Philosophy Wire: Rainforests. Humans. Long gone…

Deep in the Amazon, signs of human activity long before the forest was there. [1] The tree is falling. Long after you are gone. And yet it is heard. Search the earth. It will tell you why…

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Immortality: Possible. / Αθανασία: Εφικτή.

Photo: Pahas [http://www.flickr.com/photos/gpahas]

Many living beings are literally immortal. [1] From trees [2] to lobsters [3] to Hydra [4], immortality is more common than we may think. Our lost contact with Nature is probably the reason we have denied ourselves this possibility. We consider us as one of the most evolved species and yet we die younger than almost any other species. We took a wrong turn a lot time ago and we now consider as "progress" anything that kills us. The way back is a long one. But isn't it time we started walking?


Πολλά ζωντανά όντα είναι κυριολεκτικά αθάνατα. [1] Από τα δέντρα [2] στους αστακούς [3] στην Ύδρα [4], η αθανασία είναι περισσότερο κοινή από όσο πιστεύαμε. Η απομάκρυνση μας από τη Φύση είναι ίσως ο λόγος που έχουμε απομακρυνθεί από αυτό το ενδεχόμενο. Κάπου πήραμε λάθος στροφή και θεωρούμε ως "πρόοδο" ό,τι μας σκοτώνει. Ο δρόμος προς τα πίσω είναι μακρύς. Μήπως όμως ήρθε η ώρα να ξεκινήσουμε να γυρίζουμε;

Philosophy Wire: Trees 3,000 years old, humans, immortality…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-12-04]: Deep in the Sierra Nevada The President, a 54,000-cubic-foot gargantuan tree at the height of a skyscraper in the Sequoia National Park, lies in silence after it has just been declared the second largest living organism on Earth. After 3,240 years, the giant sequoia is still growing wider at a consistent rate... [source: web news, web news 2] I do not know about you, but I get the weird feeling that I am not envy of this longevity of that tree… Or maybe I do? I cannot decide which one of the two, if true, is more exciting…

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Philosophy Wire: Trees, reality, “Is” and “Is because”…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-11-17]: Scientists found out why tree branches have the fractal-like shape they have [source: web news]. The shape they have seems to make them more resistant to air blowing on them. Humans have the tendency to find “causes” for everything. It never passes through our mind that trees may just… “be” as they are.

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Philosophy Wire: France, CNN, misinformation, Berkeley and the tree...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-04-03]: The French military forces took over the airport in the capital of Ivory Coast (where many foreign residents have taken refuge), while France is sending reinforcements to the military forces there. News that you would never learn if you only read the "valid" CNN... While this news was headlines in every major news agency, CNN did not even mention it. Only a small sentence like "Some 1,400 foreigners, including 500 French citizens, have sought refuge at a French military camp" was buried somewhere in an article entitled "Red Cross: 800 killed in Ivory Coast town". If a tree falls in a forest where there is no one to hear, then this tree makes no sound... At least so said Berkeley. And CNN is trying to apply this very philosophy...

Update: The news was finally posted on the main page of cnn.com on 3/4/2011, 16:21 Greek time.

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Philosophy Wire: Nothing "new" in Greece, so nothing "happened" in Greece?

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-02-23]: Almost everyone went on strike today in Greece. Even news agencies, newpapers and internet news portals did not make any update in their pages - nothing "new" was posted by them. Nothing "new" regardings the "news" today in Greece. Does that mean that nothing "happened" in Greece today? Are "news" only the things we learn about from news agencies? How can something "happen" if noone at all learns about it? If a tree falls in a forest where noone is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

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