilization
36. An Initiation to Game B (Issue #093):
“So what is GameB? First, it is not ‘GameA’ — the Western Civilization status quo. That’s a good start for those of us who find the status quo a grim place that seems headed for self-destruction. GameB is conceived of ‘What Comes Next’, the social operating system that replaces GameA … In short, the goal of GameB is a metastable society emphasizing human wellbeing built on good values that we will be happy to call home and we will be proud to leave to our descendants.” — Jim Rutt
37. Four Ways of Knowing the Meta-Crisis (Issue #095):
“We come to know who we are and what we most value by trying to bring about the world we want to live in.” — Jonathan Rowson
Pair with: A Crisis of Crises: What is the Meta-Crisis? (+ Infographics)
38. Resolving the Meta-Crisis With Emergent Movements (Issue #075):
“A good philosophy is like a good diet. A good diet requires good ingredients, good recipes, good balance … We need a post-consumerist philosophy of new ingredients, new recipes…” — Jacob Lund Fisker
☯️ Timeless Wisdom
Short Stories:
39. The Parable of the Tourist and the Fisherman (Issue #055):
“Then what?” — The Fisherman
Pair with: “Then what?” The Short Story of the Tourist and the Fisherman
40. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (Issue #053):
“Let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened.” — Plato (quoting Socrates)
Nature:
41. The Lottery of Birth (Issue #057):
“If we’re to get beyond our conditioning, we need to question the forces that have shaped us.” — Raoul Martinez
Pair with: The Lottery of Birth — All the Things You Don’t Control in Life
42. The Purpose of Being & The Power of Contribution (Issue #060 & Issue #065):
“In nature, every being contributes something to the ecosystem. Every species—in the long run—makes that ecosystem more alive than before … Over time, ecosystems tend toward more and more complexity, more and more biodiversity. They become more alive … As human beings, we are here to bring more life and beauty to the world.” — Charles Eisenstein
43. Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change (Issue #061):
“You have permission to be all of who you are … We can’t become all of who we are in the world if we don’t heal the illusion of separation that has been ingrained within us.” — Sherri Mitchell
44. Building a Modern Smart Village with Ancient Lessons (Issue #059):
“We’re just taking best practices from different industries and putting them together … One of the most interesting things is that we’re not inventing any of these components. We’re just putting them together in a creative way.” — Euvie Ivanova (Future Thinkers)
Philosophy:
45. Panta rhei (“everything flows” or “everything is in flux”) (Issue #099):
“Fire burns continuously and without interruption. It is therefore always consuming fuel and always liberating smoke. Everything is either mounting upwards to serve as fuel, or sinking downwards after having nourished the flame. It follows that the whole of reality is like an ever-flowing stream, and that nothing is ever at rest for a moment. The substance of the things we see is therefore in constant change. Even as we look at them, some of the matter of which they are composed has already passed into something else, while fresh matter has come into them from another source. This theory is usually summed up, appropriately enough, in the phrase ‘All things are flowing’ … ‘Nothing ever is, everything is becoming’; ‘All things are in motion like streams’; ‘All things are passing, and nothing abides.’” — John Burnet (1892)
46. Stoicism as a Philosophy for an Ordinary Life (Issue #052):
“For the Stoics, the best kind of human life you can actually have is one in which you apply your reason (your intelligence) to improve social living (to improve everybody else’s lives).” — Massimo Pigliucci
47. Learning Stoicism: A Systematic Approach to Stoic Praxis (Issue #069):
“I’d like to get to a point where we can truly upgrade our mental operating system by having a subsystem that is trained to varying levels of stress—to the point that when we get triggered, the Stoic subsystem can activate immediately and we can go through it and arrive at a healthy, wise, rational, response. That’s the ideal.” — Jon Brooks
48. Will Stoicism Save the World? (Issue #062):
“Philosophical Stoicism … ‘philosophy as a way of life’ that when embodied encourages one to live in accordance with nature (or be in the right relationship with reality).” — Peter Limberg
Spirituality:
49. The Zen Riddle No One Can Solve (Issue #064):
“Zen is not some fancy, special art of living. Our teaching is just to live, always in reality, in its exact sense.” — Shunryu Suzuki
Pair with: On Enlightenment: 3 Meanings of the “Chop Wood, Carry Water” Zen Quote
50.The Pathless Path (Issue #090):
“The pathless path is to realize an ever-deepening development process within the self-structure, and to simultaneously realize the emptiness of the self-structure. Samadhi is when the world that is constantly changing merges or unites with the changeless.” — Daniel Schmidt
51. The Four Noble Truths & The Noble Eightfold Path (Issue #094 & Issue #095):
“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves—slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
52. The Missing Ingredient in Spirituality is Critical Thinking (Issue #076):
“The missing ingredient is critical thinking. Developing critical thinking skills is important on the spiritual path. Many traditional teachers such as the Buddha and Shankara emphasized this, and themselves were sharp, precise critical thinkers … Experiencing subtler levels of creation requires a refined ability to discern reality from unreality. Failing to develop that ability can result in getting lost in imaginary realms and fanciful thinking, as we are now witnessing.” — Rick Archer
53. Science meets Spirituality & The Wisdom of David Bohm (Issue #051 & Issue #088):
“The individual is universal and the universal is the individual. The word ‘individual’ means undivided, so we could say that very few individuals have ever existed. We could call them dividuals. Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness.” — David Bohm
54. The Supreme Art of Living & Is it Possible to be Busy Without Getting Stressed? (Issue #100 & Issue #054):
“There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.” — Eckhart Tolle
Pair with: 🔒Eckhart Tolle Synthesis: How to Live a Life of Presence & Purpose with “The Power of Now” + “A New Earth”
55. WAKE UP, Rediscovering Life, & A Way to God for Today (Issue #077):
“I’ll promise you this: I have not known a single person who gave time to being aware who didn’t see a difference in a matter of weeks. The quality of their life changes, so they don’t have to take it on faith anymore. They see it; they’re different. They react differently. In fact, they react less and act more. You see things you’ve never seen before.” — Anthony de Mello
Pair with: 🔒How to Wake Up with “Awareness” by Anthony de Mello (+ 3 Infographics)
56. What it Means to Surrender, Ceasing to Be Caught in the Waters of Mind, & Giving Meaning To The Time Between Your Birth And Death (Issue #056, Issue #068, & Issue #070):
“Eventually, if you work enough on yourself, you’ll find that what’s happening is that you are resting on your mind like you would float on water … You are not your mind. You are resting on your mind. Therefore, you are experiencing the state of your mind … The key is you are you … the consciousness, the awareness of being, and you are resting on mind.” — Michael Singer
Pair with: 🔒How to Start Growing Spiritually with “The Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer (+ Infographic)
57. Happiness & Enlightenment, ‘I am’, Is the World Ready for Nonduality?, Where is this Spiritual Path Going?, & What is Enlightenment? (Issue #072, Issue #078, Issue #087, Issue #092, & Issue #096):
“Our world culture is ripe for this simple, direct understanding that needs no affiliation to any teacher or tradition, no special practices, no special language—just the clear, raw, unadorned truth … All that is necessary to understand is that happiness is the nature of being, and we share our being with everyone and everything. Now, who is not capable of understanding that? … We set up a goal to experience this marvelous experience that we have heard about or read about. Nothing could be further from the truth. Enlightenment, or awakening, is not an extraordinary, exotic experience. Indeed, it is not an experience at all. It is simply the recognition of the nature of our being which underlies and pervades all experience.” — Rupert Spira
Pair with: 🔒How to Be with “Being Myself” by Rupert Spira (+ Infographics)
The Art of Living (& Dying):
58. What is Wisdom? (Issue #074):
“Wisdom involves some transformation of our cognition that affords an improvement of our lives. It helps to reduce foolishness (frees us from ways our cognition is working against itself) and helps to afford flourishing (frees us to improve ways our cognition is working with itself).” — John Vervaeke
59. Demystifying Wisdom (Issue #082):
“I wanted to deconstruct wisdom, to establish a common understanding of its vital psychological ingredients, so it can be used for the common good … Central to wisdom are aspects of perspectival meta-cognition, which are grounded in moral aspirations and specific social-cultural contexts and experiences.” — Igor Grossmann
60. Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World (Issue #084):
“Every culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question. What does it mean to be human and alive? And when the peoples of the world answer that question, they do so in the 7,000 voices (languages) of humanity. Those answers collectively become our human repertoire for dealing with all of the challenges that will confront us as a species in the coming centuries. Every culture has something to say. Each deserves to be heard.” — Wade Davis
61. The Hero’s Journey, Left-Hand Path of Adventure, & Humanity’s New Myth (Issue #058, Issue #097, & Issue #063):
“The only myth that’s going to be worth thinking about in the immediate future is one that’s talking about the planet—not the city, not these people, but the planet—and everybody on it.” — Joseph Campbell
62. The Art of Effortless Action (Wu Wei) (Issue #079):
“Nothing is done because the doer has wholeheartedly vanished into the deed; the fuel has been completely transformed into flame. This ‘nothing’ is, in fact, everything. It happens when we trust in the intelligence of the universe in the same way that an athlete or a dancer trusts the superior intelligence of the body … This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can’t tell the dancer from the dance.” — Stephen Mitchell
Pair with: 10 Life-Transforming Themes & 25 Top Quotes from “Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tzu (Book Summary)
63. The 36 Stratagems (Issue #086):
“We are living on the battlefield of an information war … Peoples’ minds are the battlefield, the treasure that is trying to be achieved, and also the weapons.” — Daniel Schmachtenberger
64. Finding Something to Live and Die For (Issue #071):
“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life daily and hourly … Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” — Viktor Frankl
Pair with: 🔒How to Find Meaning in Life with “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl (+ 2 Infographics)
🤯 Mind Expanding
Universe:
65. A list of the largest cosmic structures so far discovered including superclusters, galaxy filaments, and large quasar groups (Issue #080)
66. The Milky Way like you’ve never seen it (Issue #054) & Hubble space images (Issue #078)
67. 94% of the galaxies we can see today have already passed the cosmological horizon and are lost to us forever (and if we were to colonize our cosmic backyard, it accounts for 0.00000000001% of the observable universe) (Issue #063)
68. The Northern Lights (aurora borealis) filmed in real-time 4K UHD (Issue #064)
69. The “double-slit experiment” is a 220-year-old experiment showing light as a wave and a particle (Issue #071)
Life:
70. The Great Tree of Life and what it takes for you to exist (Issue #058 & Issue #096)
71. 1,000 milestones in evolution and history (rescaled to a calendar year, starting with the big bang at 00:00:00 on 1 January, the Sun forms on 1 September, the Earth on 2 September, earliest signs of life appear on 13 September, earliest true mammals on 26 December, and humans just 2 hours before year’s end) (Issue #086)
72. All of Prehistory on a Log Scale (Issue #092)
73. The longest-running evolution experiment evolving E. coli for 70,000+ generations over the last 30+ years (Issue #066)
74. Michael Levin on the electrical blueprints that orchestrate life & bioelectric networks and collective intelligence of cells (Issue #060 & Issue #085)
75. Jan van IJken’s short film BECOMING showing an Alpine Newt in its transparent egg from the first cell division to hatching in microscopic detail (Issue #079)
76. This is us. What is nature trying to do with 8,000,000,000 human brains? (Issue #087 & Issue #100)
77. Videos of neurons in action (Issue #088)
78. 3D rendering of a eukaryotic cell (Issue #057)
79. Riccardo Sabatini on how to build a human being and visualizing the code of life (for the first time in history, the genome of a single human being was printed letter-by-letter and page-by-page—262,000 pages) (Issue #077)
80. A human has more in common with a fly than you may think (Issue #061)
81. “Dendrochronology” is the scientific method of dating tree rings (Issue #059)
82. “Defensive Activation Theory” is a hypothesis on the origin of REM sleep that says we dream (visual activity) so our brain doesn’t think we’re blind while we’re sleeping in the dark and start rewiring our visual cortex to our other senses (hearing, touch, etc) (Issue #065)
83. An evolutionary theory that the human taste mechanism has been calibrated not to notice the taste of water so it is optimally attuned to the taste of anything that might be polluting it (Issue #068)
Perspective:
84. 100+ billion humans have ever lived. You are 1 human with 1 percent of history. (Issue #099)
85. Joscha Bach & John Vervaeke on consciousness, idealism, computation, sentience, mind, self, qualia, dualism, skepticism, solipsism, ontology, physics, meaning, and more (Issue #093)
86. Sam McRoberts on the nature of reality from simulation theory, quantum physics, Everett’s Many Worlds hypothesis, The Mandela Effect, game design, philosophy, materialism, non-duality, panpsychism, religion, the idea of a creator, cause and effect, free will, and more (Issue #082)
87. Robert Sapolsky on free will being biology that just hasn’t been discovered yet (Issue #075)
88. Ken Wilber changing his brain waves on demand (Issue #078)
89. Paradoxes & thought experiments that no one can solve (Issue #076 & Issue #097)
90. Tyler Vigen’s Spurious Correlations shares fun visual charts to remind us all that correlation is not causation (Issue #091)
91. A visualization showing truth vs perspectives (Issue #062)
92. Two optical illusions that will make you question everything you ever see (Issue #098)
93. Rainmaker1973’s mind-blowing tweets that you need to see to believe (Issue #090)
94. Appreciating time through time-lapse videos (ant farms, mushrooms, sunflowers, forests, and cities) (Issue #081)
95. Cymatics is the study of sound and vibration made visible through matter (“seeing sound” or “visualizing vibration”) (Issue #070)
96. Neuralink showing a monkey playing video games with its mind (Issue #056)
97. “The Century of The Self” documentary features Edward Bernays (pioneer in propaganda, persuasion, and PR—and nephew of Sigmund Freud) and how psychoanalysis, marketing, and politics have been manipulating people for 100+ years (Issue #073 & Issue #074)
98. Awareness and understanding of memetics, memes, and meta-memes can help you build memetic immunity (Issue #083)
99. John Robbins walked away from his family’s billion-dollar ice cream business, Baskin-Robbins, to consciously choose integrity and simple living over family fortune (Issue #072)
100. Billionaire Chuck Feeney has donated more than $8 billion over the last 40 years and only kept about $2 million for him and his wife (in other words, he’s given away 375,000% more money than his current net worth) (Issue #067)
Learn anything new? What was your favorite? Where do you want me to explore more? Please let me know in the comments!
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