I recently attended a philosophy class focused on the ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato, and others.

I was surprised by the relatively shallow depth of the ideas discussed, when viewed through a quantum holodynamic perspective.

I came to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that unless the philosopher is post-quantum, they're not really going to add much insight into life.

There is, in my opinion, a troubling trend in our modern societies, when people respond with "I find that offensive".

In basic terms to take offence is to blame others for how one feels, which places the responsibility and choice of one's own emotional states with another. As Viktor Frankl so succinctly explained "the last of human freedoms (is) the ability to choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances".

Psychology Today blog article by Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D. (JUne 2009)

"When asked, people think that novel, uncertain events will be less pleasurable than feeling absolutely certain and possessing every bit of information possible in a situation. However, scientists are finding that when events are new and uncertain our pleasure is more likely to be intense; it will linger longer and be more meaningful. What this means is that most of us are doing the exact opposite of what will bring us fulfillment."

This blog echoes others I have read, Hugh Mackay,1 Charles Handy, William Butler Yeats2, Jane Roberts3 et al, in that handling surprise, challenge and difficulty is the stuff of life. It's why we're here. To learn, stretch and grow.

It's a common theme for success. As Lolly Daskal explains "By listening to your inner self and following your compass within,  you will find a life that is aligned with your talents, truth and values."

As Todd explains:

"How can you thrive in an uncertain, unpredictable, rapidly evolving world?

Explore your deepest, most central values by devoting time for introspection. Schedule this time as you would your workout sessions and doctor appointments."

I wrote in Be and Become that to handle uncertainty effectively, it behoves one to remain centred; to enable our internal gyroscope (values, beliefs) to steady our stance as the ship of life rocks and rolls in turbulent seas. Most hang on to the ships structure (ego, material things), losing a sense of direction, purpose and stability, and ultimately left feeling at the mercy of the elements. Steve Chandler explains that we hang on to our personalities at the expense of relationships, commitments and results.

Fiona Smith reports that "Happiness isn't enough - if you want to really flourish, you have to be prepared to be negative too."4

In an interview with Prof. Barbar Fredrickson (author, Positivity), Fiona reports that "experiencing negative emotions is crucial for mental social health." Fredrickson explains "'Research suggests that negative emotions are a very critical ingredient in flourishing. The honest expression of negative emotions is vital,' she says via phone from the US."

I believe it's also important to trust that which extends beyond ourselves ... the wider community, and our wider-than-thought (at-once, nonlocal) intuition.

Todd concludes:

"Forget about the pursuit of happiness. Create a life that matters and you might catch happiness along the way.

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoidance of danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
~Helen Keller~"

Additional good stuff

This from Hugh Mackay:

“I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that - I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying “write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep”, and “cheer up” and “happiness is our birthright” and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say “Quick! Move on! Cheer up!” I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness”. Ask yourself “is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is.”

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/478028-i-actually-attack-the-concept-of-happiness-the-idea-that

• 1. "I just want my kids to be happy," I hear people say, as if happy kids are part of their perfect picture of themselves. But what a dreadful fate to befall anyone, just being happy. What about anguish, despair, panic and pain? Shouldn't our offspring experience the lot? "We grow through pain," we say, mining the wisdom of the ages and mouthing it like a slogan. But then we expect our every pain to be eased instantaneously: "Quick, a pill! I need perfect happiness!"

  {C}

Background

Modern science is still almost entirely based on 17^th century concepts that physical movement is perfectly smooth and continuous.

This continuity of movement implies continuity of operation (of the world we experience) which naturally induced the perception that our universe (and our bodies) operated like a clockwork machine. This machine-world view was the impetus for the Industrial Revolution which resulted in many beneficial technologies (aircraft, automobiles, etc).

Around 200 years after Newton developed the calculus (which is based on the assumption of perfect continuity), the continuous-machine model was not able to explain a growing number of puzzling experimental results1 especially those concerning the presumed wave-like behaviour of light.

In 1905 Albert Einstein resolved the mismatch of clockwork theory with actual experiment with his photo-electric effect for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics. Light came in "lumps" or particles of energy, and these particles, what we call "photons", were not continuous.

This "quantum" view of light gave rise to a burst of discoveries2, leading to what is now accepted as being, by far, "the most successful physical theory in history"3 : quantum theory.

Physicists quipped that quantum physics was all about "lumps and jumps" - lumps of light that "jump" from location to location without travelling the intervening space.

As one leading physicist explained, "according to the quantum theory, movement is not4 fundamentally continuous".

However, our sciences are still working on the assumption of clockwork continuity, which works well enough for rockets, rifles and railways.

Medical science, for example, still seeks to find the static machine-parts (genes) responsible for our personal behaviours, despite the evidence for nonlocal, interconnecting fields of quantum potentials that would, if researched, open whole new avenues for healing and wellbeing.

In the minutia of physical movement including when we so much as lift a finger, movement is not continuous, nor clockwork in nature, nor predictable, nor certain ... nor physical in nature, but meta-physical.

Yet our sciences carry on, as if movement was continuous and purely physical. The bulk of modern science is reliant on 17^th century assumptions that are incompatible with world's most successful physical theory. The scientific method calls for theories to be discarded or modified when faced with evidence that is unable to be accommodated within the scope of a particular theory. This is how science advances. The geocentric model (Earth as centre of the universe) was ultimately replaced by the heliocentric model (Earth orbiting the Sun) because of the weight of evidence for the heliocentric model.

The intransigence to upgrade science's mechanical-universe model with one that is compatible with the quantum evidence is, like the behaviour of priests in Galileo's time, the hallmark of dogma, superstition and greed. That failure (to accommodate the facts within a congruent world-view) is a travesty of modern science.

In brief:

Standard5 modern science is still almost entirely based on 17^th century concepts that physical movement is perfectly smooth and continuous (comprising an infinite-series6 of ever-so-small "infinitesimal" movements).

There are no bodily processes (chemical, electrical or otherwise) that can move anything infinitely ("infinite" literally means without end). Accordingly, physical movement is theoretically impossible when based on standard science's Newtonian (17^th century) "assumptions". Given that physical movement is a routine aspect of everyday life, the root assumptions of standard science are clearly and unambiguously wrong.

Instead of applying 17^th century thinking to our 21^st century world, a new holodynamic world-view that matches the (quantum) evidence is, arguably, long overdue.

Detail:

Superstition - "a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation."

While sharing various ideas on a forum recently, it became evident there are many people (including and especially atheists, scientists and the religious) who still very deeply rely on superstitious beliefs.

And by "superstitious" beliefs, none are more evident than when the topic of Zeno's Paradoxes is considered.

To put things in context:

Imagine we have a number of belief-systems, let's call them BS1 and BS2. Let's now see how well they match a particular set of evidence (facts and observations, as can be readily experienced on planet Earth).