Episode #153: The Skeptiko Journey with Alex Tsakiris

Alex

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It was great hanging out with Russ and Kyle!

Episode #153: The Skeptiko Journey with Alex Tsakiris

The host of the excellent podcast Skeptiko, Alex Tsakiris, joins us for a wide-ranging conversation covering many topics from ancient aliens to the nature of consciousness to conspiracy to the question of evil. Alex has interviewed hundreds of researchers and scientists on his show in his quest to gain a better understanding about who we are and what we are "supposed" to be doing here in this existence, and his show has taken him on a path of "following the data" as much as possible to find answers to these questions, or at the very least, to find better questions to ask.
 
This was sheer delight., Alex. Bravo!

I do have a question about the Yuga theory, which was referred to at one point as an argument for incredibly old civilisations. I have studied this theory, and IMO it just doesn't hold water if meant literally, viz., as a view of a series of cycles in history (with the Golden Age following the Kali Yuga, then two others, and then back to Kali Yuga, the same 4 successive cycles always similar in nature.)

It is common to hear our era referred to as the Kali Yuga b/c it is so horrific, but IMO this is not usually meant literally.

I have never heard the Yuga theory used as supporting the thesis of amazingly ancient periods of human history.
 
This was sheer delight., Alex. Bravo!

I do have a question about the Yuga theory, which was referred to at one point as an argument for incredibly old civilisations. I have studied this theory, and IMO it just doesn't hold water if meant literally, viz., as a view of a series of cycles in history (with the Golden Age following the Kali Yuga, then two others, and then back to Kali Yuga, the same 4 successive cycles always similar in nature.)

It is common to hear our era referred to as the Kali Yuga b/c it is so horrific, but IMO this is not usually meant literally.

I have never heard the Yuga theory used as supporting the thesis of amazingly ancient periods of human history.
thx so much :)

I'm not super familiar with the Yuga theory and was actually hoping Russ would talk more about it but we were running out of time.
 
This is too long to listen in one go, but very interesting nonetheless.

Near the start there was a brief discussion about panspermia, and there seemed to be some agreement that this might imply that aliens would be similar to us. It seems to me that panspermia (a very materialistic theory), might imply that the bacteria in our guts would be similar to those in an alien, but larger organisms would have surely diverged. Bacteria might get thrown into space and survive a trip through space, but larger beings certainly would not survive any of it! Of course if there was a common set of designers.....

Then someone pointed out that the aliens people see with DMT are similar to those seen as extraterrestrials. Maybe chunks of independent consciousness running something in a DMT trip or running an alien would be very similar - maybe they just do both jobs!

I was intrigued by the comment from one of them, that he woke up in the ICU and wondered why he was back here!
It does suggest that a lot of things go on when an anaesthetic takes hold, but we forget it all!

I also very much liked the fact that they spoke clearly and earnestly - very little flippancy.

Lot's more to listen to.

David
 
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There is an excellent discussion starting at about 1:17, about the nature of ET. I will rewind it and listen again, but I'd really recommend people listen to that section - indeed listen to the whole thing!

Their website is elaborate but a bit frustrating. For example although there is a list of early podcasts here:

http://www.brothersoftheserpent.com/p/archived-episodes.html

This only seems to go to #070 and the latest episode - with Alex - is #153

This is very unfortunate because there seems to be some really good discussion to be had there.

David
 
I have studied this theory, and IMO it just doesn't hold water if meant literally, viz., as a view of a series of cycles in history (with the Golden Age following the Kali Yuga, then two others, and then back to Kali Yuga, the same 4 successive cycles always similar in nature.)

According to this site, here are the time frames associated with the yugas:

The precession (caused by gradual rotation of the Earth’s axis) of the equinoxes is the period of time that it takes the Earth’s axis to pass through
one complete cycle of the zodiac. It takes the planet 72 years to pass through one degree of the zodiac and 25,920 years to complete one full circle of 360 degrees. One half of the journey, either the descending or the ascending journey takes 12,960 years and in that time, each half will cover all the four yugas. Kali Yuga lasts 1296 years, Dwapara Yuga lasts 2592 years, double as many years as the Kali yuga, Treta Yuga lasts 3888 years, three times that of the Kali yuga and Satya Yuga lasts 5184 years, 4 times that of the Kaliyuga. These four yugas put together come to a total of 12,960 years. The two Kali yugas reach us one after the other because they appear at the top of the ellipse and hence the Satya yuga stretches for a period of 12,960 yrs.

and according to this astronomy site, this aligns with what people understand about earth planetary cycles:

What makes this complicated is that the North Pole is not always pointing in the same direction relative to the backdrop stars. Our planet spins like a top. And like a top, the Earth also wobbles! A wobbling Earth makes the North Pole trace out a circle on the celestial sphere. The wobble is quite slow, requiring 26,000 years to go around once. But, as the years go by, the effect accumulates.

There also seems to be a 12K year cyclical aspect to the sun, as outlined in this video:


Now, whether the solar cycle and the procession of the earth's axis on 12K 26K year cycles have a cause-effect relationship, I don't know; but it seems at least possible that they could be intersecting ~12,000 year cycles, which would kick up some pretty interesting cyclical dynamics, possibly aligning with the yuga cycle.
 
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This is too long to listen in one go, but very interesting nonetheless.

Near the start there was a brief discussion about panspermia, and there seemed to be some agreement that this might imply that aliens would be similar to us. It seems to me that panspermia (a very materialistic theory), might imply that the bacteria in our guts would be similar to those in an alien, but larger organisms would have surely diverged. Bacteria might get thrown into space and survive a trip through space, but larger beings certainly would not survive any of it! Of course if there was a common set of designers.....
glad you picked up on it because I thought this was a really interesting point also.

Not literally... Not like a direct connection... But more like a seems to fit kind of thing. I mean, if everyone in our galactic neighborhood is swapping coded rocks than maybe we should expect similarities.
 
there was an interesting moment in the conversation about memory and consciousness -- that memory may have a biological/mechanistic aspect, even if consciousness doesn't. I don't think i've ever heard that idea articulated before.

related: I posted this presentation (queued) by Monica Gagliano about plant intelligence (including memory) in a different area on the forum. Plants have memory (which appears to be sequences of biological reactions) and also possibly participate in extended ecosystem "awareness" through mycorrhizal networks (article, a la Andy Clark's "distributed cognition"). If we had a better understanding of how this all works among plants, what insights might that offer in terms of how memory and consciousness function for other life forms?

specifically re memory: one of the questions I've been pondering lately is: is it possible to remember something without a prompt or trigger? (i.e. does memory exist on its own or does it manifest only in response to something?)
 
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P.S. - re Bruce Fenton and the Africa vs. Australia question, you might enjoy this clip from a nat geo film about their Genographic Project.

 
there was an interesting moment in the conversation about memory and consciousness -- that memory may have a biological/mechanistic aspect, even if consciousness doesn't. I don't think i've ever heard that idea articulated before.

related: I posted this presentation (queued) by Monica Gagliano about plant intelligence (including memory) in a different area on the forum. Plants have memory (which appears to be sequences of biological reactions) and also possibly participate in extended ecosystem "awareness" through mycorrhizal networks (article, a la Andy Clark's "distributed cognition"). If we had a better understanding of how this all works among plants, what insights might that offer in terms of how memory and consciousness function for other life forms?

specifically re memory: one of the questions I've been pondering lately is: is it possible to remember something without a prompt or trigger? (i.e. does memory exist on its own or does it manifest only in response to something?)
great ponderings! I'm gonna file these away :)
 
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