Monday, September 30, 2013

The Lazarus Paradox

Ida Lawrence, Contributor
Waking Times
One of our finest challenges is to experience life consciously, with ears open to the truth, eyes open to what is, mind open to ask why, and heart open to love. And here’s the big one: if it’s in your heart, ask permission to serve the highest good.
I can also include in this the principle of non-infringement. Since everyone is in life to learn through experience, you don’t infringe on other people’s lives… you practice allowing and detachment. So let’s talk about how serving the highest good fits in with allowing and detachment.
A lot of people have trouble with this, and I do too. It seems to present a paradox.
I remember a friend saying, “I cannot believe that so many children chose to be born into such terrible circumstances in order to experience those circumstances… I just don’t buy it. Seems like a lame excuse for not caring.” She has been volunteering in her spare time for years… she cooks and serves at a food kitchen for the homeless, with no thought about karma or detachment… just doing what’s in her heart to do, and I love her for it.
So let’s get into this a little deeper by talking about one person’s life experience, so that we can get a feel for the empirical knowledge of experience.
Here’s a story of a man born into Bronx/Brooklyn poverty, life in the ghetto, family conflict, drugs and violence… and he was one of those whose spirit didn’t get swallowed up. He survived the onslaught into his teens, and got a boost from the music of the time… the TemptationsCurtis MayfieldBob Marley and many others who sang about life as it is, and rising above it.
He went into the martial arts at age 15 and he became a Muslim at age 18, letting the disciplines and practices lift him up. In his late twenties he escaped to California, incorporated some new age thought into his spirituality and kept learning and teaching the arts.
He built martial arts schools in three different cities, experienced some success, gained respect as a master of the arts, and he lived happily… not within system’s idea of normalcy, not free of financial stress, but with many enjoyments. This was his life… he served, and offered knowledge, insight and self-empowerment to people.
Then he began to succumb to an inherited disease. He lost his physical power, and he waited for death to release  him.
One of his favorite songs… I think it was a reggae artist… spoke at a high level: we have to experience it all before we can reach Zion, was the message of the lyrics. It was a song that recognized the pure knowledge gained from life… a concept that liberates people from victim mentality.
This man couldn’t have made it if he hadn’t been helped. The artists who wrote and sang such beautiful, conscious music helped him. The teachers of Islam who were an example of clean-cut, non-violent, drug free… helped him. All of his martial arts teachers helped him and his students helped him.
So what does this say? If we are inclined to evolve, we will welcome into our lives the light and grace and empathy of others and we will offer it back out to even more ‘others’. I am saying this with oneness in mind… we are each other, we need each other, and we nourish each other in the thirst for knowledge. We are one, after all. Even more so when we give ourselves to the highest good.
Now let’s glimpse the subject from another angle. My own life began with an infusion of Bible stories, and I remember a very poignant one that may relate. It was a parable of the rich man and Lazarus, offered by Jesus. It’s quite interesting.
The story gives us an image of a man who had the position of beggar, dwelling in torment at the gate of the rich man. We are not told who Lazarus was – angel, holy man, lazy bum, mentally ill – no clue. He existed, and he was seen but not cared for and not helped. The rich man lived in luxury, lacking nothing.
Eventually Lazarus departed from life, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.
Soon after, the rich man departed from life as well, and found himself in torment. He saw, in the distance, Lazarus at the side of Abraham, and he called out for just a drop of water to ease his torment. Abraham informed him that there was a great chasm in place, and no way to cross over from there to here or here to there.
So the rich man begged… please send Lazarus to inform my family so that they will not make the same mistake. Abraham replied that the rich man’s family had failed to listen to all of the messengers who were sent to tell them, so sending someone ‘back from the dead’ wouldn’t persuade them. Case closed: if you can’t get to mercy in life, then you’re looking at a great chasm.
I’m not intending to preach or pass along a concept that we are destined for hellfire if we don’t tend to the suffering of others. How should I know… karma is very complex from what I hear. And I’m not saying that suffering creates good souls who are elevated to heaven. Nope… poverty sucks… no up-side.
Suffering… mental or physical, can seriously break you down or it can make you empathetic when you heal, or get some insight into the why of it and let it go. Life does offer pure knowledge of the workings of the human spirit. But it’s not something we think about or attempt to codify… seems to me more like it’s information that becomes imbedded in our energy pattern.


The many small decisions to overcome are in there, the times we listened to someone and understood their true need, the times we disciplined ourselves to do better, the times we faced our fears for the sake of our evolution. These pearls become our light… the feeling of us that brightens and spreads.
When you look at it, it seems that every encounter that triggered the martial artist’s evolution was a meeting-up of his seeking spirit with the light of someone else.
So now let’s get to the chasm. Our light is what we offer, and we offer it just by being. We are all bridges to one another!
When we can really see, and feel, from inside another person’s struggle, that’s empathy. When we perceive and offer what they truly need with no opinion or thought of whether they are ‘deserving’ of it, that’s mercy.
But when our thoughts are for ourselves alone, and our egoistic desires are the only desires that we care to respond to, then we set the stage for collapsing in upon ourselves. We have withdrawn the bridge. There is now a great chasm.
Non-infringement, allowing and detachment do not translate into ‘not caring’. Caring is natural for the connected human. The rich man refused to see that Lazarus and he were one and the same life force. Jesus gave a good lesson there.
Non-infringement means not attempting to control another person’s life in order to make them to do ‘what’s best’. ‘What’s best’ in the hands of a controller is usually what’s best for the controller. Allowing is the same kind of concept – there’s respect built into it, and trust in the divinity of the ‘other’.
Detachment is really a way of dealing with our ego’s opinion: “There should be no poverty and suffering in the earth… I see the suffering, therefore I suffer.” Maybe there shouldn’t be any suffering, but there is. The only way to deal with it is to detach from our belief that there should be no suffering, and wisely build the bridge between the hearts.
Remember that instruction… do unto others as you would have them do unto you? That was a good ‘empirical experience’ life map, wasn’t it. Fits well if you’re looking for a purpose.
About the Author
Ida Lawrence is an author, blogger, copywriter and editor based in Atlanta, Georgia. She has contributed to and edited two books on racial justice and human rights, and numerous articles on human rights, self-empowerment and related subjects. Her latest book is entitled The Warrior’s Way to Heaven on Earth. Ida has also published a companion book of blog favorites from http://talk2momz.com/.
This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

Total GMO Ban To Be Considered By Russia Within Weeks

As one of the few nations in the world with a GMO-free platform, Russia does not allow any cultivation of GMOs for commercial purposes. Their regulatory agencies recently suspended the import and use of an American GM corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage. The Russian Prime Minister has now ordered the same agencies to consider a possible ban on all GMO imports into Russia.
The Russian Federal Environmental Assessment Commission has not adopted any commercialized GM varieties for agricultural use.
The recent decision by the Russians to suspend authorisation for American GM corn threatens to trigger a transatlantic commercial and diplomatic row.
growing body of scientific research - done mostly in Europe, Russia, and other countries – showing that diets containing engineered corn or soya cause serious health problems in laboratory mice and rats.
Experts at the University of Caen conducted an experiment running for the full lives of rats - two years.
The findings, which were peer reviewed by independent experts before being published in a respected scientific journal, found raised levels of breast cancer, liver and kidney damage.
Russian Prime Minister Announces Possible Ban On All Imports
Russia’s consumer rights watchdog and Health Ministry, Rospotrebnadzor, announced one year ago that it had suspended the import and use of the Monsanto GM corn.
Now, the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the relevant agencies to consider a possible ban of all imports into Russia of products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by October 15.
The order is addressed to Rospotrebnadzor, the Agriculture Ministry, and the Trade and Economic Development Ministry. They have been ordered to “submit proposals on amendments to the Russian legislation aimed at tightening control over the turnover of products containing components obtained from GMOs together with the relevant federal executive bodies.”

The aforementioned agencies are also ordered to submit proposals “on the possibility of banning the import of such products into the Russian Federation.”
A list of the prime minister’s orders was drawn up to fulfill the presidential orders issued after the meeting on the socio-economic development of the Rostov region held on September 18. Medvedev’s orders have been posted on the government website, Interfax news agency reported last September 25.
Russia is currently taking a hard line on GMOs — in August the first independent project for identifying whether Russian farmers are growing illegal GM crops started in the Belgorod region.
NAGS (The National Association for Genetic Safety) conducted the first checks of agricultural crops for the presence of GMOs. No GMO plants were found in any Belgorod fields.
According to the current law, 19 GM lines are allowed in foodstuffs, but the cultivation of GMOs is not allowed.
After joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Russia is being pressured simplify the procedure for registration of genetically modified products, seed and feed, to stop their safety checks, and to stop controls over their distribution.
Nations Banning Monsanto’s Glyphosate Herbicide 
Glyphosate is the world’s top selling herbicide, and Monsanto’s formulations Roundup is used with more than 80 percent of all genetically modified (GM) crops grown globally. But evidence of its extreme toxicity has been emerging within the past decade. Glyphosate was found to kill human placental cells at concentrations below that recommended for agricultural use and approved by our regulators, while Roundup was lethal at even lower concentrations.
The toxic effects of Roundup (R400) begin at 5 ppm, and the first endocrine disrupting action is already evident at 0.5 ppm, 800 times lower than the level of 400 ppm authorized by the US Environment Protection Agency in food or feed.


According to one analysis, GMO corn tested by Profit Pro contains a number of elements absent from traditional cord, including chlorides, formaldehyde and glyphosate. While those elements don’t appear naturally in corn, they were present in GMO samples to the tune of 60 ppm, 200pm and 13 ppm, respectively.
“Glyphosate is a strong organic phosphate chelator that immobilizes positively charged minerals such as manganese, cobalt, iron, zinc [and] copper,” Dr. Don Huber attested during a separate GMO study recently released, adding that those elements “are essential for normal physiological functions in soils, plants and animals.”
El Salvador has recently voted to ban glyphosate, the pesticide that most GM crops are designed to be grown with, along with 52 other chemicals.
Predictably, protests have been raised by the GM lobby group CropLife, which is scaremongering about losses of up to 60% in crop production if the chemicals are banned.
CropLife is funded by the big GM companies, including Monsanto.
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/CropLife_International
The news of the historic El Salvadorean vote comes on the anniversary of the publication of the groundbreaking study led by Prof GE Seralini, which found that the glyphosate-based pesticide Roundup – and a GM maize engineered to tolerate it – caused severe organ damage and increased rates of tumours and premature death in rats. Roundup was found to be toxic at half the level permitted in EU drinking water.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637
Denmark has also imposed widespread bans on the spraying of glyphosate in response to research showing that the sprays have been contaminating the countrys groundwater.
The chemical has, against all expectations sieving down through the soil and polluting the ground water at a rate of five times more than the allowed level for drinking water, according to tests done by the Denmark and Greenland Geological Research Institution (DGGRI).
A decade ago, the Danish environment minister Hans Christian Schmidt announced unprecedented restrictions on glyphosate, the country’s and Europe’s most widely used herbicide.
About the Author
Natasha Longo has a master’s degree in nutrition and is a certified fitness and nutritional counselor. She has consulted on public health policy and procurement in Canada, Australia, Spain, Ireland, England and Germany.

How Long to Nap for the Biggest Brain Benefits


Taking a nap, we've seen time and again, is like rebooting your brain. But napping may be as much of an art as it is a science. Scientists offer recommendations for planning your perfect nap, including how long to nap and when.P
The sleep experts in the article say a 10-to-20-minute power nap gives you the best "bang for your buck," but depending on what you want the nap to do for you, other durations might be ideal:
For a quick boost of alertness, experts say a 10-to-20-minute power nap is adequate for getting back to work in a pinch.
For cognitive memory processing, however, a 60-minute nap may do more good, Dr. Mednick said. Including slow-wave sleep helps with remembering facts, places and faces. The downside: some grogginess upon waking.
Finally, the 90-minute nap will likely involve a full cycle of sleep, which aids creativity and emotional and procedural memory, such as learning how to ride a bike. Waking up after REM sleep usually means a minimal amount of sleep inertia, Dr. Mednick said.P
In addition to those recommendations, one surprising suggestion is to sit slightly upright during your nap, because it will help you avoid a deep sleep. And if you find yourself dreaming during your power naps, it may be a sign you're sleep deprived. While you're planning your nap, don't forget to time it during the right time of day as well.
Source: LifeHacker.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Way of the Tao

Paul Cavel, Contributor
Waking Times


Taoist Have Trained In Nature throughout the Ages
Human beings, with all our complexity and potential, have diversified, populated and thrived around the globe. Since the breakthroughs of the Industrial Revolution, we have spent 200 years becoming specialists in manipulating our environment and making radical changes to the way in which we experience the material world. The wonders that have resulted from man’s triumph over nature will only be surpassed by those of the Information Age, capable of producing yet more dramatic and astounding changes than witnessed in its infantile 30 years, such as the ability to decode the human genome and influence the genetics of various life forms—science that seeks to uncover the mysteries of our very existence.

The Way of Reconnecting

Yet amongst our awe-inspiring discoveries and extraordinary accomplishments, we find ourselves driven by mass consumption—greed and fear cycles so powerful that they are ingrained into our subconscious with little awareness. Our focus is bordering on becoming totally external, which is illustrated by people taking better care of their material possessions than their body, energy or emotional well-being. Quantity has become more important than quality, keeping many on a treadmill chasing after more, more, more without pause to relish in even a moment of satisfaction from that which they have already acquired.
Somewhere along The Way we have lost our way from the initial drive towards survival and development, and entered the realm of too much is not enough. Many people are disconnected: disconnected from their body and inner wisdom; disconnected from their food source; disconnected from the planet; and disconnected from their fellow human beings. Some are content to maintain the status quo while even those with the best of intentions must endure tidal waves of misinformation and the challenges of sailing against the wind. We need a reality check, a way to pass through the dark of night into the light of day.
Throughout the ages, Tao meditation and energy arts have been a means by which anyone can become a creator of positive change and reconnect: reconnect with nature; reconnect with their body and that which sustains it; reconnect with their essence; and reconnect with one another. At the heart of training internal energy arts is awareness training, to understand and learn from experience in body, mind and qi energy. As each aspect of Tao meditation and energy arts is developed over time, it reinforces and magnifies the effects of all others, creating a positive feedback loop—not only during practice, but in all facets of living. This is possible because, as consciousness is heightened, people begin to make healthier choices, whether applied to their well-being, business, sport or any worthy pursuit in life.

The Supporting Roles of Nature, Nutrition + Community

Tao arts, including all Five Element, I Ching and nei gong training has always included a wholly integrated system. That is the qi gong, tai chi or bagua practitioner does not only seek to become an adept in his/her art form, but to apply their knowledge and skill set to every aspect of life. Ultimately, all Tao arts practices become a means by which a person can pursue the questions of spirituality.
However, working towards such a lofty goal as enlightenment—or even ordinary goals such as stress reduction, better health, healing and well-being—is not easily achieved by the most dedicated internal energy arts practice alone. There are other essential and supporting threads that intertwine with Tao arts training to make the practitioner’s goals possible or more readily available. Three of the most fundamental aspects are the roles of nature, nutrition and community. Without development in any one of these areas, it becomes dramatically more difficult to create balance in your body, mind and qi energy, and yet more challenging to live in harmony with all and everything that encompasses your surroundings.

Nature: Renewing + Invigorating

Immersing yourself in the natural energies of the environment make training in nature a totally different experience to indoor practice–whatever form of exercise, sport or art you train. However, when specifically training Tao arts, in the beginning natural energies stimulate your qi energy, and thereby allow you to feel and contact your qi. Later, through dedicated and sustained practice, you can use your qi to contact and manipulate environmental energies, dramatically amplifying your skill and overall vitality. The process isn’t metaphorical, but rather progressive and systematic, capable of producing visceral, real and clear transformations in how you experience your body and the environment. Ancient Taoists were Eastern pagans–that is to say they developed their practices in nature, based on the laws of nature, and whole-heartedly regarded nature as having intrinstic value that superseded its use by or relastionship to human beings.


Each year, I offer at least one nature retreat for the very purpose of helping people reconnect with the energies of the environment and the planet, as all Taoist energy arts have been taught throughout the ages. Comparatively, the results people gain from this level of training is far beyond what I’ve ever witnessed in more than two decades of internal energy arts training in the city. Natural resources come to your aid and make it easier to tune into and feel subtle energies. From my experiences teaching and training in nature, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not only one of the most natural human behaviours, but absolutely fundamental to our ability to live healthy, stable and spontaneous lives.

Nutrition: Essential Ingredients for Life

When we train to reconnect with our body, we begin to feel more deeply, perhaps even more profoundly. It then becomes easier to tune into the ways in which the body responds to external stimuli, specifically whether functions are upgraded or downgraded. One of the most important factors is what we eat and the nutritional value of any food source.
Jing, which translates as “body essence” in Chinese, is absorbed through digestion of food, providing the material and energetic basis of the body. Although jing is the lowest vibration of energy in the makeup of your being, it supplies raw energy that can be cultivated and transformed into qi through internal energy arts practice. A nutrient-rich diet is therefore required to maintain not only regular practice, but also the essential building blocks that feed, renew and develop the cells of your body. During the Cultural Revolution in China, many lineages died out because people were starved of sufficient food to sustain regular training, exemplifying the importance of the nourishment-training feedback loop.
There are many dietary programmes available to you in the West. Nutrition is quite individual and each of us must be in touch with our own body to know what is best. That said there are simple things you can do—whatever dietary programme you choose—to ensure you consume foods that provide you with sufficient jing, so you can efficiently and effectively apply your training to everything from healing your body to achieving high-performance results in your work, hobby, sport or life in general.

Community: Magnification of the Human Experience

Community is about the magnification of the human experience. We are social animals who grew up for millions of years in tribal groups or clans. This not only ensured the survival of our species, but made chores easier, life more enjoyable and perhaps added meaning to what could otherwise be seen as a treacherous existence.
In terms of Tao energy arts, fundamental to the training sequence is the oscillation between attending a class to learn methodology and training at home to hone your techniques. In ancient times, the teacher would start class just after dawn and leave students to train together for much of the day. This worked for thousands of years as a daily regime not only because it gave students plenty of time to develop while under the guidance of a knowledgeable teacher, but also because students supported one another’s growth and thereby learned more in the process. Again, it’s a circular self-reinforcing training progression. The best teachers are those who remain students themselves.
The lineage teachings I offer regard partner exercises as critical to training because they teach you what to look for in both yourself and your partner; you can encourage your training partner (and vice versa) to move beyond obstacles and find ways of helping each other to embody greater understanding. Also, when you guide others, you often solidify your knowledge and discover new perspectives that may not have been immediately apparent, thereby propelling you towards a deeper understanding. (See my video clip on partner exercises to learn more about why they are so heavily emphasised in our system.)
Finally, training in a group can make it easier to feel what is happening and pick up on subtle energies. The group energy is far stronger than what any one person could generate in their solo practice. I’ve seen those who put in the extra effort to team up and train together advance much quicker over the years. Internal energy arts are social arts, inextricably linked and woven into the very fabric of training benefits. And, of course, these principles are no different in other sports, hobbies or crafts.

Making Positive Change

Dedicated Tao meditation and energy arts training can be extremely rewarding. However, the point is not only to lay down burdens and become a clearer, more relaxed and vital individual during practice sessions, but to carry over that which you cultivate in your training into your daily life. Taoists talk about building on small successes—starting with that which is easy and allowing each accomplishment to lead to the next. In the process, you become more stable and open to looking inside to discover your inner wisdom. Then, you can grow your power to reach out to your fellow human beings for their benefit, rather than to further personal agendas.
With a little ongoing, individual effort, we can tune into, support and join the many positive forces trending towards a more relaxed and sustainable way of living that is in harmony with the well-being of our planet and the other beings that inhabit her. In this way, we do our part to slow down the disintegration of society and drive towards materialism, greed, fear and anxiety. Ultimately, we become the creators of positive change in our own realities.
About the Author
Paul Cavel is the founder of Tao Arts London, editor of the monthly Tao journal, Inner Quest, life coach and senior Tao meditation arts teacher. Since 1987, Paul has studied nei gong science, the I Ching and Lao Tzu’s Water tradition of Taoism in-depth, including qi gong, tai chi, bagua zhang, Taoist breathing, Taoist yoga, qi gong tui na energy healing and meditation. He offers free training tips on his blog, www.CircleWalking.com.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of WakingTimes or its staff.
This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

10 Amazing Inventions From Nikola Tesla

Perhaps one of Tesla’s most famous inventions deals directly with energy, something that is the talk of many social and political conversations and something that could be free to everyone if we used Nikola Tesla’s invention. Over the years, as more and more people begin to recognize the game being played in our society, Nikola Tesla and his story has been becoming more and more popular. This is natural as the increase in people educating themselves outside of the education system leads them to amazing bits of information that otherwise stay hidden. A perfect example are the inventions below which I came across when reading an article on Activist Post about some amazing inventions from Tesla. All of these inventions do and could make a huge impact on our lives.
Radio
Although Guglielmo Marconi was initially credited with the invention, and most believe him to be the inventor of radio even today, the Supreme Court overturned Marconi’s patent in 1943, when it was proven that Tesla invented the radio years previous to Marconi. Tesla demonstrated that radio signals are just another frequency that require a transmitter and receiver. During a presentation before the National Electric Light Association, Tesla displayed this technology. Although Tesla applied for two patents US 645576, and US 649621 in 1897,  by 1904, The U.S. Patent Office reversed its decision, awarding Marconi a patent for the invention of radio. Many believe this coule have had something to do with the fact that Marconi’s financial backers in the States were Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie. These men could influence the patent decision. This also allowed the U.S. government (among others) to avoid having to pay the royalties that were being claimed by Tesla.
Alternating Current
 This is where it all began, and what ultimately caused such a stir at the 1893 World’s Expo in Chicago.  A war was leveled ever-after between the vision of Edison and the vision of Tesla for how electricity would be produced and distributed.  The division can be summarized as one of cost and safety: The DC current that Edison (backed by General Electric) had been working on was costly over long distances, and produced dangerous sparking from the required converter (called a commutator).  Regardless, Edison and his backers utilized the general “dangers” of electric current to instill fear in Tesla’s alternative: Alternating Current.  As proof, Edison sometimes electrocuted animals at demonstrations.  Consequently, Edison gave the world the electric chair, while simultaneously maligning Tesla’s attempt to offer safety at a lower cost.  Tesla responded by demonstrating that AC was perfectly safe by famously shooting current through his own body to produce light.  This Edison-Tesla (GE-Westinghouse) feud in 1893 was the culmination of over a decade of shady business deals, stolen ideas, and patent suppression that Edison and his moneyed interests wielded over Tesla’s inventions. Yet, despite it all, it is Tesla’s system that provides power generation and distribution to North America in our modern era.
Electric Motor
Tesla’s invention of the electric motor has finally been popularized by a car brand using his name.  While the technical specifications are beyond the scope of this summary, suffice to say that Tesla’s invention of a motor with rotating magnetic fields could have freed mankind much sooner from the stranglehold of Big Oil. However, his invention in 1930 succumbed to the economic crisis and the world war that followed. Nevertheless, this invention has fundamentally changed the landscape of what we now take for granted: industrial fans, household applicances, water pumps, machine tools, power tools, disk drives, electric wristwatches and compressors.
Robotics 
Tesla’s overly enhanced scientific mind led him to the idea that all living beings are merely driven by external impulses.  He stated: “I have by every thought and act of mine, demonstrated, and does so daily, to my absolute satisfaction that I am an automaton endowed with power of movement, which merely responds to external stimuli.”  Thus, the concept of the robot was born.  However, an element of the human remained present, as Tesla asserted that these human replicas should have limitations — namely growth and propagation. Nevertheless, Tesla unabashedly embraced all of what intelligence could produce.  His visions for a future filled with intelligent cars, robotic human companions, and the use of sensors, and autonomous systems are detailed in a must-read entry in the Serbian Journal of Electrical Engineering, 2006 (PDF).
X-rays
Electromagnetic and ionizing radiation was heavily researched in the late 1800s, but Tesla researched the entire gamut. Everything from a precursor to Kirlian photography, which has the ability to document life force, to what we now use in medical diagnostics, this was a transformative invention of which Tesla played a central role.  X-rays, like so many of Tesla’s contributions, stemmed from his belief that everything we need to understand the universe is virtually around us at all times, but we need to use our minds to develop real-world devices to augment our innate perception of existence.

Laser 
Tesla’s invention of the laser may be one of the best examples of the good and evil bound up together within the mind of man.  Lasers have transformed surgical applications in an undeniably beneficial way, and they have given rise to much of our current digital media. However, with this leap in innovation we have also crossed into the land of science fiction.  From Reagan’s “Star Wars” laser defense system to today’s Orwellian “non-lethal” weapons’ arsenal, which includes laser rifles and directed energy “death rays,” there is great potential for development in both directions.
Light 
Of course he didn’t invent light itself, but he did invent how light can be harnessed and distributed.  Tesla developed and used florescent bulbs in his lab some 40 years before industry “invented” them. At the World’s Fair, Tesla took glass tubes and bent them into famous scientists’ names, in effect creating the first neon signs.  However, it is his Tesla Coil that might be the most impressive, and controversial.  The Tesla Coil is certainly something that big industry would have liked to suppress: the concept that the Earth itself is a magnet that can generate electricity (electromagnetism) utilizing frequencies as a transmitter.  All that is needed on the other end is the receiver — much like a radio.
Remote Control 
This invention was a natural outcropping of radio. Patent No.613809 was the first remote controlled model boat, demonstrated in 1898.  Utilizing several large batteries; radio signals controlled switches, which then energized the boat’s propeller, rudder, and scaled-down running lights. While this exact technology was not widely used for some time, we now can see the power that was appropriated by the military in its pursuit of remote controlled war. Radio controlled tanks were introduced by the Germans in WWII, and developments in this realm have since slid quickly away from the direction of human freedom.
Wireless Communications and Limitless Free Energy 
These two are inextricably linked, as they were the last straw for the power elite — what good is energy if it can’t be metered and controlled?  Free?  Never.  J.P. Morgan backed Tesla with $150,000 to build a tower that would use the natural frequencies of our universe to transmit data, including a wide range of information communicated through images, voice messages, and text.  This represented the world’s first wireless communications, but it also meant that aside from the cost of the tower itself, the universe was filled with free energy that could be utilized to form a world wide web connecting all people in all places, as well as allow people to harness the free energy around them.  Essentially, the 0′s and 1′s of the universe are embedded in the fabric of existence for each of us to access as needed.  Nikola Tesla was dedicated to empowering the individual to receive and transmit this data virtually free of charge.  But we know the ending to that story . . . until now?
Tesla had perhaps thousands of other ideas and inventions that remain unreleased.  A look at his hundreds of patents shows a glimpse of the scope he intended to offer.  If you feel that the additional technical and scientific research of Nikola Tesla should be revealed for public scrutiny and discussion, instead of suppressed by big industry and even our supposed institutions of higher education, join the world’s call to tell power brokers everywhere that we are ready to Occupy Energy and learn about what our universe really has to offer.
The release of Nikola Tesla’s technical and scientific research — specifically his research into harnessing electricity from the ionosphere at a facility called Wardenclyffe — is a necessary step toward true freedom of information.  Please add your voice by sharing this information with as many people as possible.
For additional information about the demand for release, or to use as a template to form your own demand, please visit: http://releaseteslasresearch.weebly.com/
As they state:
Tell your friends, bring it up and discuss it at your next general assembly, do whatever you can to get the word out, organize locally to make a stand for the release of Nikola Tesla’s research…. America is tired of corrupt corporate greed, supported by The American government, holding us back in a stagnant society in the name of profit . . . The Energy Crisis is a lie.
Originally posted on: Collective Evolution

11 Brain-Twisting Paradoxes

Paradoxes have been around since the time of Ancient Greeks & the credit of popularizing them goes to recent logicians. Using logic you can usually find a fatal flaw in the paradox which shows why the seemingly impossible is either possible or the entire paradox is built on flawed thinking. Can you all work out the problems in each of the 11 paradoxes shown here? If you do, post your solutions or the fallacies in the comments.


#11 - The Omnipotence Paradox

11
The paradox states that if the being can perform such actions, then it can limit its own ability to perform actions and hence it cannot perform all actions, yet, on the other hand, if it cannot limit its own actions, then that is—straight off—something it cannot do. This seems to imply that an omnipotent being’s ability to limit itself necessarily means that it will, indeed, limit itself. This paradox is often formulated in terms of the God of the Abrahamic religions, though this is not a requirement. One version of the omnipotence paradox is the so-called paradox of the stone: “Could an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that even that being could not lift it?” If so, then it seems that the being could cease to be omnipotent; if not, it seems that the being was not omnipotent to begin with. An answer to the paradox is that having a weakness, such as a stone he cannot lift, does not fall under omnipotence, since the definition of omnipotence implies having no weaknesses.

#10 - The Sorites’ Paradox

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The paradox goes as follows: consider a heap of sand from which grains are individually removed. One might construct the argument, using premises, as follows:

1,000,000 grains of sand is a heap of sand. (Premise 1)

A heap of sand minus one grain is still a heap. (Premise 2)

Repeated applications of Premise 2 (each time starting with one less grain), eventually forces one to accept the conclusion that a heap may be composed of just one grain of sand.

On the face of it, there are some ways to avoid this conclusion. One may object to the first premise by denying 1,000,000 grains of sand makes a heap. But 1,000,000 is just an arbitrarily large number, and the argument will go through with any such number. So the response must deny outright that there are such things as heaps. Peter Unger defends this solution. Alternatively, one may object to the second premise by stating that it is not true for all collections of grains that removing one grain from it still makes a heap. Or one may accept the conclusion by insisting that a heap of sand can be composed of just one grain.

#9 - The Interesting number paradox

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Claim: There is no such thing as an uninteresting natural number.

Proof by Contradiction: Assume that you have a non-empty set of natural numbers that are not interesting. Due to the well-ordered property of the natural numbers, there must be some smallest number in the set of not interesting numbers. Being the smallest number of a set one might consider not interesting makes that number interesting. Since the numbers in this set were defined as not interesting, we have reached a contradiction because this smallest number cannot be both interesting and uninteresting. Therefore the set of uninteresting numbers must be empty, proving there is no such thing as an uninteresting number.





#8 - The arrow paradox


In the arrow paradox, Zeno states that for motion to be occurring, an object must change the position which it occupies. He gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any one instant of time, for the arrow to be moving it 8must either move to where it is, or it must move to where it is not. It cannot move to where it is not, because this is a single instant, and it cannot move to where it is because it is already there. In other words, in any instant of time there is no motion occurring, because an instant is a snapshot. Therefore, if it cannot move in a single instant it cannot move in any instant, making any motion impossible. This paradox is also known as the fletcher’s paradox—a fletcher being a maker of arrows.

Whereas the first two paradoxes presented divide space, this paradox starts by dividing time – and not into segments, but into points.




#7 - Achilles & the tortoise paradox

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In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 feet. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 feet, bringing him to the tortoise’s starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 feet. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise. Of course, simple experience tells us that Achilles will be able to overtake the tortoise, which is why this is a paradox.

[JFrater: I will point out the problem with this paradox to give you all an idea of how the others might be wrong: in physical reality it is impossible to transverse the infinite - how can you get from one point in infinity to another without crossing an infinity of points? You can't - thus it is impossible. But in mathematics it is not. This paradox shows us how mathematics may appear to prove something - but in reality, it fails. So the problem with this paradox is that it is applying mathematical rules to a non-mathematical situation. This makes it invalid.]

#6 - The Buridan’s ass paradox

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This is a figurative description of a man of indecision. It refers to a paradoxical situation wherein an ass, placed exactly in the middle between two stacks of hay of equal size and quality, will starve to death since it cannot make any rational decision to start eating one rather than the other. The paradox is named after the 14th century French philosopher Jean Buridan. The paradox was not originated by Buridan himself. It is first found in Aristotle’s De Caelo, where Aristotle mentions an example of a man who remains unmoved because he is as hungry as he is thirsty and is positioned exactly between food and drink. Later writers satirised this view in terms of an ass who, confronted by two equally desirable and accessible bales of hay, must necessarily starve while pondering a decision.





#5 - The unexpected hanging paradox

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A judge tells a condemned prisoner that he will be hanged at noon on one weekday in the following week, but that the execution will be a surprise to the prisoner. He will not know the day of the hanging until the executioner knocks on his cell door at noon that day. Having reflected on his sentence, the prisoner draws the conclusion that he will escape from the hanging. His reasoning is in several parts. He begins by concluding that the “surprise hanging” can’t be on a Friday, as if he hasn’t been hanged by Thursday, there is only one day left – and so it won’t be a surprise if he’s hanged on a Friday.

Since the judge’s sentence stipulated that the hanging would be a surprise to him, he concludes it cannot occur on Friday. He then reasons that the surprise hanging cannot be on Thursday either, because Friday has already been eliminated and if he hasn’t been hanged by Wednesday night, the hanging must occur on Thursday, making a Thursday hanging not a surprise either. By similar reasoning he concludes that the hanging can also not occur on Wednesday, Tuesday or Monday. Joyfully he retires to his cell confident that the hanging will not occur at all. The next week, the executioner knocks on the prisoner’s door at noon on Wednesday — which, despite all the above, will still be an utter surprise to him. Everything the judge said has come true.

#4 - The barber’s Paradox

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Suppose there is a town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. It seems reasonable to imagine that the barber obeys the following rule: He shaves all and only those men in town who do not shave themselves.

Under this scenario, we can ask the following question: Does the barber shave himself?

Asking this, however, we discover that the situation presented is in fact impossible:

- If the barber does not shave himself, he must abide by the rule and shave himself.

- If he does shave himself, according to the rule he will not shave himself

#3 - Epimenides’ Paradox

3This paradox arises from the statement in which Epimenides, against the general sentiment of Crete, proposed that Zeus was immortal, as in the following poem:

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one

The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!

But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,

For in thee we live and move and have our being.

He was, however, unaware that, by calling all Cretens liars, he had, unintentionally, called himself one, even though what he ‘meant’ was all Cretens except himself. Thus arises the paradox that if all Cretens are liars, he is also one, & if he is a liar, then all Cretens are truthful. So, if all Cretens are truthful, then he himself is speaking the truth & if he is speaking the truth, all Cretens are liars. Thus continues the infinite regression.




#2 - The paradox of the court

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The Paradox of the Court is a very old problem in logic stemming from ancient Greece. It is said that the famous sophist Protagoras took on a pupil, Euathlus, on the understanding that the student pay Protagoras for his instruction after he had won his first case (in some versions: if and only if Euathlus wins his first court case). Some accounts claim that Protagoras demanded his money as soon as Euathlus completed his education; others say that Protagoras waited until it was obvious that Euathlus was making no effort to take on clients and still others assert that Euathlus made a genuine attempt but that no clients ever came. In any case, Protagoras decided to sue Euathlus for the amount owed.

Protagoras argued that if he won the case he would be paid his money. If Euathlus won the case, Protagoras would still be paid according to the original contract, because Euathlus would have won his first case.

Euathlus, however, claimed that if he won then by the court’s decision he would not have to pay Protagoras. If on the other hand Protagoras won then Euathlus would still not have won a case and therefore not be obliged to pay. The question is: which of the two men is in the right?

#1 - The unstoppable force paradox

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The Irresistible force paradox, also the unstoppable force paradox, is a classic paradox formulated as “What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?” The paradox should be understood as an exercise in logic, not as the postulation of a possible reality. According to modern scientific understanding, no force is completely irresistible, and there are no immovable objects and cannot be any, as even a minuscule force will cause a slight acceleration on an object of any mass. An immovable object would have to have an inertia that was infinite and therefore infinite mass. Such an object would collapse under its own gravity and create a singularity. An unstoppable force would require infinite energy, which does not exist in a finite universe.

Bonus - Olbers’ Paradox

Olbers-Paradox
In astrophysics and physical cosmology, Olbers’ paradox is the argument that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe. It is one of the pieces of evidence for a non-static universe such as the current Big Bang model. The argument is also referred to as the “dark night sky paradox” The paradox states that at any angle from the earth the sight line will end at the surface of a star. To understand this we compare it to standing in a forest of white trees. If at any point the vision of the observer ended at the surface of a tree, wouldn’t the observer only see white? This contradicts the darkness of the night sky and leads many to wonder why we do not see only light from stars in the night sky.