“A mind made for mating”; A real cinematic espresso shot!
“Hello. My name is Stephen Hawking: physicist, cosmologist and something of a dreamer. Although I cannot move, and I have to speak through a computer, In my mind I am free.” -Stephen Hawking
What is a personality? What is it that makes you the distinct individual that you are? There may be over seven billion people on this planet but what are the chances that you will come across an individual with exactly the same personality as you? And i’m talking about someone with identical likes, dislikes, hobbies, passions, emotions, views, beliefs, values, thoughts, tastes and so on. Of course, its not impossible but highly unlikely.
But what is it that determines who we are and the decisions we make? How much control do we really have over who we want to be? I think most of us fail to realize how complex the factors that influence our personalities and characters are. First of all, for instance, there are the influences of society and its values and norms. The beliefs and traditions of the place and society you live in can greatly influence what your own beliefs are. Then there are the influence of your family and I don’t just mean the background you come from. Psychological studies have constantly shown that whether you’re a first child or a last child can by itself influence your personality. Then you have your friends, the peer groups, the type of school you go to or the kind of people you hang out with. These in return can be influence by the social classes and social background you come from which influences the type of opportunities you are give to express and discover yourself. Moreover, there are the social roles and societal expectations. All of these determine the experiences you’ve had which in return shape who are. Then there’s media with the all trends they try to implant into you as a consumer. In addition to all of this, there are the genetic and dispositional factors that also play a huge role. Brain chemistry and the way in which your neurons are constructed in your brain also play a very significant role in who you are.
All of these are just a few examples of all the many factors and influences of your personality which in return is dynamic and changing, especially if you’re still young.
The Science behind aging; On why we grow old and how the biological process of aging is actually preventing us from getting cancer. More similar interesting videos on the Asapscience channel.
A small clip about The Human Project - an extraordinary initiative that encourages us to appreciate and utilize our precious existence in this universe and understand how much potential human beings truly have.
“We are all individual waves in the ongoing stream of human existence. Personally, we would like this stream to carry on and keep evolving infinitely into the future. In fact, we want to make it our explicit purpose. It may sound like a tall order but we believe that for a learning species nothing should be impossible. To keep the human project going as an infinite game, each generation needs to know the game we are playing and learn to play their round well.” - Erika Ilves & Anna Stillwell, Founders of the Human Project
“The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens.” - Anaxagoras, Greek philosopher, 495 BCE.
One of the main missions of some of the greatest physicists today (including Stephen Hawking) is to find a “Theory of everything”. In short, this is an elegant theory that would link together all of physical phenomena. In other words, It is a theory that would allow us to predict the outcome of any experiment. Even more, It would allow us to predict the outcomes of events in the universe and to truly fathom its nature.
Whether we find this “Theory of everything” or not what intrigues me. What baffles me is the very fact that we, a species on a random planet in a random solar system in a random galaxy in an unimaginably massive universe, are actually intelligent enough to look for it. Or in the words of Noble-prize winning physicist Murray Gell-man :
“It is the most persistent and greatest adventure in human history, this search to understand the universe, how it works and where it came from. It is difficult to imagine that a handful of residents of a small planet circling an insignificant star in a small galaxy have as their aim a complete understanding of the entire universe, a small speck of creation truly believing it is capable of comprehending the whole.”
This video is absolutely mind-blowing! Turns out that when it comes to our brains, imagination and actions are not very different and in fact, inter-related. This means that imagining doing something, can be almost as effective as actually doing it. Every single thought that you have actually changes the physical structure and function of your brain. Now take that into consideration with the fact that you have about 70,000 thoughts a day!
Neil DeGrass Tyson on big think: Be yourself. ”The greatest of people that have ever been in society, they were never versions of someone else. They were themselves.” These are truly inspiring words of wisdom.
We human beings are a remarkable species and capable of extraordinary things. If we let ourselves, we could, in fact, create infinite minds. We could become immortal beings living and loving forever. We could allow ourselves to travel across the cosmos unharmed. We could allow ourselves access to millions and millions of bytes of information within our very own heads. We could do all of these things- but only if we wanted to.
I think its important that everyone has a cosmic perspective and understand how much we’re worth. Our knowledge and technology are advancing rapidly - just look at how much we’ve grown as a species in the past several thousand years. Hence, my TEDx talk is all about making our time in the cosmos worthwhile. Its about time we became more ambitious.
“Our brains are a vastly parallel and distributed system, each with a gazillion decision-making points and centers of integration. The 24/7 brain never stops managing our thoughts, desires, and bodies. The millions of networks are a sea of forces, not single soldiers waiting for the commander to speak. It is also a determined system, not a freewheeling cowboy acting outside the physical, chemical forces that fill up our universe. And yet, these modern-day facts do not in the least convince us there is not a central “you,” a “self” calling the shots in each of us. Again, that is the puzzle, and our task is to try and understand how it all might work.” - Michael S.Gazzaniga
“It’s the most spiritually empowering thing that I know, to look up at the night sky and see Orion rising as the autumn closes in at the last moment, and it’s got me through some very hard times. When I had a couple of serious bouts of depression in my life the stars were a big factor in pulling me out. People used to say ‘what’s your spirituality?’ and I’d say I don’t know, but I found out looking at the stars one night that that’s what it was.” - Dr Brian May
