Tim Ferriss: depression, psychedelics, and emotional …

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I couldnt think of a better guest to kick this thing off. Tim is not only one of my closest friends, but also is the one who most persistently encouraged me to launch a podcast.

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In this episode, Tim talks both experientially and from his own deep dive into the literature of psychedelics and mental health. Tim is shifting his focus from investing in startups to funding experiments that he hopes will establish more reliable knowledge and therapeutic options for those suffering from anxiety, depression, and addiction.

If this topic even remotely interests you, I cant recommend Tims podcast with Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind, enough. (You should definitely read Pollans book as well.) Even if youve never had any exposure to psychedelics or their potential applications, I think youll find this subject matter really interesting, and I was very grateful for Tim to be so open and honest about his experiences.

Tim also shared his short list of acquired wisdom he returns to most reliably, which might be worth the price of admission alone.

What its like living in Austin. [01:00]

The differences between lifespan and healthspan. [08:00]

During childhood and adolescence, Tim believed he was not designed to be happy. [09:30]

Tims TED Talk and his close call with suicide. [11:15]

Why Tim wants to focus on discussing different facets of mental health on a first-hand basis. [15:15]

Whats the type of thinking that triggers Tims downward spirals? [17:15]

Why Tims changed his focus from investing in startups to investing in mental health. [18:00]

How self-talk can be your best friend or worst enemy. [20:00]

Why Tim thinks everyone, including Type A personalities, should try meditation. [23:00]

Why men, in general, are bad at dealing with depression. [31:00]

Peters (newly) most-gifted book, which is related to men and depression (I Dont Want To Talk About It by Terrence Real). (Peters previous #1 book: Mistakes Were Made [but not by me] by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.) [32:45]

The benefits and drawbacks of self-talk. [35:00]

The need to treat ourselves as well as we treat others. Its womens version of the Golden Rule. Gloria Steinem [37:00]

How a couple of Tims podcasts (The Psychedelic Explorers Guide Risks, Micro-Dosing, Ibogaine, and More and Are Psychedelic Drugs the Next Medical Breakthrough? made Peter aware of the effectiveness of plants to treat patients. [38:30]

Peters first experience with psilocybin. [40:30]

What started Tims interest in psychedelics? [41:30]

Tims transformative experience with ayahuasca. [48:45]

How Tims experience and research led him to focus on furthering the science of psychedelics and mental health. [53:00]

How do you explain the ineffability of psychedelic experiences? [57:00]

What is ego dissolution, and how do you explain it? [1:00:00]

What are some of the meditation modalities, and meditation apps out there? Why can meditation be so hard to do, but worthwhile to stick with? [1:13:00]

Tim notes, The consistent program that you follow is better than the perfect program that you quit. [1:26:30]

Why has Tim made a big commitment (more than $1 million) to funding scientific research, and to psilocybin and MDMA research, in particular? [1:31:00]

The story of Katharine McCormick and the birth control pill, and what a small number of committed people can do to change the course of history. [1:34:30]

Why the FDA granted MDMA-assisted psychotherapy breakthrough therapy designation (which could expedite approval) for the treatment of PTSD, and how a Phase 3 clinical trial is in motion. [1:43:43]

Ibogaine and the treatment of opiate addiction. [1:48:30]

What is the Default Mode Network (DMN), how does it relate to mental health, and how do psychedelic compounds affect the DMN? [1:49:30]

Image credit: Homological scaffolds of brain functional networks (Petri et al., 2014)

Heres Michael Pollan explaining the DMN, and the side-by-side images in figure above, in How To Change Your MindIn a 2014 paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, the Imperial College team demonstrated how the usual lines of communications within the brain are radically reorganized when the default mode network goes off-line and the tide of entropy is allowed to rise. Using a scanning technique called magnetoencephalography, which maps electrical activity in the brain, the authors produced a map of the brains internal communications during normal waking consciousness and after an injection of psilocybin (shown [above]). In its normal state, shown on the left, the brains various networks (here depicted lining the circle, each represented by a different color) talk mostly to themselves, with a relatively few heavily trafficked pathways among them.

But when the brain operates under the influence of psilocybin, as shown on the right, thousands of new connections form, linking far-flung brain regions that during normal waking consciousness dont exchange much information. In effect, traffic is rerouted from a relatively small number of interstate highways onto myriad smaller roads linking a great many more destinations. The brain appears to become less specialized and more globally interconnected, with considerably more intercourse, or cross talk, among its various neighborhoods.

How MDMA, in the right setting, may help us clean up a very messy experience that did a lot of damage, Tim says. To help people to heal themselves in nonverbal ways. This is really key. Its very hard for people to talk their way out of something that they didnt talk their way into. [1:53:30]

Why has ibogaine gained the least traction in the US for treatment of opiate addiction? [2:00:00]

Tims first-hand experience with opiate addiction and overdoses. [2:06:30]

Unhappiness may be the single most important problem plaguing our civilization, and there are compounds that may be part of the solution. Is progress being made in terms of pushing through research and application? [2:13:30]

What does it take to reschedule a drug? [2:16:30]

The non-addictive potential of psychedelics. Food vs cocaine vs psilocybin. [2:18:00]

How Solve for Happy by Mo Gawdat has jumped into the #2 spot for most-gifted books from Peter. [2:23:50]

Peters most gifted or recommended books:

Tims most gifted or recommended books:

Was there anything not in Pollans book that Tim would have added? [2:25:00]

How Peter is very proud to be one of the Biggest Tools and where people can find Egg Boxing. [2:31:00]

From all the habits and tools that Tim has learned, what are the 3-5 things that he returns to most reliably? [2:33:00]

What advice would Tim give to his 20- or 30-year-old self? [2:36:00]

Tim Ferriss has been listed as one of Fast Companys Most Innovative Business People and one of Fortunes 40 under 40. He is an early-stage technology investor/advisor (Uber, Facebook, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ others) and the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, including The 4-Hour Workweek and Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers. The Observer and other media have called Tim the Oprah of audio due to the influence of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, which is the first business/interview podcast to exceed 200 million downloads.

Tim on Facebook: Tim Ferriss

Tim on Instagram: @timferriss

Tim on Twitter: @tferriss

Tims website: tim.blog

Tims podcast: tim.blog/podcast

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Tim Ferriss: depression, psychedelics, and emotional ...

How to Access the Deep Web [Best Guide] using Tor Browser

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Before stepping into the explanation of this topic, you need to have some knowledge about the Deep Web and Tor. I guess you know something but if you dont, then never mind. Im here to help you out. Read my complete article to know the importance of the Tor while you surf the Deep Web.

The information that I discussed here is only apart of the deep web. There is a more stuff available that you can dig from the underground universe.Well, you can get everything from this article. Read the below-specified article to dig the underworld universe of Deep Web.

Must Read:

There is no way you can skip these above-mentioned articles. If you do so, then you might miss something that is hidden in the Underworld universe. I guess you have learned a lot about the deep web. Now, its the perfect time to switch the topic to Tor.

Expert Recommendation:Using Tor is secure but that isnt enough. You need ultra protection that is possible only if you combine both the Tor and the VPN. You are being watched while you surf on the deep web, I strongly recommend you to protect your information using NordVPN for added security. Also, compare the other VPN service.

Unless you are connected with VPN service, you are not safe. Take action to prevent. Be secured.

You might have known about the Tor but have you come across the advantage and disadvantage of using it. If not, then read this article.

Finally, I ended up my explanation on the topic The Deep Web and Tor. Now, you can easily learn to access the deep web using Tor.

It is quite easy for me to guide you on this topic. You dont need to do anything. Just follow my instruction to access the deep web using Tor browser.

Step 1: To access the deep web, you need to have a Tor browser on your system.

Step 2: First, Download Tor.

Step 3: After downloading the Tor bundle, you needto install them on your system.

Step 4: Click to open the downloaded file to start the installation process.

Step 5: Follow the installation guide to complete the process.

Step 6: Once you have installed Tor, open it.

Step 7: Now, you can securely access the deep web using Tor browser.

Its done. This is how you can access the deep web using Tor browser. I guess this isnt enough for you. You need an installation guidance of Tor browser. Check this out.

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How to Access the Deep Web [Best Guide] using Tor Browser

NASA Learns More About Interstellar Visitor ‘Oumuamua

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In November2017, scientists pointed NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope toward the object knownas 'Oumuamua- the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system. The infraredSpitzer was one of many telescopes pointed at 'Oumuamua in the weeks after itsdiscovery that October.

'Oumuamua wastoo faint for Spitzer to detect when it looked more than two months after theobject's closest aproach to Earth in early September. However, the "non-detection"puts a new limit on how large the strange object can be. The results arereported in a new study published today in the Astronomical Journal andcoauthored by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,California.

Scientists have concluded that vents on the surface of 'Oumuamua must have emitted jets of gases, giving the object a slight boost in speed, which researchers detected by measuring the position of the object as it passed by Earth in 2017. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Larger view

The new size limitis consistent with the findings of a research paper published earlierthis year, which suggested that outgassing was responsible for theslight changes in 'Oumuamua's speed and direction as it was tracked last year:The authors of that paper conclude the expelled gas acted like a small thrustergently pushing the object. That determination was dependent on 'Oumuamua beingrelatively smaller than typical solar system comets. (The conclusion that'Oumuamua experienced outgassing suggested that it was composed of frozen gases,similar to a comet.)

"'Oumuamuahas been full of surprises from day one, so we were eager to see what Spitzer mightshow," said David Trilling, lead author on the new study and a professorof astronomy at Northern Arizona University. "The fact that 'Oumuamua wastoo small for Spitzer to detect is actually a very valuable result."

'Oumuamua wasfirst detected by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS 1 telescope onHaleakala, Hawaii (the object's name is a Hawaiian word meaning "visitorfrom afar arriving first"), in October 2017 while the telescope wassurveying for near-Earth asteroids.

Subsequent detailedobservations conducted by multiple ground-based telescopes and NASA's HubbleSpace Telescope detected the sunlight reflected off 'Oumuamua's surface. Largevariations in the object's brightness suggested that 'Oumuamua is highly elongatedand probably less than half a mile (2,600 feet, or 800 meters) in its longestdimension.

But Spitzertracks asteroids and comets using the infrared energy, or heat, that they radiate,which can provide more specific information about an object's size than opticalobservations of reflected sunlight alone would.

The fact that'Oumuamua was too faint for Spitzer to detect sets a limit on the object's totalsurface area. However, since the non-detection can't be used to infer shape, thesize limits are presented as what 'Oumuamua's diameter would be if it werespherical. Using three separate models that make slightly different assumptionsabout the object's composition, Spitzer's non-detection limited 'Oumuamua's "sphericaldiameter" to 1,440 feet (440 meters), 460 feet (140 meters) or perhaps aslittle as 320 feet (100 meters). The wide range of results stems from theassumptions about 'Oumuamua's composition, which influences how visible (or faint)it would appear to Spitzer were it a particular size.

Small but Reflective

The new studyalso suggests that 'Oumuamua may be up to 10 times more reflective than the cometsthat reside in our solar system - a surprising result, according to the paper'sauthors. Because infrared light is largely heat radiation produced by"warm" objects, it can be used to determine the temperature of acomet or asteroid; in turn, this can be used to determine the reflectivity ofthe object's surface - what scientists call albedo. Just as a dark T-shirt in sunlightheats up more quickly than a light one, an object with low reflectivity retainsmore heat than an object with high reflectivity. So a lower temperature means ahigher albedo.

A comet'salbedo can change throughout its lifetime. When it passes close to the Sun, acomet's ice warms and turns directly into a gas, sweeping dust and dirt off thecomet's surface and revealing more reflective ice.

'Oumuamua hadbeen traveling through interstellar space for millions of years, far from anystar that could refresh its surface. But it may have had its surface refreshed throughsuch "outgassing" when it made an extremely close approach to our Sun,a little more than five weeks before it was discovered. In addition to sweepingaway dust and dirt, some of the released gas may have covered the surface of'Oumuamua with a reflective coat of ice and snow - a phenomenon that's alsobeen observed in comets in our solar system.

'Oumuamua ison its way out of our solar system - almost as far from the Sun as Saturn'sorbit - and is well beyond the reach of any existing telescopes.

"Usually,if we get a measurement from a comet that's kind of weird, we go back andmeasure it again until we understand what we're seeing," said DavideFarnocchia, of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at JPL and acoauthor on both papers. "But this one is gone forever; we probably knowas much about it as we're ever going to know."

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA'sScience Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted atthe Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena, California. Spacecraftoperations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Littleton,Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at IPAC atCaltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Spitzer, visit:

https://spitzer.caltech.edu

https://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

News Media Contact

2018-262

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NASA Learns More About Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua

Against Pantheism Undivided Looking – Wall

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In the comment mines I suggested, off-handedly, three possible metaphysical explanations for consciousness, without endorsing any of them.

A reader John responds to one of these suggestions:

To my primitive mind, this seems to be the most valid argument:

3. In fact, it is not possible to explain consciousness from nonconscious entities. Therefore, the most fundamental thing in existence is a mind, and we are parts of that mind. Matter is just a delusion which this mind believes in for some unknown reason. (I don't find this view plausible at all, but that's not the point.)

This is a longstanding view from oriental philosophy, and it intrigues me why you don't find it plausible.

Thanks for your comment. My main reason for finding this type of Pantheistic/Idealistic view implausible are these:

1. Matter sure seems like something with a real, consistent, and objective nature, quite unlike a dream. For example, when I wake up my furniture and stuff is always in more or less the same place. There are trees by the road whether or not I care for them to be there. As a physicist I can make precise models of how matter will behave under certain circumstances, and in fact it does those things. It does not consult my wishes except when I act on it using my body, and even then things do not always go according to plan.

Matter is a very parsimonious explanation of practically every experience I have. So considering it a delusion seems unjustified. And even if matter were a illusion, it must still exist as an illusion; if I hallucinate a blue tiger, there may not be a real tiger in the room but there is still a real image in my mind. So saying matter is an illusion doesn't actually reduce the number of entities which need to be explained! Actually it makes things worse, because I cannot think of any reason why God would have the type of schizophrenia required to think he is multiple persons living in a common environment. Nor can in turn be an illusion that I suffer from illusions, since that would be a logical contradiction.

(Speaking very broadlysince there are many varieties of Hinduism and Buddhisma lot of these oriental philosophies don't really believe in logic in the first place, or only use it to argue for contradictions, so that we give up our dualistic forms of logic. But I could never accept that perspective on logic in a million years---there is literally nothing more illogical than denying the validity of logic! I refuse to be insane.)

2. If we define God as the ultimate explanation for the Universe, which cannot itself be explained, then to say that everything is God is to say that nothing at all can be explained. But if a view explains nothing, it is less good than a view which explains, well, anything! I touched on this point in my discussion of Pantheism in my series on Fundamental Reality.

3. The actual Creator of the universe has spoken to me both in the Bible and in personal conversation, and he does not seem to regard other people as as part of himself in the requisite fashion. To Moses, he says "I am who I am" (Exodus 3:16), not "I am who you are". In fact he seems to disapprove of a number of specific things which human beings dowe Christians call these things "sin". And as I have argued, if God is good and we are not, then it follows that we are not God. To think that we are parts of God might be gratifying to our pride, but it is more wholesome to realize we are not God, and instead accept that we are created beings loved by him. As St. Chesterton said:

I want to love my neighbour not because he is I, but precisely because he is not I. I want to adore the world, not as one likes a looking-glass, because it is one's self, but as one loves a woman, because she is entirely different. If souls are separate love is possible. If souls are united love is obviously impossible. A man may be said loosely to love himself, but he can hardly fall in love with himself, or, if he does, it must be a monotonous courtship. If the world is full of real selves, they can be really unselfish selves. (Orthodoxy, "The Romance of Orthodoxy")

Only in the case of one human being did God identify himself so fully with him, as to allow him to share completely in his divine titles and identity. And Jesus was no ordinary human, what with being the Word of God, who pre-existed with him from the beginning! If we were divine beings, we would know it.

True, by receiving the gift of Jesus's Spirit, we do become by grace "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). But this is not the same as being the unique and uncreated Son of God. To be commune with God is not the same as to be God.

So it's important for the distinction between the Creator and created to be sharply distinguished from the beginning. Once that's 100% clear, we can allow the mystics the liberty to speak the "language of love" concerning the intimate union between themselves and God, without fear of being misunderstood. I could say to my wife that I am part of her and she is part of me, without either of us thinking that we must be the same person in a literal sense.

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Against Pantheism Undivided Looking - Wall

Synopsis of the Plot of Atlas Shrugged

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Author of Plot Synopsis:Robert James Bidinotto

Atlas Shrugged is structured in three major parts, each of which consists of ten chapters. The parts and chapters are named, and the titles typically suggest multiple layers of meaning and implication.

The three parts of the book are each named in tribute to Aristotle's laws of logic.

Part One is titled "Non-Contradiction," and appropriately, the first third of the book confronts two prominent business executives, Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden and the reader with a host of seeming contradictions and paradoxes with no apparently logical solutions.

Part Two, titled "Either-Or," focuses on Dagny Taggart's struggle to resolve a dilemma: either to continue her battle to save her business or to give it up.

Part Three is titled "A Is A," symbolizing what Rand referred to as "the Law of Identity" and here, the answers to all the apparent contradictions finally are identified and resolved by Dagny and Rearden, and also for the reader.

The tale is told largely from the point of view of Dagny, the beautiful, superlatively competent chief of operations for the nation's largest railroad, Taggart Transcontinental. The main story line is Dagny's quest to understand the cause underlying the seemingly inexplicable collapse of her railroad and industrial civilization and simultaneously, her tenacious, desperate search for two unknown men: one, the inventor of an abandoned motor so revolutionary that it could have changed the world; the other, a mysterious figure who, like some perverse kind of Pied Piper, seems purposefully bent on luring away from society its most able and talented people an unseen destroyer who, she believes, is "draining the brains of the world."

A major subplot follows steel titan Hank Rearden in his spiritual quest to understand the unknown forces that are undermining his career and happiness, and turning his talents and energies toward his own destruction.

In the shoes of Dagny and Rearden, we gradually learn the full explanation behind the startling events wreaking havoc in their world. With them, we come to discover that all the mysteries and strange events of the story proceed from a single philosophical cause and that Ayn Rand poses a provocative philosophical remedy for many of the moral and cultural crises of our own world.

The time is the late afternoon of September 2. The place: New York City. But it's not quite New York City as we know it.

It's a city in the final stages of decay. The walls of skyscrapers, which once towered sharp-edged and clean into space, are cracked, soot-streaked, and crumbling. Hundreds of storefronts, even on once-prosperous Fifth Avenue, are boarded up and empty. Along the littered sidewalks, street lights are out, windows are broken, and beggars haunt the shadows.

Eddie Willers walks these desolate streets, feeling a sense of dread he can't explain. Perhaps it's the newspapers, which are filled with ominous stories. Factories are closing and the nation's industrial infrastructure is falling apart. The federal government is assuming dictatorial emergency powers. Meanwhile, rumors circulate about a mysterious modern pirate ship on the high seas, which sinks government relief vessels...

As Eddie approaches the Taggart Transcontinental Building headquarters of the great railway system where he works as Dagny Taggart's assistant he ponders the system's latest train wreck...the steady decline of its shipping business...and the puzzling loss of its last workers of competence and ability. In fact, these days it seems that everywhere, the great scientists, engineers, and businessmen are either retiring, or simply vanishing...

Abruptly, a beggar steps from a darkened doorway and asks for spare change. As Eddie digs through his pockets, the beggar shrugs in resignation, and mutters a popular slang expression. It's a phrase whose origins no one knows, but which somehow seems to summarize all the feelings of pain, fear, and guilt now gripping the world. The beggar's words give voice to Eddie's own mood of dread and despair:

"Who is John Galt?"

These words from the nameless beggar to Eddie open the first chapter, and also close it hinting at the basic mystery of the plot. Only at the end of the novel do we realize that the reasons for the disintegrating world, for the disappearing men of ability, and for the motives of men such as the story's villains, all lie in the answer to that single question: "Who is John Galt?"

We meet Dagny Taggart en route to New York by train. She is roused from sleep by the sound of a young brakeman whistling a compelling tune. When she asks about it, he replies casually that it's Richard Halley's Fifth Piano Concerto. She is startled: she knows that Halley had quit composing and mysteriously dropped out of sight after writing only four concertos. She confronts the brakeman on this, and he abruptly reverses himself, saying he misspoke; but Dagny senses that he's trying to hide something.

She returns to her office, the battleground where she is fighting to save the family business that her brother, system president James Taggart, seems hell-bent on destroying. Like the rest of industrial society, her railroad is falling apart as its most talented and able men inexplicably quit and disappear. But while Dagny struggles to salvage dying branches of the crumbling system, from Jim she gets only a bewildering evasiveness, a whining resentment of decision-making responsibility, and furtive hostility toward men of achievement. Over Jim's heated objections, Dagny decides to replace the crumbling Colorado track with new rail made from Rearden Metal, Hank Rearden's untested but revolutionary new alloy. At day's end, she receives an appointment from one of the system's most promising young men, Owen Kellogg. He surprises her by quitting, without explanation, despite her offer to promote him to head the Ohio division. Asked why, he answers only, "Who is John Galt?"

On a deserted road, Hank Rearden walks home from work on the day he has just poured the first heat of Rearden Metal. In his pocket is a chain bracelet the first thing ever made from the Metal: a gift for his wife, Lillian.

Rearden is serenely confident in his work, but bewildered by the irrationality of people around him. When he gives Lillian his gift, she and his family mock it as an act of selfishness. This response is nothing new: though dependent on him economically, his family constantly belittle his achievements and values. Yet Rearden silently tolerates their hostility. We are left wondering exactly who is chained to whom, and why.

As he ponders the mystery of his family, family friend Paul Larkin warns him vaguely, almost apologetically, about the loyalty of his Washington lobbyist, Wesley Mouch. Rearden wonders what Larkin is driving at. Unknown to Dagny and Rearden, James Taggart has been conspiring with Mouch, Larkin, and rival steel company president Orren Boyle, to use their political pull to pass laws that will crush a competing regional railroad in Colorado, and eventually cripple Rearden's steel operations as well.

The destruction of the regional railroad forces Colorado oil man Ellis Wyatt, whose oil fields fuel the nation, to ship with Taggart Transcontinental instead. But the Colorado line of Taggart system is in total disrepair. Wyatt issues Dagny an angry ultimatum: either be ready to handle all his freight within nine months, or face economic ruin. "If I go," he vows, "I'll make sure that I take all the rest of you along with me."

Enter Francisco d'Anconia, the brilliant, spectacularly successful owner of the d'Anconia Copper company, and Dagny's former lover. Years before, he had abruptly ended their relationship without explanation. Then newspapers began to report that the incomparable creative genius that she'd once loved had become an irresponsible international playboy.

When Mexico suddenly nationalizes Francisco's copper mines, everyone is stunned to learn that they were empty of copper and utterly worthless. Knowing that Francisco would never make a poor investment, Dagny suspects that he had concocted the whole debacle. When she challenges him about it, Francisco gaily confirms that he had expected the nationalization and had consciously let himself lose millions, simply in order to ruin his major investors, including Jim Taggart and Orren Boyle. He adds, without elaboration, that his ultimate target for ruin is Dagny herself.

At a wedding anniversary party for Rearden and his wife, a pack of prominent intellectuals invited by Lillian loudly damns all the values and virtues that Hank Rearden embodies: reason, independence, self-interest, and pride in productive achievement. Only Francisco d'Anconia, the contemptible playboy, dares to approach Rearden respectfully and thank him for those virtues. Rearden is mystified yet privately grateful.

When Rearden refuses to sell all rights to Rearden Metal to the State Science Institute, they retaliate with a public statement questioning the safety of the metal. This causes work on the Colorado rail line to grind to a halt. Dagny implores renowned physicist Dr. Robert Stadler, who heads the Institute, to retract the indefensible statement. But Stadler refuses, fearing that a public reversal would put his Institute in a bad light. "What can you do when you have to deal with people?" he says.

To justify his cynicism, he tells her about his three most promising students years ago, when he taught physics at Patrick Henry University. One, Ragnar Danneskjold, became a pirate who robs government relief ships. A second, Francisco d'Anconia, became a worthless playboy. And the third dropped out of sight, not even making a name for himself; but before leaving, damned Stadler for launching the State Science Institute.

To continue work, Dagny forces Jim to temporarily "sell" her their Colorado branch line as separate company. She names it "The John Galt Line," in defiance against the widespread despair that the popular catch-phrase symbolizes. However, without warning, the conspirators' secret machinations result in a new antitrust law that forces Rearden to surrender ownership of many of his subsidiaries, including his ore mines.

Still, despite enormous opposition and obstacles, Dagny and Rearden complete the John Galt Line before the deadline Ellis Wyatt had given them. To prove the safety of Rearden Metal, they ride in the locomotive on the first run to Colorado. As the train speeds triumphantly across America, the two silently share their victory over years of adversity and irrationality. And with each passing mile, the undercurrent of sexual tension grows between them.

That night, at Ellis Wyatt's home, Rearden's wall of reserve finally cracks, and the two begin a secret, passionate affair. But Dagny is disturbed by Rearden's derisive comments about their immorality. His words suggest an inner conflict yet to be resolved.

They decide to take a vacation together. Driving through Wisconsin towns that have reverted to preindustrial primitiveness, they happen upon the empty ruins of the 20th Century Motor Company a once successful factory that had been destroyed by worthless heirs who implemented a socialistic pay scheme. There Dagny makes a startling discovery: a few remnants of a revolutionary motor that had once converted static atmospheric electricity for human use. But there's no clue as to its inventor, how his machine worked or why he would have abandoned so monumental an invention.

Upon their return to New York, they find that political pressure groups are clamoring for even more laws to punish success and productivity. While Rearden works feverishly to get the ore he needs, Dagny begins a private search around the country for the inventor of the motor. The trail from the 20th Century Motor Company leads her from one parasitical heir to another, until she learns that the inventor had been the brilliant young assistant of the factory's chief engineer. But she can't learn his name.

In despair, she enters a local diner, where she is amazed to find Dr. Hugh Akston a once-great philosopher at Patrick Henry University flipping hamburgers. He refuses to explain why he left his profession, or his current presence in so lowly a job. He also admits that he knows who invented the motor, but refuses to reveal his name. Instead, he tells Dagny that while she won't find him, someday he will find her.

Akston who, like Stadler, had taught Francisco and Ragnar Danneskjold at Patrick Henry University concludes by giving her the same advice that Francisco once had: if she finds it inconceivable that such a motor would be abandoned, or that a great philosopher would work in a diner, she should remember that contradictions can't exist in nature and that she should therefore check her premises. "You will find that one of them is wrong."

Returning to New York, Dagny learns of a new series of dictatorial directives. These limit companies' productive output to the average of their competitors, order them to provide all consumers "a fair share" of their products on demand, forbid them permission to relocate, and outlaw quitting one's job. A heavy new tax is placed on Colorado industries in order to help needier states. These directives will cripple Taggart Transcontinental, rob Hank Rearden and the bondholders of the John Galt Line, but she realizes with horror destroy Ellis Wyatt.

Dagny remembers Wyatt's grim ultimatum and races by train to try to reach him. But she arrives to find the fields of Wyatt Oil ablaze and Wyatt's handwritten message:

"I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours."

In the wake of the new directives, the nation's oil industry has collapsed, and like Wyatt, many other Colorado industrialists vanish.

Dagny meets again with Stadler, asking him to read the fragmentary notes left behind by the inventor of the motor in order to try to learn his identity. Stadler is amazed but angry because the unknown genius had decided to work for industrial applications rather than pure theory, and piqued because the man had never approached Stadler personally to share his path-breaking theories. Viewing the remnant of the motor, Stadler mockingly expresses his resentment of practical achievements.

A man nearby mutters, "Who is John Galt?" and Stadler remarks that he knew a John Galt once: a mind of such brilliance that, had he lived, the whole world would be talking about him.

"But the whole world is talking of him," Dagny points out.

Disturbed, Stadler dismisses it all as a meaningless coincidence. "He has to be dead," he says with a curious emphasis.

The government saddles Rearden Steel with a young spy named Tony, whose job is to watch Rearden for compliance with government regulations. Rearden nicknames the boy his "Wet Nurse." Shortly after Tony warns him about his uncooperative attitude, Rearden is approached again by the State Science Institute this time with orders to supply Rearden Metal for a mysterious "Project X." He refuses, inviting the Institute to take the metal by force, if they wish. The Institute messenger reacts to this prospect with undisguised horror.

Rearden realizes that somehow, to succeed in their schemes against him, his enemies need his own voluntary cooperation. At the same time, he begins to sense that what he feels for Dagny reflects not the worst within him, but the best.

By now, Dagny has concluded there is a "destroyer" deliberately removing achievers from the world for some inconceivable reason. As for the motor, she hires a brilliant young scientist in Utah, Quentin Daniels, to rebuild it if he can.

Rearden secretly sells Rearden Metal to coal magnate Ken Danagger a transaction made illegal by the directives. The disturbing thought occurs to him that his only pleasures, at work and in his romantic life, must be kept hidden, like guilty secrets. He wonders why. Meanwhile, Lillian, whom he has ignored for months, begins to suspect that he is having an affair. She demands that he accompany her to Jim Taggart's wedding, and out of a dead sense of marital obligation, Rearden agrees.

Jim has been engaged to a nave young clerk named Cherryl, who admires him for what she believes is his genius in running the railroad. Jim basks in her blind adulation, and maliciously enjoys the awkwardness of her attempts to become socially poised.

Their wedding is attended by a corrupt cross-section of the culturally prominent and politically connected. Mistakenly thinking she is defending a heroic husband against an enemy, Cherryl confronts and insults Dagny. Across the room, Lillian approaches Jim, hinting that her control over her husband is available for trade. Then Francisco enters, crashing the party. After embarrassing Jim, he approaches Dagny, telling her it appears that John Galt has come to claim the railroad line she named for him. To a dowager's remark that "money is the root of all evil," he gives an impromptu speech defending money-making on moral grounds, as a symbol of achievement, free trade, and justice.

Francisco approaches Rearden and admits that his words were intended for him, to arm him morally for self-defense. Rearden is grateful until Francisco reveals that he's deliberately destroying d'Anconia Copper, precisely to harm the looters who are profiteering on his abilities. Rearden recoils in horror. Then Francisco lets it be known, loudly, that his company is in trouble. As the news sweeps the crowd, many of whom are d'Anconia investors, the wedding party breaks up in panic.

After the party, Lillian confronts Rearden with her suspicion that he's having an affair, presumably with some tramp. Rearden admits to an affair, but refuses to identify his mistress or to stop seeing her. For reasons he can't fathom, though, Lillian refuses to divorce him.

Soon afterwards, Rearden is visited by Dr. Floyd Ferris of the State Science Institute. Ferris threatens him with jail for selling Rearden Metal to Ken Danagger unless he agrees to sell it to the State Science Institute as well. Glimpsing a flaw in this blackmail scheme, Rearden once again refuses.

In the Taggart cafeteria, Eddie opens his heart to a long-time confidante, a lowly worker of his acquaintance whose name he has long forgotten. He reveals Dagny's suspicions about the "destroyer," her fear that Ken Danagger will be the next to go, and her intention to visit him at once to prevent that from happening.

When Dagny arrives at Danagger's office, he is in a meeting with someone else. After a long delay, the other man leaves, unseen, by the rear entrance and Dagny enters to find she's too late. Danagger informs her that he's quitting. Like Kellogg and Akston, he won't explain why. She realizes that she's just missed "the destroyer," but Danagger reassures her that nothing she can say would have mattered anyway. Then Dagny spots a cigarette butt in his ashtray: it bears the imprint of the gold dollar sign.

The day after Danagger's disappearance, Francisco visits Rearden at his mills. He begins to explain to him that by continuing to work under these dictatorial circumstances, Rearden is granting a moral sanction to the looters, a sanction they need from him in order to destroy him. Rearden begins to understand when they are interrupted by a furnace emergency in the mills. They work side by side to resolve the crisis, but the moment is lost; Francisco decides it's not yet time to discuss things further.

At their Thanksgiving dinner, Lillian tries to dissuade her husband from taking the witness stand at his trial the following day, informing him that he has no moral right to protest. But Rearden startles them all by rebuking his brother for insulting him. They notice that he seems to have a new confidence and he notices that this seems to disturb them. Meeting later with Dagny, he informs her that she'll have all the Rearden Metal she needs, laws be damned.

At his trial, Rearden acknowledges his actions with Danagger but refuses to accept that they were in any way immoral. Instead, borrowing from Francisco's words, he gives a rousing moral defense of his right to produce for his own sake, bringing the audience to cheers and leaving the judges speechless. Instead of jailing him, they seem panicked and give him a suspended sentence. Rearden smiles, beginning to grasp the concept of "the sanction of the victim."

Drawn by curiosity about Francisco's incongruous reputation as a playboy, Rearden visits him, finding him working on blueprints. Francisco admits that his reputation has been mere camouflage for a secret purpose of his own. Denying that he has been promiscuous, he explains the moral meaning of sex. But unknowingly, he is also addressing Rearden's own private sexual conflicts. Feeling a growing comradeship, Rearden reveals he's just placed a huge, urgently needed order with d'Anconia Copper.

Horrified, Francisco leaps to the phone then stops. In obvious anguish, he solemnly swears to Rearden "by the woman I love" that, despite what is about to happen, he remains Rearden's true friend.

Soon after, the d'Anconia ships carrying copper to Rearden are sunk by Ragnar Danneskjold. Rearden is overwhelmed by a sense of personal betrayal. He realizes that Francisco somehow knew of the sinking in advance, could have stopped it but didn't.

It is Rearden Steel's first failure to deliver an order on time. The delay in the Rearden Metal shipment to Taggart Transcontinental starts a devastating economic chain reaction, holding up trains, spoiling shipments of food, forcing farmers to go bankrupt and factories to shut down, causing deteriorating bridges across the Mississippi to close and leaving the famous Taggart Bridge as the river's last crossing point.

Meanwhile, coal that Taggart Transcontinental desperately needs is diverted to foreign aid; the government censors newspaper stories of the disasters and their causes; and the top floors of buildings are shut down to conserve fuel. Rearden is forced to make deals with hired gangs to mine coal at night in abandoned mines.

With Colorado industry now in shambles, the Taggart Transcontinental board of directors meets to formally close the John Galt Line. In exchange for permission to shut down the line, a government bureaucrat prods them to raise all Taggart worker wages. They try to nudge Dagny into stating openly the final decision to close the line; but following Rearden's example from the trial she refuses to help them and grant a moral sanction for their actions, by taking the responsibility to venture an opinion. They finally put the matter to the inevitable vote.

Francisco is waiting for her afterwards. "Have they finally murdered John Galt?" he asks softly. He comforts her at a nearby caf. Then he asks her why it is that heroic builders, like the railroad's founder, Nat Taggart, have always lost battles with pale cowards such as those on Taggart's board. As she ponders this, he reflects aloud, almost abstractly, about how his ancestor, Sebastian d'Anconia, had to wait 15 years for the woman he loved... Dagny is astonished at this tacit confession, but replies coldly by asking him why he has hurt Hank Rearden. Francisco answers solemnly that he'd have given his life for Rearden except for the man to whom he had given it.

Then, noticing the familiar graffiti carved in the tabletop, he adds: "I can tell you who John Galt is...John Galt is the Prometheus who changed his mind." After being torn by vultures for bringing men fire, Francisco says, Galt "withdrew his fire until men withdraw their vultures."

In Colorado with Rearden, Dagny supervises the aftermath of the Line's closure: scavenging machines from closed factories, watching towns emptying, seeing refugees crowd the last departing trains.

Meanwhile, eager for more Washington influence, Jim conspires with Lillian to deliver Rearden to the bureaucrats. Lillian finds that her husband is traveling home by train under a phony name, presumably with his mistress. When she meets the train to confront them, she sees him not with some cheap slut, but with Dagny Taggart.

Lillian is devastated and terrified. She grasps now why her grip on her husband is failing, and simultaneously, his unapologetic demeanor at his trial: Dagny has empowered her husband to reject guilt.

"Anybody but her!" she cries to him in terror. But Rearden is indifferent to her efforts to make him feel guilty or give up Dagny. In Lillian's vile insults against Dagny, Rearden suddenly realizes that hers had been his own view of sex. Though Lillian tells him she won't divorce him, he feels at last liberated and guiltless. Still, Lillian senses that he wants the affair to be kept secret and that, she realizes, may be used as a weapon.

Without warning, the government issues a Directive 10-289, a regulatory measure that seizes total control of the entire economy, and orders all existing economic arrangements to be frozen in place. All patents on inventions are to be turned over to the government in the form of Gift Certificates. In addition, to stop people of talent from disappearing, the law forbids anyone from quitting his job.

It's the last straw for Dagny, who throws the newspaper into James Taggart's face and resigns. She leaves for the Taggart lodge in the country, letting only Eddie know her whereabouts. But Rearden stays behind, confident that he can dynamite the new directive simply by refusing to comply with the order to surrender his patents to Rearden Metal.

In response to the directive, a mood of quiet rebellion sweeps the nation. Each day, more people fail to show up for work. Even Rearden's "Wet Nurse" is indignant, and vows to look the other way if Rearden chooses to break laws. Meanwhile Lillian mysteriously disappears on a vacation trip.

On a spring morning, Dr. Floyd Ferris arrives at Rearden's mills. He reveals that the government has been tipped off by Lillian of Rearden's affair with Dagny. If Rearden won't sign the Gift Certificate transferring Rearden Metal to the government, Ferris will expose the affair in the media, sullying Dagny's reputation in scandal. Rearden suddenly realizes much more about the motives of his enemies and about the moral premises that have caused such conflict in his life. But refusing to let Dagny bear the consequences of his own mistakes, he signs the Gift Certificate.

In the wake of these events, Eddie Willers bares his soul to his friend in the cafeteria. He also lets slip that Dagny has gone off to stay at the Taggart lodge.

Furious at Lillian's betrayal, Rearden orders his attorney to get him a divorce and to leave her with no alimony or property. He moves to an apartment in Philadelphia. Walking home from his mills one evening, he is confronted by a man who presents him with a bar of gold. The man reveals that he's Ragnar Danneskjold; that the gold represents wealth looted from Rearden, and forcibly reclaimed by Ragnar from the looters. Rearden finds that he can't condemn Ragnar for his actions, and even helps the outlaw elude pursuing police.

At the Taggart railroad tunnel through the Rockies, a waiting diesel engine is commandeered by the government to allow a bureaucrat to tour the country. This leaves only coal-burning engines on the track. Despite a strict system rule against entering the tunnel with smoky coal-burner, plus the fact that the tunnel's signal and ventilation systems are malfunctioning, a politician demands that his own train be allowed to proceed through. All the responsible supervisors have quit the Colorado division, leaving decision-making authority to incompetents. Bullied by the politician, each in turn from James Taggart on down passes the buck, leaving the final decision to proceed to a green young dispatcher. Abandoned by his superiors, the boy signs the order for the train to enter the tunnel. Miles inside, the crew and passengers are overcome by fumes, as a military train loaded with explosives rushes into the tunnel from the other end. They collide in a cataclysmic explosion that destroys the tunnel.

At the Taggart lodge, Dagny receives a surprise visit from Francisco. He tells her why she was right to quit and reveals that, for the same reason, he has deliberately been destroying d'Anconia Copper since the night he left her, twelve years before. Dagny begins to see Francisco in a new light...when the radio abruptly brings news of the tunnel explosion. Horrified, she abandons Francisco and she rushes back to New York.

After a grueling day dealing with the emergency, Dagny returns to her apartment where once again she is visited by Francisco. By now she is immune to his arguments, but aware that he's part of the "destroyer's" conspiracy. Suddenly the door opens and Hank Rearden is standing there, the key to Dagny's apartment in his hand.

Rearden demands to know why Francisco is present. Devastated by his realization of Dagny's affair, yet maintaining rigid self-control, Francisco answers, "I see that I have no right to ask you the same question." Enraged by what he believes has been Francisco's betrayal of their friendship, Rearden says, "I know what they mean...your friendship and your oath by the only woman you ever-"

They all suddenly know what this means. Rearden steps forward and demands, "Is this the woman you love?" Looking at Dagny, Francisco answers, "Yes." Rearden slaps him across the face. Retaining iron control, Francisco bows and takes his leave.

Dagny then reveals to Rearden that Francisco had been her first lover. Rearden suddenly wishes desperately that he hadn't reacted as he had. In this private turmoil, they are interrupted by a message from Quentin Daniels: a letter of resignation. He refuses to continue working under Directive 10-289. Dagny phones him in Utah and begs him to meet with her first. Daniels gives his word that he'll wait for her visit.

When Rearden leaves, she summons Eddie to take instructions as she packs for the trip. Eddie notices a man's dressing gown in her closet bearing Hank Rearden's initials. Crushed with jealousy, Eddie realizes for the first time just how much Dagny has meant to him. That evening in the cafeteria he pours out his heart to his workman friend. He mentions that Dagny is on her way to try to talk Daniels out of quitting his work on the motor and then blurts out his discovery that she is sleeping with Rearden. At this news, the worker seems unaccountably stricken, and rushes out.

Dagny races by train across the country to her meeting with Daniels when she has a chance encounter with a hungry tramp. He explains that he once had been a machinist at the Twentieth Century Motor Company. One day the firm's heirs instituted a socialistic pay plan, based on the principle that everyone should work "according to his ability," but be paid "according to his need." In practice, this meant that workers of ability were punished with longer hours, and forced to support "needier" workers the lazy and incompetent with compensation sufficient to fulfill all their alleged needs. Within months, everyone was hiding his abilities, but claiming a profusion of "needs" and production plummeted until the factory went bankrupt.

The plan, the tramp continues, had been approved at a mass meeting of the workers. After the vote, a young engineer stood and said, "I will put an end to this, once and for all...I will stop the motor of the world." Then he walked out. As the years passed, factories closed, and the economy ground to a halt, the tramp and his fellow workers wondered about the young engineer and began to ask the despairing question now on everyone's lips. "You see," he tells Dagny, "his name was John Galt."

Dagny's journey is interrupted when the train's crew deserts at night in the middle of nowhere. She is surprised to see Owen Kellogg the young man who had refused her job offer riding the train, en route to a "month's vacation." Kellogg accompanies her up the track on foot to phone for help and along the way, Dagny discovers that he too is part of the conspiracy. After arranging for help to come to the stalled train, she commandeers a small plane at a nearby air field and flies alone to Utah to her meeting with Daniels. But upon arriving at the airport, she is told that Daniels has just left with another man, in a plane that has just taken off.

Determined not to lose Daniels to the "destroyer" spiriting him away, Dagny takes off again and races after the distant lights of the other plane. The long chase takes them over the wildest stretches of the Colorado Rockies. Unexpectedly, the stranger's plane begins to circle and descend over impossibly rugged mountain terrain, vanishing behind a ridge. When she reaches the spot, she sees nothing below but a rocky, inaccessible valley between granite walls: no conceivable place for a landing, yet no sign of the other plane. She descends but still sees nothing. Her altimeter shows her dropping yet strangely, the valley floor seems to be getting no closer.

Suddenly there is a blinding flash of light, and her motor dies. Her plane spirals downward not into jagged rocks, but toward a grassy field which hadn't existed a second before. Fighting to control the plane, she hears in her mind the hated phrase, not in despair, but this time in defiance: "Oh hell! Who is John Galt?"

When she opens her eyes, Dagny is staring up at the proud, handsome face of a man with sun-streaked brown hair, and green eyes that bear no trace of pain, fear, or guilt.

"What is your name?" she whispers in wonder.

"John Galt...Why are you so frightened?" he asks.

"Because I believe it," she answers.

Galt carries the injured woman away from the wreck. He explains that her plane had penetrated a screen of rays projecting a refracted image, like a mirage, intended to camouflage the valley's existence. The ray screen had killed her plane's engine.

He carries her past a small house, where the sound of a piano is lifting the chords of Halley's Fifth Concerto. It's Halley's home, Galt explains. They reach a ledge above the valley; a small town spreads below. Nearby, commanding the valley like a coat of arms, stands a solid gold dollar sign three feet high "Francisco's private joke," he says.

A car pulls up, and its two occupants approach. She recognizes Hugh Akston. The other man is introduced as Midas Mulligan the world's richest financier, who had also vanished years ago.

Smiling, Akston tells her that he never expected that when they next met, she be in the arms of the inventor of the motor. Astounded, Dagny asks if the story of his walking out of the Twentieth Century Motor Company is true, and Galt confirms it.

"You told them that you would stop the motor of the world," she says.

"I have."

Then he drives her around the valley, where she encounters others who have abandoned her world: Ellis Wyatt...Quentin Daniels...Dick McNamara, her former contractor...Ken Danagger.

Galt stops the car outside a lonely log cabin; above the door is the d'Anconia coat of arms. She gets out, staring at the silver crest, remembering the words of the man she had once loved. "That was the first man I took away from you," Galt says.

He ends the tour at the town's powerhouse, where his motor brings the valley its electricity. On it is an inscription: I SWEAR BY MY LIFE AND MY LOVE OF IT THAT I WILL NEVER LIVE FOR THE SAKE OF ANOTHER MAN, NOR ASK ANOTHER MAN TO LIVE FOR MINE. Galt explains that it's the oath taken by every person in the valley. Recited aloud, the words also are the key to unlocking the door.

That night they attend dinner at Mulligan's home, with several of the prominent men who had vanished from her world. Each explains his reasons for quitting.

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Synopsis of the Plot of Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand – Google Books

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Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil,Atlas Shruggedis Ayn Rands magnum opus: a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thrillernominated as one of Americas best-loved novels by PBSs The Great American Read.

Who is John Galt? When he says that he will stop the motor of the world, is he a destroyer or a liberator?Why does he have to fight his battles not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves?

You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the amazing men and women in this book. You will discover why a productive genius becomes a worthless playboy...why a great steel industrialist is working for his own destruction...why a composer gives up his career on the night of his triumph...why a beautiful woman who runs a transcontinental railroad falls in love with the man she has sworn to kill.

Atlas Shrugged, a modern classic and Rands most extensive statement ofObjectivismher groundbreaking philosophyoffers the reader the spectacle of human greatness, depicted with all the poetry and power of one of the twentieth centurys leading artists.

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Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand - Google Books

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? – Invest in Blockchain

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Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?

Is he from Japan and is it even a he? Or maybe the creator of Bitcoin is a woman? Or maybe both, and Satoshi Nakamoto is the name of a group of people? No one knows.

Nonetheless, we can be sure about two things: Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym and the individual or group of individuals that have used it created something genius, the first blockchain powering Bitcoin.

Multiple people have been suspected of being Satoshi Nakamoto; however, none have been able to convince the crypto community. It could be that Nakamotos true identity will always remain a mystery, which is something poetic, especially when looking at the rising value and impact of Bitcoin.

It was 2008 and the world was in shock because of yet another major crisis caused by the global financial industry.

Coincidentally, a technology with the power to disrupt this industry had been in the making. Nakamoto is said to have been working on the Bitcoin system since 2007. Once he felt confident enough about his idea, he started contacting cryptographers through a cryptography mailing list and he started discussing his idea, asking for feedback and looking for general assistance.

In the beginning of 2009, Nakamoto released an academic paper, or a white paper, in which he described his envisioned system in detail. After this, he started running the code for Bitcoin and began testing the technology.

Both the paper and the initial code were highly respected by field experts, who started to realize Nakamoto was working on something potentially world-changing. They started to help Bitcoin progress and evolve, and more people joined ranks.

As soon as Bitcoin got the attention of the mass media, it was discarded as something used for illegal transactions, fueled by the acceptance of Bitcoin by Silk Road and Wikileaks.

However, over time, more and more people started to realise the true potential of Bitcoin and a whole new industry emerged: an industry ignited by the invention of an unknown party.

So what do we know about Satoshi Nakamoto?

Although nobody has ever claimed to have actually spoken to Nakamoto, there has been plenty of online communications with him. He reached out to cryptographers and developers and communicated with individuals that helped him in the development of his creation.

From all of these chats, it can be concluded that Nakamoto was highly protective of his identity. He never spoke about anything personal and never revealed anything that could be used to identify him.

When he was asked about this, he indicated that he wanted to remain anonymous so that his invention and the creator would be completely separate. This fits the decentralised nature of Bitcoin and blockchain, as there is no central authority. He understood that once Bitcoin received mainstream attention, his persona would be linked to the technology which would only devalue his creation.

There are some things Nakamoto communicated that are worth mentioning. For instance, he made a request to Wikileaks not to accept Bitcoin as it was still in its infancy and the nature of Wikileaks would draw a lot of negative attention and forces to Bitcoin. Wikileaks followed this advice and held off using Bitcoin until it was more stable. Accepting Bitcoin turned out to be very profitable forWikileaks.

He also left a message open to interpretation in the first Bitcoin block ever to be mined. In this block, he entered the text The Times, 3 January 2009, Chancellor on brink of second bailout for bank. Theres been a lot of speculation about the meaning of this; however, since Bitcoin is a means of financial transactions and value storage, its likely a criticism on the very industry Bitcoin is currently disrupting.

In 2010, Nakamoto retreated from the online world. His last email was to Gavin Andresen, a software developer with which Nakamoto communicated and who has been highly involved in the further development of Bitcoin. Andresen replied that he was going to explain Bitcoin to the CIA, after which nothing was ever heard from Nakamoto again.

Even though it is obvious the architect of Bitcoin doesnt want to be known, the world has not stopped trying to identify him. This continuous quest seems rather pointless as someone with such deep understanding of complex cryptography and technology is very likely capable of remaining anonymous.

It is also believed that the name Satoshi Nakamoto has a meaning, for when you loosely translate the name from Japanese, you get:

Satoshi clear thinking

Naka inside

Moto foundation

On a forum on which Satoshi Nakamoto was active, the profile states that he is a 41 year old male Japanese.

Its hard to believe that any of this is true. Although many still believe Nakamoto to be Japanese, there is a lot of evidence to the contrary. His online activity was mainly during US daytime and the original Bitcoin client ran in English. Reportedly, Nakamoto hired third parties to translate this Bitcoin client to Japanese.

The excessive complexities Satoshi Nakamoto faced and overcame when developing Bitcoin give rise to the idea that it was actually created by a group of people. Bitcoin has been up and running for over 8 years now and we still havent been able to identify one person to thank for it, let alone multiple persons.

Over the years, 4 people have been believed to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Most of the evidence have been circumstantial and the Australian former academic Craig Wright, who claimed to be Nakamoto, failed twice to provide convincing evidence. With the years passing by, the chances of uncovering Nakamotos true identity grow smaller.

In fact, it can be argued that the identity of Nakamoto doesnt really matter. As Nakamoto stated, we should see the invention separate from the inventor. Bitcoin and blockchain are decentralised and owned by the network, meaning there are no central figures. The code is out and open sourced and Nakamoto is unable to control this anyway.

What does matter is the fact that Nakamoto owns about 1 million Bitcoins, and a similar amount of the forked coins, with a combined value of approximately $6.5 billion. This is because in Bitcoins early stages, he mined Bitcoin by himself. Knowing that there are about 16.5 million Bitcoins on in circulation, this means that Nakamoto owns 1/16th of the market. It makes you wonder, what will Nakamoto use this for?

All in all, the legend of Satoshi Nakamoto is a beautiful mystery that suits the complex and disruptive nature of Bitcoin and blockchain. And youll never know maybe, when Nakamotos vision has come true, the true identity of Bitcoins creator(s) will be revealed.

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Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? - Invest in Blockchain

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? – What is Bitcoin?

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Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Satoshi Nakamoto is the founder of Bitcoin and the initial creator of the original Bitcoin client. He has said in a P2P foundation profile that he is from Japan. Beyond that, not much else is known about him or his identity. He has been working on the Bitcoin project since 2007. The smallest unit of measure in bitcoin has been named in honor of Satoshi.

In November of 2009, Satoshi created one of the most disruptive experiments in human history when he published a white paper titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This new design would allow two (or more) parties to transact value without the need for a trusted third party. This has immense implications for global trade but the trusted third parties that have been in the middle of every financial transaction for centuries are not so happy about such an invention. This has put Satoshi at the top of the wanted list of the legacy banking cartels.

When Satoshi published this paper, he published a model that would change the world forever. The world finally had a mechanism for people and institutions to create privately issued money but even more importantly, bitcoin was the blueprint for creating bits of information that cannot be duplicated or counterfeit. This is why bitcoin is capable of functioning as money. Satoshis new invention will create a number of problems for governments and banks around the world which is likely why he has kept his identity a secret.

Ever since bitcoin has found its use as a safe haven asset around the world, Satoshi has gone into hiding and the search for his true identity continues.

In 2013, Newsweek received some sort of anonymous tip that a man named Dorian Nakamoto was living in California and was remotely associated with some sort of cryptographic work for the government a couple years prior. Thanks to todays poor journalism and everyones lust to be the first to publish a story, Dorian was dragged into the spotlight as being Satoshi Nakamoto. It was later proven false but Dorians face is still often used in bitcoin memes. There was even an art piece auctioned off to help him and his family with legal damage created by Newsweeks careless journalism.

In December of 2015, the search for Satoshi seemed to take yet another turn when an Australian computer scientist named Craig Wright was outed as being Satoshi. It didnt take long for freelance journalists to swarm his Brisbane residence to completely invade his privacy looking for answers. Since he has fallen into the public spotlight, he has actually made claims that he is, in fact, Satoshi Nakamoto only to be mathematically eliminated as a fraud for not supplying a key signature that Satoshi is known to control. In short, hes a fraud.

Since nobody knows Satoshis real identity or background, there have been a number of conspiracy theories that have surfaced. Some theories suggest that he is a member of the new world order and published bitcoin to create a one world money that the NWO will use to control the entire planet while other theories suggest that he is a former government employee who went rogue and released a cryptographic software system that the government had been using for years called blockchain. We may never know for sure but the search will likely continue as long as some people still care.

One of the first conspiracy theories was that Satoshi is actually a consortium of bankers who are working to establish a new world order. The anonymous creator is not actually a single individual but rather a group of banksters who published the bitcoin white paper to establish a global control of money and unleash the mark of the beast on the world. This is likely not the case since the bitcoin code is open source for all to view and can be changed. This makes it very difficult to control by any central power.

Another Conspiracy theory is that Satoshi was working for the NSA and had been part of a project that was using a technology that was incredibly secure because it wasnt centralized and required very complex cryptography to operate. Satoshi stole this model and altered it so that it could be used by the people rather than being monopolized by the government. After he figured out a feasible way to make it work as a peer-to-peer network, he published the Bitcoin White Paper to get some tech experts to fine tune it. Ever since it began to catch on, Satoshi has been forced into hiding for fear of being exposed and sentenced to torture or even death.

These are only a couple conspiracies but as time goes on, there will only be more crazy ideas that get added to the mix. Check back here from time to time to learn more about Satoshi Nakamoto.

What is a bitcoin term that you would like us to further define for you? Let us know with a comment below or a tweet @WhatIsBitcoin.

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Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? - What is Bitcoin?

Satoshi Nakamoto’s profile updated 2018! | Crypto Insider

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Satoshi Nakamoto has been a mysterious figure since the inception of the paperless e-currency known today as Bitcoin (BTC). After his disappearance in December 2010, many were left to speculate as to who he was and why he left.

Well, Satoshi NakamotosP2P profile has come to life with one update. The update is just the word nour with quotation marks included.

Back in 2014, his email that was associated with Satoshis P2P profile was compromised. This could be a continuation of that potential hack, or perhaps it is something else. Maybe Satoshi has decided to make an appearance, but it may be too far-fetched. If he/she/they were to come back, why now? Why on a platform that had been hacked previously?

We tried to contact Satoshi on his e-mail but received an automated error message which points out that the address is inactive. This might suggest that the P2P Foundation account has been compromised by becoming associated with another e-mail account. In this situation, its even harder to tell who is behind this obscure and incomprehensible message.

This could be the action of that same hacker that was there in 2014, or perhaps it is something else maybe Satoshi is coming back to set the record straight once and for all!

Crypto Insider will pay close attention to the activity of Satoshi Nakamotos P2P account and report any update.

If you or someone you know has information about this latest profile update please email [emailprotected] with the subject Satoshi

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Satoshi Nakamoto's profile updated 2018! | Crypto Insider

Bitcoin (BTC) Creator Satoshi Nakamoto More Powerful Than …

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Satoshi Nakamoto The Bitcoin (BTC) Enigma

Ten years ago, sequestered away from the outside world, Satoshi Nakamoto, the individual or group responsible for Bitcoin, mined the first block ever on the nascent network. And while the networks origins were nothing spectacular as rumor has it that the creator processed blocks with a mere desktop, which probably ran loud and was poorly insulated a revolutionary force was set in motion nonetheless.

Bitcoins creator acknowledged the potential paradigm-shifting power of their innovation, transcoding a pertinent headline from British newspaper The Times into the Genesis Blocks coinbase the input value for the block generating transaction. Nakamoto never explicitly stated the reason behind the headline, which read Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks, but many believers in this innovation claim that it was an evident jab at centralized financial systems. So, it has become widely agreed that this wasnt any old headline snagged from one of the internets thousands of RSS feeds, thats for sure.

Yet, while Bitcoin has undoubtedly had a resounding impact on global finance, and will likely continue to move into the future, no one knows who or what exactly Satoshi is. Still, Worth Magazine, an American publication centered around the business and finance world, mentioned him/her/they in their Power 100 list for 2018. More specifically, they named the Bitcoin creator as the 44th most powerful person in finance.

Nakamoto was placed in front of Steven Cohen, Bernie Sanders, Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren, Kelly Loeffler (wed to the CEO of the Intercontinental Exchange) of Bakkt, Carl Icahn, Nasdaqs Adena Friedman, Bitcoin advocate Mohamed El-Erian, pro-crypto Marc Andreessen, prominent business journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin, Mark Zuckerberg, and dozens of others on this well-respected list of influential heavyweights.

And while Satoshi has covered their tracks impeccably, disguising himself as a middle-aged man hailing from Japan hence Nakamoto and using certain operational-security tricks to remove any risk of exposure, some have still sought to find the mysterious Bitcoin creator.

As reported by Ethereum World News previously, Daniel Oberhouse, a reporter for Vices Motherboard outlet, asked the U.S. FBI and CIA about Satoshis true identity, as many tin-foil hatters (conspiracists) believe that these governmental agencies spawned the Bitcoin project or know something about the creator. After a month of deliberation, the CIA reportedly responded, and wrote a very nebulous answer that likely got Oberhouses mind racing. The entity remarked:

This request has been rejected, with the agency stating that it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the requested documents.

Just a month later,German Neff,joining hands with like-minded individuals through the #findsatoshi hashtag, launched the International Search For Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto, The campaign, run on a platform like Kickstarter, funnily named Boomstarter, has raised 12.5 million rubles (~$190,000), which will purportedly fund the hiring of independent detective agencies in the U.S.,Japan, andEuropeto find the figure.

Interestingly, some have abstained from searching for Satoshi. More specifically, some believe the shadowy figure is likely dead, captured by the government, or hidden in a place so secret that no one would have any clue where to find them. Moreover, other cryptocurrency diehards have kept their distance from such a search, as finding the Bitcoin figurehead essentially undermines the very nature of decentralization and pseudonymityitself.

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Bitcoin (BTC) Creator Satoshi Nakamoto More Powerful Than ...

The Incomplete List of People Speculated to Be Satoshi …

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Ten years ago, on Jan. 3, 2009, the Bitcoin (BTC) network was created as Satoshi Nakamoto mined the genesis block, also known as block number zero.

However, the identity behind the Bitcoin creator has remained one of the biggest mysteries in the crypto community since the original white paper was published by Satoshi in October 2008.

Various journalistic investigations have attempted to unveil the person or group of individuals responsible for creating the top digital currency, but Satoshis real identity remains unknown to date. On his P2P Foundation profile which went inactive in late 2010 Nakamoto identifies as a 43-year-old male who lives in Japan, but he almost never posted on the Bitcoin forum during local daytime. Other clues, like the British spelling of words like colour and optimise, suggest he was of Commonwealth origin.

So far, the media and community have come up with numerous results of who might be the real Satoshi, none of which have been confirmed. On June 14, 2018 the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said that it could neither confirm nor deny the existence of Nakamoto after a Motherboard journalist requested information on his identity through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Heres the (incomplete) list of potential candidates.

Suspect credentials: a 38 year-old Finnish professor at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology

Source: Joshua Davis, The New Yorker

One of the first attempts to reveal Satoshis identity dates back to October 2011, when journalist Joshua Davis wrote a piece for the New Yorker. During his quest to identify the Bitcoin creator, Davis found Michael Clear, a young graduate student in cryptography at Trinity College in Dublin, who had worked at Allied Irish Banks to improve its currency-trading software and co-authored an academic paper on peer-to-peer technology. Clear denied he was Satoshi, but offered the journalist the name of a solid fit for Nakamoto a thirty-one-year-old Finnish researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology named Vili Lehdonvirta, who used to be a video game programmer and studied virtual currencies.

However, after being contacted by Davis, Lehdonvirta also claimed he was not Satoshi. You need to be a crypto expert to build something as sophisticated as bitcoin, he said. There arent many of those people, and Im definitely not one of them.

Suspect credentials: a 49 year-old Japanese mathematician at Kyoto University

Source: Ted Nelson

On May 17, 2013, American IT pioneer, sociologist and philosopher Ted Nelson suggested that Nakamoto could be Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University, who worked mostly in number theory and geometry. Nelsons evidence was largely circumstantial, however, as it mostly rested on how Mochizuki released his solution to the ABC Conjecture, one of the biggest unsolved problems in mathematics.

A few days later, Nelson told Quartz that he would donate to charity if Mochizuki denied being Satoshi Nakamoto:

If that person denies being Satoshi, I will humbly give one bitcoin (at this instant worth about $123) to any charity he selects. If he is Satoshi and denies it, at least he will feel guilty. (One month time limit on denial bitcoins are going UP.)

In July 2013, The Age reported that Mochizuki denied Nelsons claims, but did not specify the source.

Suspect credentials: a 68-year-old Japanese American man who has done classified work for major corporations and the U.S. military

Source: Leah McGrath Goodman, Newsweek

On March 6, 2014, Newsweek published a lengthy article written by journalist Leah McGrath Goodman, who identified Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, a Japanese American male living in California as the original Bitcoin creator.

Goodman learned that Nakamoto worked as a systems engineer on classified defense projects and computer engineer for technology and financial information services companies. Nakamoto reportedly turned libertarian after being laid off from his job twice in the early 1990s.

There were other clues besides his birth name. Goodman argues that Nakamoto confirmed his identity as the Bitcoin founder after she asked him about the cryptocurrency during a face-to-face interview. I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it, he allegedly replied. Its been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection.

However, in a following full-length interview with The Associated Press, Dorian Nakamoto denied all connection to Bitcoin. He said that he had never heard of it before, and that he thought that Goodman was asking about his previous work for military contractors, which was largely classified. Interestingly, in a Reddit Ask Me Anything interview, he stated he had misinterpreted Goodmans question as being related to his work for Citibank. Later on the same day, the Nakamotos P2P Foundation account posted its first message in several years, stating: I am not Dorian Nakamoto.

Suspect credentials: (supposedly) a 55 year-old American man of Hungarian descent and creator of BitGold, a predecessor of Bitcoin

Sources: Skye Grey, researcher; Dominic Frisby, financial writer

In December 2013, researcher Skye Grey published results of his stylometric analysis, which indicated that the person behind Satoshi Nakamoto was a computer scientist and cryptographer named Nick Szabo.

Essentially, Grey searched for unusual turns of phrase and vocabulary patterns in particular places which you would expect a cryptography researcher to contribute to, and then evaluated the fitness of each match found by running textual similarity metrics on several pages of their writing.

Szabo is a decentralized currency enthusiast who developed the concept of BitGold, a pre-Bitcoin, privacy-focused digital currency, back in 1998. In his May 2011 article on Bitcoin, Szabo wrote:

Myself, Wei Dai, and Hal Finney were the only people I know of who liked the idea (or in Dais case his related idea) enough to pursue it to any significant extent until Nakamoto (assuming Nakamoto is not really Finney or Dai).

Additional research carried out by financial author Dominic Frisby, which he describes in his 2014 book titled Bitcoin: The Future of Money? also suggests that Nick Szabo is the real Satoshi. In an interview on Russia Today, Frisby said: Ive concluded there is only one person in the whole world that has the sheer breadth but also the specificity of knowledge and it is this chap [Nick Szabo].

Nevertheless, Szabo has denied being Satoshi. In a July 2014 email to Frisby, he reportedly stated:

Thanks for letting me know. Im afraid you got it wrong doxing me as Satoshi, but Im used to it.

Suspect credentials: an American cryptographic pioneer who died in 2014 at the age of 58

Source: Andy Greenberg, Forbes (who eventually denied his own assumption)

On March 25, 2014, Forbes journalist Andy Greenberg published an article on Dorian Nakamotos alleged neighbor, a pre-Bitcoin cryptographic pioneer named Hal Finney, who received the very first BTC transaction from Nakamoto.

Interestingly, Greenberg reached out to the writing analysis consultancy Juola & Associates and asked them to compare a sample of Finneys writing to that of Satoshi Nakamoto. Reportedly, they found that it was the closest resemblance they had yet come across including the other candidates suggested by Newsweek, Fast Company and New Yorker journalists, along with Ted Nelson and Skye Grey. However, the company established that Nakamotos emails to Finney more closely resemble the style that the original white paper was written in when compared to Finneys emails.

Greenberg suggested that Finney may have been a ghostwriter for Nakamoto, or that he used his neighbor Dorians identity as cover. Finney denied he was Satoshi. Greenberg, after meeting Finney in person, seeing the email exchanges between him and Nakamoto, and his Bitcoin wallets history, concluded that Finney was telling the truth.

On Aug. 28, 2014, Hal Finney died at his home in Phoenix at the age of 58 after five years of battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Suspect credentials: a 48 year-old Australian computer scientist and businessman

Sources: Andy Greenberg, Gwern Branwen, Wired; Craig Wright (himself)

On Dec. 8, 2015, Wired published an article written by Andy Greenberg and Gwern Branwen that argued an Australian academic named Craig Steven Wright either invented bitcoin or is a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did.

On the same day, Gizmodo ran a story that featured documents allegedly obtained by a hacker who broke into Wrights email accounts, claiming that Satoshi Nakamoto was a joint pseudonym for Craig Steven Wright and his friend, computer forensics analyst and cyber-security expert David Kleiman, who died in 2013.

Wright promptly took down his online accounts and disappeared for several months until May 2, 2016, when he publicly declared that he is the creator of Bitcoin. Later on the same month, Wright published an apology along with a refusal to publish the proof of access to one of the earliest Bitcoin keys. Cointelegraph has published several articles on why Wright is most likely not Satoshi. Nevertheless, Wright continues to claim that he is Satoshi to this day.

In February 2018, the estate of Dave Kleiman filed a lawsuit against Wright over the rights to $5 billion worth of BTC, claiming that Wright defrauded Kleiman of virtual currency and intellectual property rights.

Suspects credentials: U.S. and German residents, occupancy and age unknown

Source: Adam Penenberg, Fast Company

In October 2013, journalist Adam Penenberg penned an article for Fast Company, where he cited circumstantial evidence suggesting that Neal King, Vladimir Oksman and Charles Bry could be Nakamoto. King and Bry reportedly live in Germany while Oksman was claimed to be based in the U.S.

Penenbergs theory revolves around the claim that King, Oksman and Bry jointly filed a patent application that contained the phrase computationally impractical to reverse in August 2008, which was also used in the white paper published by Nakamoto in October that year. Moreover, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered three days after the patent was filed.

All three men denied being Nakamoto when contacted by Penenberg.

Suspect credentials: a 47 year-old American technology entrepreneur

Source: Sahil Gupta, SpaceX intern

In what seems as one of the most absurd Nakamoto theories to date, Sahil Gupta, who claims to be a former intern at SpaceX, wrote a Hacker Noon post speculating that Elon Musk was probably Satoshi Nakamoto. Gupta emphasized Elon Musks background in economics, experience in production-level software and history of innovation to speculate that Musk could have invented Bitcoin.

The post was published in November 2017 and was soon disproved by Musk himself, who tweeted that Guptas suggestion is not true.

While there is no actual evidence that Nakamoto is a government agency, it makes for a great conspiracy theory that contains a vast amount of reasons as to why the U.S. (or any other state) would want to create Bitcoin. For instance, a 2013 Motherboard article theorized: Bitcoin could be used as a weapon against the US dollar. It could be used to fund black ops.

It then suggested a theory that Bitcoin is actually an Orwellian vehicle that would allow governments to monitor all financial transactions.

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The Incomplete List of People Speculated to Be Satoshi ...

How Virtual Reality (VR) can Enrich the Hospitality Industry

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Virtual reality, or VR for short, is one of the biggest emerging technology trends and the business world is gradually coming to terms with the various opportunities it provides. For those in the hospitality industry, virtual reality has particular appeal, because it can digitally transport potential customers to a hotel or travel destination.

In this article, you learn various ways hotels can leverage virtual reality to boost business results.

Virtual reality is a computer technology, which utilises images, sounds and physical sensations to make users feel as though they are physically present in a virtual world. Virtual reality technology typically makes use of VR headsets and this equipment enables users to look around and immerse themselves in a digital environment.

The concept of virtual reality has actually existed, in some form, since the 1930s, but high-quality virtual reality headsets have only become a mainstream consumer product in more recent times, due in large part to increased investment from the likes of Google, Facebook and Samsung.

While many of the applications of modern virtual reality are entertainment-based, businesses are increasingly getting to grips with VRs potential as a marketing tool, delivering important information to potential customers in a way they can actually experience, and stimulating multiple senses in the process.

Within the hospitality industry, VR has become particularly important, because of the amount of information the average customer needs before they will actually book a hotel room. Rather than reading through descriptions, which may or may not be trustworthy, it offers customers the chance to experience things for themselves.

For example, this potentially allows customers to experience a virtual recreation of a room within a hotel, or take a look at one of the nearby attractions. Essentially, this allows the hotel industry to benefit from the type of try before you buy marketing that has been commonplace within the food industry for decades.

Of course, the practical uses for virtual reality technology do not stop when the customer has booked a hotel room. Indeed, those within the hospitality industry can continue to use VR to deliver information and allow customers to experience nearby attractions once they have arrived, adding to the hotel experience itself.

The full potential of virtual reality within the hotel industry is only recently being recognised. Nevertheless, three of the best current uses of the technology are outlined below:

One of the most common uses of virtual reality in the hospitality industry so far has been the creation of virtual travel experiences, using 360 degree video technology. Through this, users can experience a virtual recreation of different aspects of travel, from the flight, to arrival, to some of the key sights.

Three examples of this can be seen below. The first is a video showing how the basic process works, and showing people who are wearing VR headsets and experiencing a virtual tour. Meanwhile, the second and third examples are 360 degree videos, which can be viewed with VR glasses or a Google Cardboard for a more immersive experience.

Example #1: A Virtual Honeymoon to London and Hawaii

Example #2: Visit Hamilton Island in 360 Virtual Reality with QantasBest viewed with VR glasses or a Google Cardboard

Example #3: Maldives VR 360 4K VideoBest viewed with VR glasses or a Google Cardboard

Another common use of virtual reality technology within the hotel industry is for virtual hotel tours. These tours can be made available on hotel websites, allowing guests or potential guests to take a look at their hotel room, or other parts of the hotel, before they book or before they arrive.

While these tours are best experienced with a VR headset, they can also potentially be made available to those without access to a headset on social media sites like Facebook, using its 360 degree video technology.

Example: Atlantis Dubai Virtual Tour VR 360Best viewed with VR glasses or a Google Cardboard

Finally, one of the more interesting uses of VR technology in recent times has been the creation of virtual reality booking processes. This has recently been put into action by companies like Amadeus, allowing customers to look for flights, compare hotel prices and book rooms through a virtual reality headset.

The potential for this has not yet been fully explored, but it is easy to see how this VR booking process can allow customers to explore virtual hotel rooms, experience local sights and book a room seamlessly.

Virtual Reality travel search and booking experience

Would you like to learn more about other digital technologies which can benefit your business? Have also a look at the articles How Augmented Reality is Transforming the Hospitality Industry and Using Artificial Intelligence in the Hospitality Industry.

With digital technology continuously evolving, it should come as little surprise that its applications within the travel and hospitality industry evolve too. In the following articles you find the most innovating digital trends in the hospitality industry.

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How Virtual Reality (VR) can Enrich the Hospitality Industry

Shattered Citadel: WW3 Sci Fi

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They Bleed Like Us

Mankind still recovering from WW3, goes to war against a hostile alien race. SC story.

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The SC video that started it all. The spark that started WW3, the invasion of Taiwan.

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Shattered Citadel on WATTPAD

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Support SC on Patreon

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Timeline of WW3(Complete)

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The Libertarian Party of Colorado

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In accordance with the Constitution of the Libertarian Party of Colorado (LPCO) Article VII, Section 2 Conventions, the LPCO hereby issues the Official Call to the Libertarian Party of Colorado 2019 Annual State Convention and requests that the members of the LPCO present themselves for the Convention to be held on April 26 to 28th, 2019 at the Hotel Elegante in Colorado Springs, Colorado (2886 S Circle Dr, Colorado Springs, CO 80906). Book your room now by calling the Hotel Elegante @ (719) 576-5900. Be sure to mention the LPCO convention to reserve at our special rate!

The Agenda will include such business as should properly be conducted by the delegates including election of officers, nomination of candidates, proposed Bylaws amendments, proposed Constitution amendments, proposed Platform amendments, resolutions, 2019 partisan candidate nominations, and any additional business appropriate for consideration. In addition, we will install our newly elected officers and share in the camaraderie and friendship of like-minded Libertarians from within our state.

The Business portion of this Convention is free to the public. Party members eligible to vote in the Business portion are defined by the Constitution of the LPCO, Article VII, Section 4. Additional events require a ticket for admission. Ticket packages will be coming soon! Check back shortly and be the first to get your tickets!

Additional details on the Convention can be found HERE.

A Proposed Convention Agenda will be provided soon.

Respectfully, The Libertarian Party of Colorado

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The Libertarian Party of Colorado

Epicureanism – Wikipedia

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Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippusabout whom very little is knownEpicurus believed that what he called "pleasure" () was the greatest good, but that the way to attain such pleasure was to live modestly, to gain knowledge of the workings of the world, and to limit one's desires. This would lead one to attain a state of tranquility (ataraxia) and freedom from fear as well as an absence of bodily pain (aponia). The combination of these two states constitutes happiness in its highest form. Although Epicureanism is a form of hedonism insofar as it declares pleasure to be its sole intrinsic goal, the concept that the absence of pain and fear constitutes the greatest pleasure, and its advocacy of a simple life, make it very different from "hedonism" as colloquially understood.

Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism, though later it became the main opponent of Stoicism. Epicurus and his followers shunned politics. After the death of Epicurus, his school was headed by Hermarchus; later many Epicurean societies flourished in the Late Hellenistic era and during the Roman era (such as those in Antiochia, Alexandria, Rhodes, and Ercolano). Its best-known Roman proponent was the poet Lucretius. By the end of the Roman Empire, being opposed by philosophies (mainly Neo-Platonism) that were now in the ascendant, Epicureanism had all but died out, and would be resurrected in the Age of Enlightenment.

Some writings by Epicurus have survived. Some scholars consider the epic poem On the Nature of Things by Lucretius to present in one unified work the core arguments and theories of Epicureanism. Many of the scrolls unearthed at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum are Epicurean texts. At least some are thought to have belonged to the Epicurean Philodemus.

In Mytilene, the capital of the island Lesbos, and then in Lampsacus, Epicurus taught and gained followers. In Athens, Epicurus bought a property for his school called "Garden", later the name of Epicurus' school.[1] Its members included Hermarchus, Idomeneus, Colotes, Polyaenus, and Metrodorus. Epicurus emphasized friendship as an important ingredient of happiness, and the school seems to have been a moderately ascetic community which rejected the political limelight of Athenian philosophy. They were fairly cosmopolitan by Athenian standards, including women and slaves. Some members were also vegetarians as, from slender evidence, Epicurus did not eat meat, although no prohibition against eating meat was made.[2][3]

The school's popularity grew and it became, along with Stoicism, Platonism, Peripateticism, and Pyrrhonism, one of the dominant schools of Hellenistic philosophy, lasting strongly through the later Roman Empire.[4] Another major source of information is the Roman politician and philosopher Cicero, although he was highly critical, denouncing the Epicureans as unbridled hedonists, devoid of a sense of virtue and duty, and guilty of withdrawing from public life. Another ancient source is Diogenes of Oenoanda, who composed a large inscription at Oenoanda in Lycia.

Deciphered carbonized scrolls obtained from the library at the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum contain a large number of works by Philodemus, a late Hellenistic Epicurean, and Epicurus himself, attesting to the school's enduring popularity. Diogenes reports slanderous stories, circulated by Epicurus' opponents.[1] With growing dominance of Neoplatonism and Peripateticism, and later, Christianity, Epicureanism declined. By the late third century CE, there was little trace of its existence.[5] The early Christian writer Lactantius criticizes Epicurus at several points throughout his Divine Institutes. In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, the Epicureans are depicted as heretics suffering in the sixth circle of hell. In fact, Epicurus appears to represent the ultimate heresy.[6] The word for a heretic in the Talmudic literature is "Apiqoros" ().[citation needed]

In the 17th century, the French Franciscan priest, scientist and philosopher Pierre Gassendi wrote two books forcefully reviving Epicureanism. Shortly thereafter, and clearly influenced by Gassendi, Walter Charleton published several works on Epicureanism in English. Attacks by Christians continued, most forcefully by the Cambridge Platonists.[citation needed]

In the early modern period, scientists adopted atomist theories, while materialist philosophers embraced Epicurus' hedonist ethics and restated his objections to natural teleology.[citation needed]

Epicureanism does not deny the existence of the gods; rather it denies their involvement in the world. According to Epicureanism, the gods do not interfere with human lives or the rest of the universe in any way.[7] The manner in which the Epicurean gods exist is still disputed. Some scholars say that Epicureanism believes that the gods exist outside the mind as material objects (the realist position), while others assert that the gods only exist in our minds as ideals (the idealist position).[7][8][9] The realist position holds that Epicureans understand the gods as existing as physical and immortal beings made of atoms that reside somewhere in reality.[7][9] However, the gods are completely separate from the rest of reality; they are uninterested in it, play no role in it, and remain completely undisturbed by it.[10] Instead, the gods live in what is called the metakosmia, or the space between worlds.[11] Contrarily, the idealist position holds that Epicurus did not actually conceive of the gods as existing in reality. Rather, Epicurus is said to have viewed the gods as just idealized forms of the best human life,[8][12] and it is thought that the gods were emblematic of the life one should aspire towards.[13] The debate between these two positions was revived by A. A. Long and David Sedley in their 1987 book, The Hellenistic Philosophers, in which the two argued in favor of the idealist position.[8][9] While a scholarly consensus has yet to be reached, the realist position remains the prevailing viewpoint at this time.[8][9]

Epicureanism also offered arguments against the existence of the gods in the manner proposed by other belief systems. The Riddle of Epicurus, or Problem of evil, is a famous argument against the existence of an all-powerful and providential God or gods. As recorded by Lactantius:

God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, then he is weak and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful which is equally foreign to god's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful, and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?

This type of trilemma argument (God is omnipotent, God is good, but Evil exists) was one favoured by the ancient Greek skeptics, and this argument may have been wrongly attributed to Epicurus by Lactantius, who, from his Christian perspective, regarded Epicurus as an atheist.[15] According to Reinhold F. Glei, it is settled that the argument of theodicy is from an academical source which is not only not Epicurean, but even anti-Epicurean.[16] The earliest extant version of this trilemma appears in the writings of the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus.[17]

Parallels may be drawn to Jainism and Buddhism, which similarly emphasize a lack of divine interference and aspects of its atomism. Epicureanism also resembles Buddhism in its temperateness, including the belief that great excess leads to great dissatisfaction.[18][19][20]

Epicureanism argued that pleasure was the chief good in life.[21] Hence, Epicurus advocated living in such a way as to derive the greatest amount of pleasure possible during one's lifetime, yet doing so moderately in order to avoid the suffering incurred by overindulgence in such pleasure.[21] Emphasis was placed on pleasures of the mind rather than on physical pleasures.[21] Unnecessary and, especially, artificially produced desires were to be suppressed.[22] Since the political life could give rise to desires that could disturb virtue and one's peace of mind, such as a lust for power or a desire for fame, participation in politics was discouraged.[23][24] Further, Epicurus sought to eliminate the fear of the gods and of death, seeing those two fears as chief causes of strife in life.[25] Epicurus actively recommended against passionate love, and believed it best to avoid marriage altogether. He viewed recreational sex as a natural, but not necessary desire that should be generally avoided.[26]

The Epicurean understanding of justice was inherently self-interested. Justice was deemed good because it was seen as mutually beneficial.[27] Individuals would not act unjustly even if the act was initially unnoticed because of possibly being caught and punished.[28] Both punishment and fear of punishment would cause a person disturbance and prevent them from being happy.[28]

Epicurus laid great emphasis on developing friendships as the basis of a satisfying life.

of all the things which wisdom has contrived which contribute to a blessed life, none is more important, more fruitful, than friendship

While the pursuit of pleasure formed the focal point of the philosophy, this was largely directed to the "static pleasures" of minimizing pain, anxiety and suffering. In fact, Epicurus referred to life as a "bitter gift".

When we say . . . that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.

Epicureanism rejects immortality. It believes in the soul, but suggests that the soul is mortal and material, just like the body.[31] Epicurus rejected any possibility of an afterlife, while still contending that one need not fear death: "Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved, is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us."[32] From this doctrine arose the Epicurean Epitaph: Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo ("I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care"), which is inscribed on the gravestones of his followers and seen on many ancient gravestones of the Roman Empire. This quotation is often used today at humanist funerals.[33]

Epicureanism bases its ethics on a hedonistic set of values. In the most basic sense, Epicureans see pleasure as the purpose of life.[34] As evidence for this, Epicureans say that nature seems to command us to avoid pain, and they point out that all animals try to avoid pain as much as possible.[35] Epicureans had a very specific understanding of what the greatest pleasure was, and the focus of their ethics was on the avoidance of pain rather than seeking out pleasure.[36]

Epicureanism divided pleasure into two broad categories: pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind.[36]

The Epicureans further divided each of these types of pleasures into two categories: kinetic pleasure and katastematic pleasure.[38]

From this understanding, Epicureans concluded that the greatest pleasure a person could reach was the complete removal of all pain, both physical and mental.[41] The ultimate goal then of Epicurean ethics was to reach a state of aponia and ataraxia.[41] In order to do this an Epicurean had to control their desires, because desire itself was seen as painful.[42] Not only will controlling one's desires bring about aponia, as one will rarely suffer from not being physically satisfied, but controlling one's desires will also help to bring about ataraxia because one will not be anxious about becoming discomforted since one would have so few desires anyway.[43]

Epicurus distinguishes three kinds of desires: the natural and necessary, the natural but not necessary, and those that are neither natural or necessary.[42]

If one follows only natural and necessary desires, then, according to Epicurus, one would be able to reach aponia and ataraxia and thereby the highest form of happiness.[44]

Epicurus was also an early thinker to develop the notion of justice as a social contract. He defined justice as an agreement made by people not to harm each other.[27] The point of living in a society with laws and punishments is to be protected from harm so that one is free to pursue happiness.[45] Because of this, laws that do not contribute to promoting human happiness are not just.[45] He gave his own unique version of the ethic of reciprocity, which differs from other formulations by emphasizing minimizing harm and maximizing happiness for oneself and others:

"It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life."[46]

Epicureanism incorporated a relatively full account of the social contract theory, and in part attempts to address issues with the society described in Plato's Republic.[45] The social contract theory established by Epicureanism is based on mutual agreement, not divine decree.[45]

Epicurean physics held that the entire universe consisted of two things: matter and void.[47] Matter is made up of atoms, which are tiny bodies that have only the unchanging qualities of shape, size, and weight.[48][49] Atoms were felt to be unchanging because the Epicureans believed that the world was ordered and that changes had to have specific and consistent sources, e.g. a plant species only grows from a seed of the same species.[50][51]

Epicurus holds that there must be an infinite supply of atoms, although only a finite number of types of atoms, as well as an infinite amount of void.[48] Epicurus explains this position in his letter to Herodotus:

Moreover, the sum of things is unlimited both by reason of the multitude of the atoms and the extent of the void. For if the void were infinite and bodies finite, the bodies would not have stayed anywhere but would have been dispersed in their course through the infinite void, not having any supports or counterchecks to send them back on their upward rebound. Again, if the void were finite, the infinity of bodies would not have anywhere to be."[52]

Because of the infinite supply of atoms, there are an infinite amount of worlds, or cosmoi.[48] Some of these worlds could be vastly different than our own, some quite similar, and all of the worlds were separated from each other by vast areas of void (metakosmia).[48]

Epicureanism states that atoms are unable to be broken down into any smaller parts, and Epicureans offered multiple arguments to support this position.[53] Epicureans argue that because void is necessary for matter to move, anything which consists of both void and matter can be broken down, while if something contains no void then it has no way to break apart because no part of the substance could be broken down into a smaller subsection of the substance.[50] They also argued that in order for the universe to persist, what it is ultimately made up of must not be able to be changed or else the universe would be essentially destroyed.[53][50]

Atoms are constantly moving in one of four different ways.[54] Atoms can simply collide with each other and then bounce off of each other.[54] When joined with each other and forming a larger object, atoms can vibrate as they into each other while still maintaining the overall shape of the larger object.[54] When not prevented by other atoms, all atoms move at the same speed naturally downwards in relation to the rest world.[54][55] This downwards motion is natural for atoms; however, as their fourth means of motion, atoms can at times randomly swerve out of their usual downwards path.[55] This swerving motion is what allowed for the creation of the universe, since as more and more atoms swerved and collided with each other, objects were able to take shape as the atoms joined together. Without the swerve, the atoms would never have interacted with each other, and simply continued to move downwards at the same speed.[54][55]

Epicurus also felt that the swerve was what accounted for humanity's free will.[56] If it were not for the swerve, humans would be subject to a never-ending chain of cause and effect.[56] This was a point which Epicureans often used to criticize Democritus' atomic theory.[56]

Epicureans believed that senses also relied on atoms. Every object was continually emitting particles from itself that would then interact with the observer.[57] All sensations, such as sight, smell, or sound, relied on these particles.[57] While the atoms that were emitted did not have the qualities that the senses were perceiving, the manner in which they were emitted caused the observer to experience those sensations, e.g. red particles were not themselves red but were emitted in a manner that caused the viewer to experience the color red.[57] The atoms are not perceived individually, but rather as a continuous sensation because of how quickly they move.[57]

Epicurean philosophy employs an empirical epistemology.[58] The Epicureans believed that all sense perceptions were true,[59][60] and that errors arise in how we judge those perceptions.[60] When we form judgments about things (hupolepsis), they can be verified and corrected through further sensory information.[60][61][62][63] For example, if someone sees a tower from far away that appears to be round, and upon approaching the tower they see that it is actually square, they would come to realize that their original judgement was wrong and correct their wrong opinion.[63]

Epicurus is said to have proposed three criteria of truth: sensations (aisthsis), preconceptions (prolepsis), and feelings (path).[64] A fourth criterion called "presentational applications of the mind" (phantastikai epibolai ts dianoias) was said to have been added by later Epicureans.[64][65] These criteria formed the method through which Epicureans thought we gained knowledge.[66]

Since Epicureans thought that sensations could not deceive, sensations are the first and main criterion of truth for Epicureans.[67] Even in cases where sensory input seems to mislead, the input itself is true and the error arises from our judgments about the input. For example, when one places a straight oar in the water, it appears bent. The Epicurean would argue that image of the oar, that is the atoms traveling from the oar to the observer's eyes, have been shifted and thus really do arrive at the observer's eyes in the shape of a bent oar.[68] The observer makes the error in assuming that the image he or she receives correctly represents the oar and has not been distorted in some way.[68] In order to not make erroneous judgments about perceivable things and instead verify one's judgment, Epicureans believed that one needed to obtain "clear vision" (enargeia) of the perceivable thing by closer examination.[69] This acted as a justification for one's judgements about the thing being perceived.[69] Enargeia is characterized as sensation of an object that has been unchanged by judgments or opinions and is a clear and direct perception of that object.[70]

An individual's preconceptions are his or her concepts of what things are, e.g. what someone's idea of a horse is, and these concepts are formed in a person's mind through sensory input over time.[71] When the word that relates to the preconception is used, these preconceptions are summoned up by the mind into the person's thoughts.[72] It is through our preconceptions that we are able to make judgments about the things that we perceive.[73] Preconceptions were also used by Epicureans to avoid the paradox proposed by Plato in the Meno regarding learning.[72] Plato argues that learning requires us to already have knowledge of what we are learning, or else we would be unable to recognize when we had successfully learned the information.[72] Preconceptions, Epicureans argue, provide individuals with that pre-knowledge required for learning.[72]

Our feelings or emotions (path) are how we perceive pleasure and pain.[74] They are analogous to sensations in that they are a means of perception, but they perceive our internal state as opposed to external things.[74] According to Diogenes Laertius, feelings are how we determine our actions. If something is pleasurable, we pursue that thing, and if something is painful, we avoid that thing.[74]

The idea of "presentational applications of the mind" is an explanation for how we can discuss and inquire about things we cannot directly perceive.[75] We receive impressions of such things directly in our minds, instead of perceiving them through other senses.[76] The concept of "presentational applications of the mind" may have been introduced to explain how we learn about things that we cannot directly perceive, such as the gods.[76][75]

Tetrapharmakos, or "The four-part cure", is Philodemus of Gadara's basic guideline as to how to live the happiest possible life, based on the first four of Epicurus' Principal Doctrines. This poetic doctrine was handed down by an anonymous Epicurean who summed up Epicurus' philosophy on happiness in four simple lines:

Don't fear god,Don't worry about death;What is good is easy to get, andWhat is terrible is easy to endure.

One of the earliest Roman writers espousing Epicureanism was Amafinius. Other adherents to the teachings of Epicurus included the poet Horace, whose famous statement Carpe Diem ("Seize the Day") illustrates the philosophy, as well as Lucretius, who wrote the poem De rerum natura about the tenets of the philosophy. The poet Virgil was another prominent Epicurean (see Lucretius for further details). The Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara, until the 18th century only known as a poet of minor importance, rose to prominence as most of his work along with other Epicurean material was discovered in the Villa of the Papyri. In the second century CE, comedian Lucian of Samosata and wealthy promoter of philosophy Diogenes of Oenoanda were prominent Epicureans.

Julius Caesar leaned considerably toward Epicureanism, which e.g. led to his plea against the death sentence during the trial against Catiline, during the Catiline conspiracy where he spoke out against the Stoic Cato.[77]

In modern times Thomas Jefferson referred to himself as an Epicurean:

If I had time I would add to my little book the Greek, Latin and French texts, in columns side by side. And I wish I could subjoin a translation of Gassendi's Syntagma of the doctrines of Epicurus, which, notwithstanding the calumnies of the Stoics and caricatures of Cicero, is the most rational system remaining of the philosophy of the ancients, as frugal of vicious indulgence, and fruitful of virtue as the hyperbolical extravagances of his rival sects.[78]

Other modern-day Epicureans were Gassendi, Walter Charleton, Franois Bernier, Saint-Evremond, Ninon de l'Enclos, Denis Diderot, Frances Wright and Jeremy Bentham.

Christopher Hitchens referred to himself as an Epicurean.[79] In France, where perfumer/restaurateur Grald Ghislain refers to himself as an Epicurean,[80] Michel Onfray is developing a post-modern approach to Epicureanism.[81] In his recent book titled The Swerve, Stephen Greenblatt identified himself as strongly sympathetic to Epicureanism and Lucretius. Humanistic Judaism as a denomination also claims the Epicurean label.

In modern popular usage, an Epicurean is a connoisseur of the arts of life and the refinements of sensual pleasures; Epicureanism implies a love or knowledgeable enjoyment especially of good food and drink.

Because Epicureanism posits that pleasure is the ultimate good (telos), it has been commonly misunderstood since ancient times as a doctrine that advocates the partaking in fleeting pleasures such as sexual excess and decadent food. This is not the case. Epicurus regarded ataraxia (tranquility, freedom from fear) and aponia (absence of pain) as the height of happiness. He also considered prudence an important virtue and perceived excess and overindulgence to be contrary to the attainment of ataraxia and aponia.[30]

Instead, Epicurus preferred "the good", and "even wisdom and culture" to the "pleasure of the stomach"[82]. While some twentieth-century commentary has sought to diminish this and related quotations, the consistency with Epicurean philosophy overall has more recently been explained.[83]

When Epicurus sought moderation at meals, he was also not averse to moderation in moderation, that is, to occasional luxury. His community also became known for its feasts of the twentieth (of the Greek month).

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Couples Resorts, Negril, Jamaica | Hedonism II

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Greetings!

Welcome to theFIREstarter! If you are interested in themes such as Financial Independence, Retiring Early, Downshifting, or simply just working less and living more then please stick around, I think well get on just fine

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My thoughts and plans have slightly changed in the few years since I set up the blog, you can learn a little bit more about me and the main points on what those plans were and how they've changed here, here, here, here and finally here.

If you'd like to keep a track of new developments, money saving tips, money making tips, my adventures in attempting self sufficiency and simple living, free financial hacks and spreadsheets, and my general musings on Financial Independence, Personal Finance, investing, and the occasional humorous rant, then please consider following along. Those links again:

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Most random photo I could find from November!

Hey all!

Well as the name of the title probably suggests our good run of savings rates has come crashing to a spectacular end, with a lot of heavy spending all hitting us in one month (all entirely optional really, it has to be said!).

Lets find out how/why/what the hell happened shall we?!

Quick note: This turned out to be quite a monster update in the end I would go for a wee grab yourself a cuppa before continuing if I were you!

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Caribbean Cruises, Caribbean Cruise, Cruise Caribbean …

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More ships cruise the Caribbean islands than any other region in the world, and Caribbean cruises treat vacationers to crystal-clear waters, pristine beaches, abundant water sports and duty-free shopping. Caribbean cruises are divided into three regions: Western Caribbean cruises, Southern Caribbean cruises and Eastern Caribbean cruises.

Western Caribbean cruises can take you to see Mayan ruins on Mexico's Yucatan coast, snorkeling in the barrier reef off the coast of Belize or to Grand Cayman's Seven Mile Beach. Southern Caribbean cruises can take you to the beautiful beaches of Aruba, the rain forest of Martinique or the beautiful beaches of Barbados. Eastern Caribbean cruises may call on ports in the Bahamas, San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos.

Because so many people cruise the Caribbean islands, you'll find the most competitive pricing and the best per-diem rates on a Caribbean cruise. This is especially true in the fall -- just before the start of the peak Caribbean cruise season -- when ships return to the Caribbean from Alaska and Europe.

Hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30, but with the sophisticated radar and weather-tracking systems found on larger Caribbean cruise ships today, there is little cause for concern. Ships can easily change course to avoid storms and will substitute alternate Caribbean cruise ports as necessary.

For more information on the Western Caribbean, click here. For more information on the Eastern Caribbean, click here. For more information on the Southern Caribbean, click here.

For a list of Caribbean cruise ports, click here.

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Entheogens & Existential Intelligence: The Use of Plant …

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Used with permission. The official published version :http://www.csse.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE27-4/CJE27-4-tupper.pdf

In light of recent specific liberalizations in drug laws in some countries, this article investigates the potential of entheogens (i.e. psychoactive plants used as spiritual sacraments) as tools to facilitate existential intelligence. Plant teachers from the Americas such as ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, and the Indo-Aryan soma of Eurasia are examples of both past- and presently-used entheogens. These have all been revered as spiritual or cognitive tools to provide a richer cosmological understanding of the world for both human individuals and cultures. I use Howard Gardners (1999a) revised multiple intelligence theory and his postulation of an existential intelligence as a theoretical lens through which to account for the cognitive possibilities of entheogens and explore potential ramifications for education.

In this article I assess and further develop the possibility of an existential intelligence as postulated by Howard Gardner (1999a). Moreover, I entertain the possibility that some kinds of psychoactive substancesentheogenshave the potential to facilitate this kind of intelligence. This issue arises from the recent liberalization of drug laws in several Western industrialized countries to allow for the sacramental use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive tea brewed from plants indigenous to the Amazon. I challenge readers to step outside a long-standing dominant paradigm in modern Western culture that a priori regards hallucinogenic drug use as necessarily maleficent and devoid of any merit. I intend for my discussion to confront assumptions about drugs that have unjustly perpetuated the disparagement and prohibition of some kinds of psychoactive substance use. More broadly, I intend for it to challenge assumptions about intelligence that constrain contemporary educational thought.

Entheogen is a word coined by scholars proposing to replace the term psychedelic (Ruck, Bigwood, Staples, Ott, & Wasson, 1979), which was felt to overly connote psychological and clinical paradigms and to be too socio-culturally loaded from its 1960s roots to appropriately designate the revered plants and substances used in traditional rituals. I use both terms in this article: entheogen when referring to a substance used as a spiritual or sacramental tool, and psychedelic when referring to one used for any number of purposes during or following the so-called psychedelic era of the 1960s (recognizing that some contemporary non-indigenous uses may be entheogenicthe categories are by no means clearly discreet). What kinds of plants or chemicals fall into the category of entheogen is a matter of debate, as a large number of inebriantsfrom coca and marijuana to alcohol and opiumhave been venerated as gifts from the gods (or God) in different cultures at different times. For the purposes of this article, however, I focus on the class of drugs that Lewin (1924/1997) termed phantastica, a name deriving from the Greek word for the faculty of imagination (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1973). Later these substances became known as hallucinogens or psychedelics, a class whose members include lysergic acid derivatives, psilocybin, mescaline and dimethyltryptamine. With the exception of mescaline, these all share similar chemical structures; all, including mescaline, produce similar phenomenological effects; and, more importantly for the present discussion, all have a history of ritual use as psychospiritual medicines or, as I argue, cultural tools to facilitate cognition (Schultes & Hofmann, 1992).

The issue of entheogen use in modern Western culture becomes more significant in light of several legal precedents in countries such as Brazil, Holland, Spain and soon perhaps the United States and Canada. Ayahuasca, which I discuss in more detail in the following section on plant teachers, was legalized for religious use by non-indigenous people in Brazil in 1987i. One Brazilian group, the Santo Daime, was using its sacrament in ceremonies in the Netherlands when, in the autumn of 1999, authorities intervened and arrested its leaders. This was the first case of religious intolerance by a Dutch government in over three hundred years. A subsequent legal challenge, based on European Union religious freedom laws, saw them acquitted of all charges, setting a precedent for the rest of Europe (Adelaars, 2001). A similar case in Spain resulted in the Spanish government granting the right to use ayahuasca in that country. A recent court decision in the United States by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, September 4th, 2003, ruled in favour of religious freedom to use ayahuasca (Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, 2003). And in Canada, an application to Health Canada and the Department of Justice for exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act is pending, which may permit the Santo Daime Church the religious use of their sacrament, known as Daime or Santo Daimeii (J.W. Rochester, personal communication, October 8th, 2003)

One of the questions raised by this trend of liberalization in otherwise prohibitionist regulatory regimes is what benefits substances such as ayahuasca have. The discussion that follows takes up this question with respect to contemporary psychological theories about intelligence and touches on potential ramifications for education. The next section examines the metaphor of plant teachers, which is not uncommon among cultures that have traditionally practiced the entheogenic use of plants. Following that, I use Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligences (1983) as a theoretical framework with which to account for cognitive implications of entheogen use. Finally, I take up a discussion of possible relevance of existential intelligence and entheogens to education.

Before moving on to a broader discussion of intelligence(s), I will provide some background on ayahuasca and entheogens. Ayahuasca has been a revered plant teacher among dozens of South American indigenous peoples for centuries, if not longer (Luna, 1984; Schultes & Hofmann, 1992). The word ayahuasca is from the Quechua language of indigenous peoples of Ecuador and Peru, and translates as vine of the soul (Metzner, 1999). Typically, it refers to a tea made from a jungle liana, Banisteriopsis caapi, with admixtures of other plants, but most commonly the leaves of a plant from the coffee family, Psychotria viridis (McKenna, 1999). These two plants respectively contain harmala alkaloids and dimethyltryptamine, two substances that when ingested orally create a biochemical synergy capable of producing profound alterations in consciousness (Grob, et al., 1996; McKenna, Towers & Abbot, 1984). Among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, ayahuasca is one of the most valuable medicinal and sacramental plants in their pharmacopoeias. Although shamans in different tribes use the tea for various purposes, and have varying recipes for it, the application of ayahuasca as an effective tool to attain understanding and wisdom is one of the most prevalent (Brown, 1986; Dobkin de Rios, 1984).

Notwithstanding the explosion of popular interest in psychoactive drugs during the 1960s, ayahuasca until quite recently managed to remain relatively obscure in Western cultureiii. However, the late 20th century saw the growth of religious movements among non-indigenous people in Brazil syncretizing the use of ayahuasca with Christian symbolism, African spiritualism, and native ritual. Two of the more widespread ayahuasca churches are the Santo Daime (Santo Daime, 2004) and the Unio do Vegetal (Unio do Vegetal, 2004). These organizations have in the past few decades gained legitimacy as valid, indeed valuable, spiritual practices providing social, psychological and spiritual benefits (Grob, 1999; Riba, et al., 2001).

Ayahuasca is not the only plant teacher in the pantheon of entheogenic tools. Other indigenous peoples of the Americas have used psilocybin mushrooms for millennia for spiritual and healing purposes (Dobkin de Rios, 1973; Wasson, 1980). Similarly, the peyote cactus has a long history of use by Mexican indigenous groups (Fikes, 1996; Myerhoff, 1974; Stewart, 1987), and is currently widely used in the United States by the Native American Church (LaBarre, 1989; Smith & Snake, 1996). And even in the early history of Western culture, the ancient Indo-Aryan texts of the Rig Veda sing the praises of the deified Soma (Pande, 1984). Although the taxonomic identity of Soma is lost, it seems to have been a plant or mushroom and had the power to reliably induce mystical experiencesan entheogen par excellence (Eliade, 1978; Wasson, 1968). The variety of entheogens extends far beyond the limited examples I have offered here. However, ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, peyote and Soma are exemplars of plants which have been culturally esteemed for their psychological and spiritual impacts on both individuals and communities.

In this article I argue that the importance of entheogens lies in their role as tools, as mediators between mind and environment. Defining a psychoactive drug as a toolperhaps a novel concept for someinvokes its capacity to effect a purposeful change on the mind/body. Commenting on Vygotskys notions of psychological tools, John-Steiner and Souberman (1978) note that tool use has . . . important effects upon internal and functional relationships within the human brain (p. 133). Although they were likely not thinking of drugs as tools, the significance of this observation becomes even more literal when the tools in question are plants or chemicals ingested with the intent of affecting consciousness through the manipulation of brain chemistry. Indeed, psychoactive plants or chemicals seem to defy the traditional bifurcation between physical and psychological tools, as they affect the mind/body (understood by modern psychologists to be identical).

It is important to consider the degree to which the potential of entheogens comes not only from their immediate neuropsychological effects, but also from the social practicesritualsinto which their use has traditionally been incorporated (Dobkin de Rios, 1996; Smith, 2000). The protective value that ritual provides for entheogen use is evident from its universal application in traditional practices (Weil, 1972/1986). Medical evidence suggests that there are minimal physiological risks associated with psychedelic drugs (Callaway, et al., 1999; Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1979/1998; Julien, 1998). Albert Hofmann (1980), the chemist who first accidentally synthesized and ingested LSD, contends that the psychological risks associated with psychedelics in modern Western culture are a function of their recreational use in unsafe circumstances. A ritual context, however, offers psychospiritual safeguards that make the potential of entheogenic plant teachers to enhance cognition an intriguing possibility.

Howard Gardner (1983) developed a theory of multiple intelligences that originally postulated seven types of intelligence (iv). Since then, he has added a naturalist intelligence and entertained the possibility of a spiritual intelligence (1999a; 1999b). Not wanting to delve too far into territory fraught with theological pitfalls, Gardner (1999a) settled on looking at existential intelligence rather than spiritual intelligence (p. 123). Existential intelligence, as Gardner characterizes it, involves having a heightened capacity to appreciate and attend to the cosmological enigmas that define the human condition, an exceptional awareness of the metaphysical, ontological and epistemological mysteries that have been a perennial concern for people of all cultures (1999a).

In his original formulation of the theory, Gardner challenges (narrow) mainstream definitions of intelligence with a broader one that sees intelligence as the ability to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in at least one culture or community (1999a, p. 113). He lays out eight criteria, or signs, that he argues should be used to identify an intelligence; however, he notes that these do not constitute necessary conditions for determining an intelligence, merely desiderata that a candidate intelligence should meet (1983, p. 62). He also admits that none of his original seven intelligences fulfilled all the criteria, although they all met a majority of the eight. For existential intelligence, Gardner himself identifies six which it seems to meet; I will look at each of these and discuss their merits in relation to entheogens.

One criterion applicable to existential intelligence is the identification of a neural substrate to which the intelligence may correlate. Gardner (1999a) notes that recent neuropsychological evidence supports the hypothesis that the brains temporal lobe plays a key role in producing mystical states of consciousness and spiritual awareness (p. 124-5; LaPlante, 1993; Newberg, DAquili & Rause, 2001). He also recognizes that certain brain centres and neural transmitters are mobilized in [altered consciousness] states, whether they are induced by the ingestion of substances or by a control of the will (Gardner, 1999a, p.125). Another possibility, which Gardner does not explore, is that endogenous dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in humans may play a significant role in the production of spontaneous or induced altered states of consciousness (Pert, 2001). DMT is a powerful entheogenic substance that exists naturally in the mammalian brain (Barker, Monti & Christian, 1981), as well as being a common constituent of ayahuasca and the Amazonian snuff, yopo (Ott, 1994). Furthermore, DMT is a close analogue of the neurotransmitter 5-hydroxytryptamine, or serotonin. It has been known for decades that the primary neuropharmacological action of psychedelics has been on serotonin systems, and serotonin is now understood to be correlated with healthy modes of consciousness.

One psychiatric researcher has recently hypothesized that endogenous DMT stimulates the pineal gland to create such spontaneous psychedelic states as near-death experiences (Strassman, 2001). Whether this is correct or not, the role of DMT in the brain is an area of empirical research that deserves much more attention, especially insofar as it may contribute to an evidential foundation for existential intelligence.

Another criterion for an intelligence is the existence of individuals of exceptional ability within the domain of that intelligence. Unfortunately, existential precocity is not something sufficiently valued in modern Western culture to the degree that savants in this domain are commonly celebrated today. Gardner (1999a) observes that within Tibetan Buddhism, the choosing of lamas may involve the detection of a predisposition to existential intellect (if it is not identifying the reincarnation of a previous lama, as Tibetan Buddhists themselves believe) (p. 124). Gardner also cites Czikszentmilhalyis consideration of the early-emerging concerns for cosmic issues of the sort reported in the childhoods of future religious leaders like Gandhi and of several future physicists (Gardner, 1999a, p. 124; Czikszentmilhalyi, 1996). Presumably, some individuals who are enjoined to enter a monastery or nunnery at a young age may be so directed due to an appreciable manifestation of existential awareness. Likewise, individuals from indigenous cultures who take up shamanic practicewho have abilities beyond others to dream, to imagine, to enter states of trance (Larsen, 1976, p. 9)often do so because of a significant interest in cosmological concerns at a young age, which could be construed as a prodigious capacity in the domain of existential intelligencev (Eliade, 1964; Greeley, 1974; Halifax, 1979).

The third criterion for determining an intelligence that Gardner suggests is an identifiable set of core operational abilities that manifest that intelligence. Gardner finds this relatively unproblematic and articulates the core operations for existential intelligence as:

the capacity to locate oneself with respect to the farthest reaches of the cosmosthe infinite no less than the infinitesimaland the related capacity to locate oneself with respect to the most existential aspects of the human condition: the significance of life, the meaning of death, the ultimate fate of the physical and psychological worlds, such profound experiences as love of another human being or total immersion in a work of art. (1999a, p. 123)

Gardner notes that as with other more readily accepted types of intelligence, there is no specific truth that one would attain with existential intelligencefor example, as musical intelligence does not have to manifest itself in any specific genre or category of music, neither does existential intelligence privilege any one philosophical system or spiritual doctrine. As Gardner (1999a) puts it, there exists [with existential intelligence] a species potentialor capacityto engage in transcendental concerns that can be aroused and deployed under certain circumstances (p. 123). Reports on uses of psychedelics by Westerners in the 1950s and early 1960sgenerated prior to their prohibition and, some might say, profanationreveal a recurrent theme of spontaneous mystical experiences that are consistent with enhanced capacity of existential intelligence (Huxley, 1954/1971; Masters & Houston, 1966; Pahnke, 1970; Smith, 1964; Watts, 1958/1969).

Another criterion for admitting an intelligence is identifying a developmental history and a set of expert end-state performances for it. Pertaining to existential intelligence, Gardner notes that all cultures have devised spiritual or metaphysical systems to deal with the inherent human capacity for existential issues, and further that these respective systems invariably have steps or levels of sophistication separating the novice from the adept. He uses the example of Pope John XXIIIs description of his training to advance up the ecclesiastic hierarchy as a contemporary illustration of this point (1999a, p. 124). However, the instruction of the neophyte is a manifest part of almost all spiritual training and, again, the demanding process of imparting of shamanic wisdomoften including how to effectively and appropriately use entheogensis an excellent example of this process in indigenous cultures (Eliade, 1964).

A fifth criterion Gardner suggests for an intelligence is determining its evolutionary history and evolutionary plausibility. The self-reflexive question of when and why existential intelligence first arose in the Homo genus is one of the perennial existential questions of humankind. That it is an exclusively human trait is almost axiomatic, although a small but increasing number of researchers are willing to admit the possibility of higher forms of cognition in non-human animals (Masson & McCarthy, 1995; Vonk, 2003). Gardner (1999a) argues that only by the Upper Paleolithic period did human beings within a culture possess a brain capable of considering the cosmological issues central to existential intelligence (p. 124) and that the development of a capacity for existential thinking may be linked to a conscious sense of finite space and irreversible time, two promising loci for stimulating imaginative explorations of transcendental spheres (p. 124). He also suggests that thoughts about existential issues may well have evolved as responses to necessarily occurring pain, perhaps as a way of reducing pain or better equipping individuals to cope with it (Gardner, 1999a, p. 125). As with determining the evolutionary origin of language, tracing a phylogenesis of existential intelligence is conjectural at best. Its role in the development of the species is equally difficult to assess, although Winkelman (2000) argues that consciousness and shamanic practicesand presumably existential intelligence as wellstem from psychobiological adaptations integrating older and more recently evolved structures in the triune hominid brain. McKenna (1992) goes even so far as to postulate that the ingestion of psychoactive substances such as entheogenic mushrooms may have helped stimulate cognitive developments such as existential and linguistic thinking in our proto-human ancestors. Some researchers in the 1950s and 1960s found enhanced creativity and problem-solving skills among subjects given LSD and other psychedelic drugs (Harman, McKim, Mogar, Fadiman & Stolaroff, 1966; Izumi, 1970; Krippner, 1985; Stafford & Golightly, 1967), skills which certainly would have been evolutionarily advantageous to our hominid ancestors. Such avenues of investigation are beginning to be broached again by both academic scholars and amateur psychonauts (Dobkin de Rios & Janiger, 2003; Spitzer, et al., 1996; MAPS Bulletin, 2000).

The final criterion Gardner mentions as applicable to existential intelligence is susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system. Here, again, Gardner concedes that there is abundant evidence in favour of accepting existential thinking as an intelligence. In his words, many of the most important and most enduring sets of symbol systems (e.g., those featured in the Catholic liturgy) represent crystallizations of key ideas and experiences that have evolved within [cultural] institutions (1999a, p. 123). Another salient example that illustrates this point is the mytho-symbolism ascribed to ayahuasca visions among the Tukano, an Amazonian indigenous people. Reichel-Dolmatoff (1975) made a detailed study of these visions by asking a variety of informants to draw representations with sticks in the dirt (p. 174). He compiled twenty common motifs, observing that most of them bear a striking resemblance to phosphene patterns (i.e. visual phenomena perceived in the absence of external stimuli or by applying light pressure to the eyeball) compiled by Max Knoll (Oster, 1970). The Tukano interpret these universal human neuropsychological phenomena as symbolically significant according to their traditional ayahuasca-steeped mythology, reflecting the codification of existential ideas within their culture.

Narby (1998) also examines the codification of symbols generated during ayahuasca experiences by tracing similarities between intertwining snake motifs in the visions of Amazonian shamans and the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid. He found remarkable similarities between representations of biological knowledge by indigenous shamans and those of modern geneticists. More recently, Narby (2002) has followed up on this work by bringing molecular biologists to the Amazon to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies with experiences shamans, an endeavour he suggests may provide useful cross-fertilization in divergent realms of human knowledge.

The two other criteria of an intelligence are support from experimental psychological tasks and support from psychometric findings. Gardner suggests that existential intelligence is more debatable within these domains, citing personality inventories that attempt to measure religiosity or spirituality; he notes, it remains unclear just what is being probed by such instruments and whether self-report is a reliable index of existential intelligence (1999a, p. 125). It seems transcendental states of consciousness and the cognition they engender do not lend themselves to quantification or easy replication in psychology laboratories. However, Strassman, Qualls, Uhlenhuth, & Kellner (1994) developed a psychometric instrumentthe Hallucinogen Rating Scaleto measure human responses to intravenous administration of DMT, and it has since been reliably used for other psychedelic experiences (Riba, Rodriguez-Fornells, Strassman, & Barbanoj, 2001).

One historical area of empirical psychological research that did ostensibly stimulate a form of what might be considered existential intelligence was clinical investigations into psychedelics. Until such research became academically unfashionable and then politically impossible in the early 1970s, psychologists and clinical researchers actively explored experimentally-induced transcendent experiences using drugs in the interests of both pure science and applied medical treatments (Abramson, 1967; Cohen, 1964; Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1979/1998; Masters & Houston, 1966). One of the more famous of these was Pahnkes (1970) so-called Good Friday experiment, which attempted to induce spiritual experiences with psilocybin within a randomized double-blind control methodology. His conclusion that mystical experiences were indeed reliably produced, despite methodological problems with the study design, was borne out by a critical long-term follow-up (Doblin, 1991), which raises intriguing questions about both entheogens and existential intelligence.

Studies such as Pahnkes (1970), despite their promise, were prematurely terminated due to public pressure from a populace alarmed by burgeoning contemporary recreational drug use. Only about a decade ago did the United States government give researchers permission to renew (on a very small scale) investigations into psychedelics (Strassman 2001; Strassman & Qualls, 1994). Cognitive psychologists are also taking an interest in entheogens such as ayahuasca (Shanon, 2002). Regardless of whether support for existential intelligence can be established psychometrically or in experimental psychological tasks, Gardners theory expressly stipulates that not all eight criteria must be uniformly met in order for an intelligence to qualify. Nevertheless, Gardner claims to find the phenomenon perplexing enough, and the distance from other intelligences great enough (1999a, p. 127) to be reluctant at present to add existential intelligence to the list . . . . At most [he is] willing, Fellini-style, to joke about 8 intelligences (p. 127). I contend that research into entheogens and other means of altering consciousness will further support the case for treating existential intelligence as a valid cognitive domain.

By recapitulating and augmenting Gardners discussion of existential intelligence, I hope to have strengthened the case for its inclusion as a valid cognitive domain. However, doing so raises questions of what ramifications an acceptance of existential intelligence would have for contemporary Western educational theory and practice. How might we foster this hitherto neglected intelligence and allow it to be used in constructive ways? There is likely a range of educational practices that could be used to stimulate cognition in this domain, many of which could be readily implemented without much controversy.vi Yet I intentionally raise the prospect of using entheogens in this capacitynot with young children, but perhaps with older teens in the passage to adulthoodto challenge theorists, policy-makers and practitioners.vii

The potential of entheogens as tools for education in contemporary Western culture was identified by Aldous Huxley. Although better known as a novelist than as a philosopher of education, Huxley spent a considerable amount of timeparticularly as he neared the end of his lifeaddressing the topic of education. Like much of his literature, Huxleys observations and critiques of the socio-cultural forces at work in his time were cannily prescient; they bear as much, if not more, relevance in the 21st century as when they were written. Most remarkably, and relevant to my thesis, Huxley saw entheogens as possible educational tools:

Under the current dispensation the vast majority of individuals lose, in the course of education, all the openness to inspiration, all the capacity to be aware of other things than those enumerated in the Sears-Roebuck catalogue which constitutes the conventionally real world . . . . Is it too much to hope that a system of education may some day be devised, which shall give results, in terms of human development, commensurate with the time, money, energy and devotion expended? In such a system of education it may be that mescalin or some other chemical substance may play a part by making it possible for young people to taste and see what they have learned about at second hand . . . in the writings of the religious, or the works of poets, painters and musicians. (Letter to Dr. Humphrey Osmond, April 10th, 1953in Horowitz & Palmer, 1999, p.30)

In a more literary expression of this notion, Huxleys final novel Island (1962) portrays an ideal culture that has achieved a balance of scientific and spiritual thinking, and which also incorporates the ritualized use of entheogens for education. The representation of drug use that Huxley portrays in Island contrasts markedly with the more widely-known soma of his earlier novel, Brave New World (1932/1946): whereas soma was a pacifier that muted curiosity and served the interests of the controlling elite, the entheogenic moksha medicine of Island offered liminal experiences in young adults that stimulated profound reflection, self-actualization and, I submit, existential intelligence.

Huxleys writings point to an implicit recognition of the capacity of entheogens to be used as educational tools. The concept of tool here refers not merely the physical devices fashioned to aid material production, but, following Vygotsky (1978), more broadly to those means of symbolic and/or cultural mediation between the mind and the world (Cole, 1996; Wertsch, 1991). Of course, deriving educational benefit from a tool requires much more than simply having and wielding it; one must also have an intrinsic respect for the object qua tool, a cultural system in which the tool is valued as such, and guides or teachers who are adept at using the tool to provide helpful direction. As Larsen (1976) remarks in discussing the phenomenon of would-be shamans in Western culture experimenting with mind-altering chemicals: we have no symbolic vocabulary, no grounded mythological tradition to make our experiences comprehensible to us . . . no senior shamans to help ensure that our [shamanic experience of] dismemberment be followed by a rebirth (p. 81). Given the recent history of these substances in modern Western culture, it is hardly surprising that they have been demonized (Hofmann, 1980). However, cultural practices that have traditionally used entheogens as therapeutic agents consistently incorporate protective safeguardsset, settingviii, established dosages, and mythocultural respect (Zinberg, 1984). The fear that inevitably arises in modern Western culture when addressing the issue of entheogens stems, I submit, not from any properties intrinsic to the substances themselves, but rather from a general misunderstanding of their power and capacity as tools. Just as a sharp knife can be used for good or ill, depending on whether it is in the hands of a skilled surgeon or a reckless youth, so too can entheogens be used or misused.

The use of entheogens such as ayahuasca is exemplary of the long and ongoing tradition in many cultures to employ psychoactives as tools that stimulate foundational types of understanding (Tupper, in press). That such substances are capable of stimulating profoundly transcendent experiences is evident from both the academic literature and anecdotal reports. Accounting fully for their action, however, requires going beyond the usual explanatory schemas: applying Gardners (1999a) multiple intelligence theory as a heuristic framework opens new ways of understanding entheogens and their potential benefits. At the same time, entheogens bolster the case for Gardners proposed addition of existential intelligence. This article attempts to present these concepts in such a way that the possibility of using entheogens as tools is taken seriously by those with an interest in new and transformative ideas in education.

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Top 10 Atheism Quotes – Common Sense Atheism

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There are hundreds of great atheism quotes out there. Like most skillful turns of phrase, they all sound good. But there are many I disagree with, for example All thinking men are atheists (Ernest Hemmingway).

Or consider this Julian Baggini quote: Goblins, hobbits truly everlasting gobstoppers God is just one of the things that atheists dont believe in, it just happens to be the thing that, for historical reasons, gave them their name. Actually, no. Perhaps we could say that God is just one of many things that naturalists dont believe in, or something like that, but atheism is defined only by a lack of belief in gods.

There are hundreds of other atheism quotes to choose from, but these are the ones that strike me most deeply right now.

When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Stephen Roberts

When I was a kid I had an imaginary friend and I used to think that he went everywhere with me, and that I could talk to him and that he could hear me, and that he could grant me wishes and stuff. And then I grew up, and I stopped going to church.

Jimmy Carr

Believe nothing,No matter where you read it,Or who has said it,Not even if I have said it,Unless it agrees with your own reasonAnd your own common sense.

Buddha

To understand via the heart is not to understand.

Michel de Montaigne

I dont know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didnt.

Jules Renard

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.

Anonymous

Do not pass by my epitaph, traveler.But having stopped, listen and learn, then go your way.There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon,No caretaker Aiakos, no dog Cerberus.All we who are dead belowHave become bones and ashes, but nothing else.I have spoken to you honestly, go on, traveler,Lest even while dead I seem talkative to you.

Ancient Roman tombstone

An atheist doesnt have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that there cant be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question.

John McCarthy

Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.

Blaise Pascal

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

Anonymous

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Top 10 Atheism Quotes - Common Sense Atheism