Our spirits likely hang on to this world in some situations. Much like the Catholic notion of purgatory. Perhaps our prayers truly can help...

John posted this great comment a few days ago but Intense Debate screwed it up so I'm reposting his comment here,

"Outsourcing our attention to drugs like Ritalin and Adderal turns us into robots,"

Interesting. The question though, is that a bad thing? Like in Dune the guys that are super developed logical think tanks, that take a drug to obtain higher levels of logic capacity.

I agree that the using it as a crutch is poor... like weakness oriented (quick fix) vs developing myself to focus the way I want to when I want. But... who knows, maybe supplementing later on? A pill you would take to become enlightened... would you want to? The question that comes up as I write is, are these things more than just the body. Are they more in the spirit realm? They do say though, as the body so the mind, and as the mind so the body... so maybe if you took a pill that created the effects of enlightenment... it would have the same effect on the soul/mind/spirit?

On the emotional side of things, I know that utilitarian philosophers are crazy left minded, while at the same time extremely ethical. I don't think that the emotional leaning necessarily means that you are ethical.

The book Liars Poker kind of outlines the culture created in wall street that lead us to where we are, and they were all very very emotional, just horribly ethically and morally bound. Basically they didn't think there was anything outside of themselves.. like no empathy, and very low level consciousness as according to Ken Wilber. Red level or something.

I definitely hear you on the information overload... and thats interesting on the email, and doing a stress inducing pattern as you read.

Dude, your post has a beard. I laughed when I saw it.

Great article.
John

You should start out with Philosophy of Freedom or Gary Lachman's Rudolph Steiner, both make great introductions.

You can get a nice WebDomain through GoDaddy.com, if you need help, let me know.

String theory isn't directly related to Gaia theory but receives far more media attention, scientific community attention and funding than a theory like Gaia theory that has immediate implications for human survival.

The incident at Chernobyl has definitely caused serious problems for the land surrounding it, but an accident like that will never happen again. Modern fission reactor control systems are designed to shut everything down. The moderator in the reactor at Chernobyl accelerated the reaction, in US systems the moderator will slow the reaction. For more on CO2 emissions follow Anthony Watts' blog linked to above.

Many have tried to communicate with celestial bodies, with little solid evidence. However, if the Earth is "alive" that leaves room for other levels of consciousness to be explored. Being alive and conscious are two different things. Are we the Earth's consciousness?

EconTalk maybe? http://econtalk.org

That's a perspective you won't see anywhere else! A CLT Blog exclusive

we'll be couchsurfing in the cities and camping in the national parks, might even extend it out to 18 days so we can do more hiking in yellowstone/glacier/banff/jasper

Excellent points. Burning Man would likely be something to do next summer but working it into a trip like this is pushing it just over the top. Plus the $300 would be out of my budget at this point.

However, after some discussion I'm probably not doing a UHaul trailer. I'm planning to pack everything in freight, it can be as cheap as $350 to move across country. Besides, who wants to deal with a big trailer when driving along narrow mountain roads?

Riverbend Steam Station and Buck Steam Station in Spencer are amazing pieces of history.

On the top level of Riverbend, there is an old room made out of old, rich wood. It's where teams of workers spent their days moving coal from bins into a moving belt. It was like I could feel the sacrifices made by those people. Industrial society has a dirty history but I was truly in awe standing in that place, contemplating the sacrifices those people made.

Duke's hydro stations are even older, like Ninety-Nine Islands in SC which went online in 1910, http://www.flopeye.net/story.htm

The company relied on hydro until the mid-50s when air conditioners became the norm. That's when Duke transitioned from being a hydro company to a fossil company.