On The Shortness of Life: An Introduction to Seneca

Great posting by Tim Ferriss, a great read to start 2010.
iPhone users can download an app / ebook here.

Banned Books Week

Tomorrow is the first day of "Banned Books Week". The Boca Raton Public Library has put together a nice display with several books that were banned in some countries at some point in time. Inside each book there is a bookmark-sized note explaining a little bit about where, when, and why that particular book had been banned. Very informative! For more information on Banned Books Week, check the ALA website.

Site of the day

As a parent and educator, I'm always interested in good sites that promote reading and suggest good titles for different age groups.
I just came across one such site: ReadKiddoRead.com, maintained by best-seller author James Patterson.
Good stuff!

Reason

A three-part post about reason:

(1) I'm happy to announce that The Reason Project was launched yesterday. According to their website, "The Reason Project is a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. Drawing on the talents of some of the most prominent and creative thinkers across a wide range of disciplines, The Reason Project seeks to encourage critical thinking and wise public policy through a variety of interrelated projects — all with the purpose of eroding the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world."

(2) I'm reading Alan Alda's excellent "Things I overheard while talking to myself". In chapter 6 ("A passion for reason"), he quotes Thomas Jefferson:

"I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way."

(3) And since Jefferson is one of my all-time heroes, why not another quote, found on a wall in the underground of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.:

“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

Thomas Jefferson, 1820

Book list

Yes, it's that time of the year... Lists, lists, and more lists...

Leo Babauta (from Zen Habits) has just published a list of 20 essential non-fiction books. I've read only 8 of the 20, but agreed 100% with their selection for the list, which made me look forward to read the other 12...

And another "moment of Zen"

... but not in the "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" way... 

Instead, another excerpt from the excellent "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" book, particularly relevant in this pre-election days in the US: 

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

Portal Domínio Público

WARNING: this post contains 95% recycled contents (from my old blog).

Esta Biblioteca Digital baseada em software livre é uma excelente iniciativa do Ministério da Educação do Brasil, contendo textos, imagens, e vídeos em várias áreas do conhecimento e em diversos idiomas. 

Confiram!

Obrigado a Susy pela dica.

Ramachandran

I've just updated my list of favorite books on the right-hand side of the page. I'm allowing it to grow 1-5 books at a time... The list is sorted alphabetically (by title) and does not reflect anything more than that: a list that might encourage some readers to look some of the books up, read them, and post their comments on this blog. 

One of the recently added books is “A brief tour of human consciousness”, by neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran. The essence of that book is available (under the title ‘The Emerging Mind’) at the BBC - Radio 4 - Reith Lectures 2003 site. There you will find the audio streams and text transcripts for all 5 lectures, and many other great links. Highly recommended!

Rama (as many people call him) has just released a new book, "The Man with the Phantom Twin: Adventures in the Neuroscience of the Human Brain" (coming up soon in my reading list).

He also appeared in the excellent TED talks series back in October 2007 (see below).

Virtudes

Extraído do preâmbulo do livro "Pequeno Tratado das Grandes Virtudes", de André Comte-Sponville, Tradução de Eduardo Brandão, Ed. Martins Fontes, São Paulo, 1999:

Se a virtude pode ser ensinada, como creio, é mais pelo exemplo do que pelos livros. Então, para que um tratado das virtudes? Para isto, talvez: tentar compreender o que deveríamos fazer, ou ser, ou viver, e medir com isso, pelo menos intelectualmente, o caminho que daí nos separa. Tarefa modesta, tarefa insuficiente, mas necessária. Os filósofos são alunos (só os sábios são mestres), e alunos precisam de livros; é por isso que eles às vezes escrevem livros, quando os que têm à mão não os satisfazem ou sufocam. Ora, que livro é mais urgente, para cada um de nós, do que um tratado de moral? E o que é mais digno de interesse, na moral, do que as virtudes? Assim como Spinoza, não creio haver utilidade em denunciar os vícios, o mal, o pecado. Para que sempre acusar, sempre denunciar? É a moral dos tristes, e uma triste moral. Quanto ao bem, ele só existe na pluralidade irredutível das boas ações, que excedem todos os livros, e das boas disposições, também elas plurais, mas sem dúvida menos numerosas, que a tradição designa pelo nome de virtudes, isto é (este é o sentido em grego da palavra arete, que os latinos traduziram por virtus), de excelências.
[...]
A virtude, repete-se desde Aristóteles, é uma disposição adquirida de fazer o bem. É preciso dizer mais, porém: ela é o próprio bem, em espírito e em verdade. Não o Bem absoluto, não o Bem em si, que bastaria conhecer ou aplicar. O bem não é para se contemplar, é para se fazer (grifo meu). Assim é a virtude: é o esforço para se portar bem, que define o bem nesse próprio esforço.

How a child becomes a scientist

This is another great book, filled with inspiring stories about science and life, edited by John Brockman (editor of the excellent Edge website).

This I believe

This NPR series has been a great source of inspirational essays. I've also read (and thoroughly enjoyed) the recently published book containing a selection of them. I can't recommend it enough.

Teachers and educators, particularly, shouldn't miss the "This I believe in the classroom" section of the website.

Inspiring books...

I've started a list of some of my all-time favorite books (check the right-most column of this page) with two books that were recommended to me many years ago by my dear friend Bart de Greef:

• "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life", by Jon Kabat-Zinn
• "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values", by Robert M. Pirsig

I've read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" twice (so far), in 1988 and again in 1998. I've established a goal to read it at least once every 10 years. It's 2008, which means I'm due for a third tour of this great book, from which I extracted this inspiring (and apropos) piece:

University versus university

The real University is not a material object. It is not a group of buildings that can be defended by police. He explained that when a college lost its accreditation, nobody came and shut down the school. There were no legal penalties, no fines, no jail sentences. Classes did not stop. Everything went on just as before. Students got the same education they would if the school didn't lose its accreditation. All that would happen, Phædrus said, would simply be an official recognition of a condition that already existed. It would be similar to excommunication. What would happen is that the real University, which no legislature can dictate to and which can never be identified by any location of bricks or boards or glass, would simply declare that this place was no longer "holy ground." The real University would vanish from it, and all that would be left was the bricks and the books and the material manifestation.

It must have been a strange concept to all of the students, and I can imagine him waiting for a long time for it to sink in, and perhaps then waiting for the question, What do you think the real University is?

His notes, in response to this question, state the following:

The real University, he said, has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which does not exist at any specific location.

It's a state of mind which is regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part of the real University. The real University is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself.

In addition to this state of mind, "reason," there's a legal entity which is unfortunately called by the same name but which is quite another thing. This is a nonprofit corporation, a branch of the state with a specific address. It owns property, is capable of paying salaries, of receiving money and of responding to legislative pressures in the process.

But this second university, the legal corporation, cannot teach, does not generate new knowledge or evaluate ideas. It is not the real University at all. It is just a church building, the setting, the location at which conditions have been made favorable for the real church to exist.

Confusion continually occurs in people who fail to see this difference, he said, and think that control of the church buildings implies control of the church.

They see professors as employees of the second university who should abandon reason when told to and take orders with no backtalk, the same way employees do in other corporations.

They see the second university, but fail to see the first.