Saturday, December 1, 2007

Mind or Brain? They are the same!

Cognitive neuroscientist Lisa Saksida explains why the mind and brain are the same thing. While doing yoga by candlelight.

Memories of Madrid

Cuando no puedo mirar tu cara
miro tus pies.
...
Pero no amo tus pies
sine porque anduvieron
sobre la tierra y sobre
el viento y sobre el agua,
hasta que me encontraron.

Pablo Neruda, Los versos del Capitán
(The Captain's Verses: The Love Poems)

Monday, August 13, 2007

After almost 1,000 years, it still moves

The (probably) best known quatrain from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám has been running through my head just recently:

The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

It appeals because it accepts the hard fact about our individual lives that is often difficult to accept - what is written is written, and that's it. Can't be changed. However, what will be written in the future is more in our hands. There is another quatrain:

And as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted - 'Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.'

The good news is that the world has many taverns, and the cock crows every morning!