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POPSThe Shadow Knows The art of the sculpture is in the form its shadow makes when illuminated in a certain way.
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POPSFive mysteries of the universe The things that look so trivial, and so many times go unnoticed, when one begins to question them, it feels strange and maybe even threatening. Or exciting ?-)
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POPS"Invisible" people She got the idea for her unusual art from the increasing use of "Big Brother" surveillance. She said: "I'd like people to consider what it means to let the government control our daily lives. "When we are controlled we hand over our individual responsibilities to the state. I wanted to make a suit for the non-criminal citizen whose house is being watched 24 hours by street surveillance cameras. I'm also responding to a wish to disappear."
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POPSOh yeah, and don't trust yourself either! The Chinese philosopher Xun Zi said that human nature is not particularly good, but he went on to argue that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make it better. Too many people resign themselves to say "that's just the way things are" because that's easier than challenging their own beliefs. Before we can be an agent for change, our ideas must be relentlessly refined in the furnace of critical introspection. Follow the link to read all these cognitive hazards, and see where you find them in your life!
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POPSYour life is Perfect. We often don't know if we want something until we get it, and then find it wasn't what we wanted. Through that discovery, we can start to believe we really wanted something else, and the chase continues, turning goals into hurdles. Often confusing improvement with change. Perhaps another angle could be learning what we need to, but also trying to improve what we can already do well, without neglecting the opportunities to learn from what we can consider to be failures. We can change situations, but changing who we are may not be possible, and if it is we don't have the foresight to make it a likely improvement.
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POPSCan human consciousness survive without a brain? "Why do you think there is such resistance to studies like yours? Because we're pushing through the boundaries of science, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that, well, when you die, you die; that's it. Death is a moment — you know you're either dead or alive. All these things are not scientifically valid, but they're social perceptions.How is technology challenging the perception that death is a moment?"
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POPSQuotes from Voltaire Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher known for his wit, philosophical sport, and defense of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform despite strict censorship laws in France and harsh penalties for those who broke them. A satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize Christian Church dogma and the French institutions of his day. -- From Wikipedia
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POPS Does Time really Slow Down in a Crisis? Eagleman added this illusion "is related to the phenomenon that time seems to speed up as you grow older. When you're a child, you lay down rich memories for all your experiences; when you're older, you've seen it all before and lay down fewer memories. Therefore, when a child looks back at the end of a summer, it seems to have lasted forever; adults think it zoomed by." And though the results of this study can lead towards disorders linked with timing, such as schizophrenia, Eagleman believes "it's really about understanding the virtual reality machinery that we're trapped in,"Our brain constructs this reality for us that, if we look closely, we can find all these strange illusions in. The fact that we're now seeing this with how we perceive time is new."
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POPSPower and the Illusion of Control "We conducted four experiments exploring the relationship between power and illusory control - the belief that one has the ability to influence outcomes that are largely determined by chance," said Galinksy, "In each experiment, whether the participant recalled power by an experience of holding power or it was manipulated by randomly assigning participants to Manager-Subordinate roles, it led to perceived control over outcomes that were beyond the reach of the individual. Furthermore, the notion of being able to control a 'chance' result led to unrealistic optimism and inflated self-esteem."
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POPSThe Clay Model - The Illusion of Life A funny and insightful look into the reality of life, from the spiritual point of view. With deep humanity and humor, Belzebuub talks about the illusory nature of life and the spiritual reality behind it using the analogy of a clay model. At the same time, the video is deeply serious and pressing for each person. Does it resonate with you? Have you ever felt like you were living in a clay model?
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POPSNever Say Die: Why We Can't Imagine Death The common view of death as a great mystery usually is brushed aside as an emotionally fueled desire to believe that death isn’t the end of the road. And indeed, a prominent school of research in social psychology called terror management theory contends that afterlife beliefs, as well as less obvious beliefs, behaviors and attitudes, exist to assuage what would otherwise be crippling anxiety about the ego’s inexistence. Yet a small number of researchers, including me, are increasingly arguing that the evolution of self-consciousness has posed a different kind of problem altogether. This position holds that our ancestors suffered the unshakable illusion that their minds were immortal, and it’s this hiccup of gross irrationality that we have unmistakably inherited from them. Individual human beings, by virtue of their evolved cognitive architecture, had trouble conceptualizing their own psychological inexistence from the start.
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POPSGrand Illusion!!! The Mystery Crash
courtesy of Luxman, Luxenbourg. Hunt the Boeing! And test your perceptions! As everyone knows, on 11 September, less than an hour after the attack on the World Trade Centre, an airplane collided with the Pentagon. The Associated Press first reported that a booby-trapped truck had caused the explosion. The Pentagon quickly denied this. The official US government version of events still holds. Here's a little game for you: Take a look at these photographs and try to find evidence to corroborate the official version. It's up to you to Hunt the Boeing! Did you find the Boeing? Can you still defend the official version of events? > Well done! Remember to get in touch with master of illusion, David Copperfield. He'll be glad to hear from you! You found the official version lacking in something (like a Boeing, for example): > If you begin to question whether a Boeing really did crash on the Pentagon then, no doubt, you'll be wondering what happened to the aircraft that disappeared
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POPSDozens Report Mile-Wide UFO Over Texas Just imagine if aliens exist!! Abductions, secret flights, missing time, men in black, being probed and tortured and terrorised by alien foreign invaders!! Hmm.... I don't think we should fear UFO's. If aliens exist, I'm pretty sure they're just trying to liberate us and bring us some freedom and democracy. Optical Illusion?