Peter Green

Why - from "The Matrix"

Agent Smith is a machine - he can't understand why Neo keeps fighting. Neo is human and humans have free will, he chooses to keep fighting. Machines have no true consciousness.

"The only way we can achieve consciousness is by transformation from selfish to selfless. The arc of transformation is how we evolve consciousness.  This is why computers and artificial intelligence will never lead to true consciousness. Machines do not have the power to elevate from selfish to selfless through independent free will. Machines can have intelligence. But never consciousness. Consciousness demands a connection to a higher dimension."
—http://kabbalahstudent.com/this-is-consciousness/

Marlon Brando's acceptance speech by Sashine Littlefeather

"My dinner with Andre"

A Conversation About Reality~Amazing scene from 1981 movie 'My dinner with Andre'
Posted by David Wolfe on Friday, August 7, 2015

What Machines Can't Do

"...creativity can be described as the ability to grasp the essence of one thing, and then the essence of some very different thing, and smash them together to create some entirely new thing."

David Brooks, “What Machines Can’t Do”

Devoutly Religious

Einstein characterized himself as “devoutly religious” in one specific sense as in the following statement: The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms— this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men.

Starting to Love Charlottesville!

A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony (or dissonance). (Link)

Some people will uphold a belief even if proven wrong "...because of the uncomfortable feeling that comes from investing in something or believing in something that turns out to be wrong. Because people prefer to think of themselves as intelligent..."

 Source: http://sites.duke.edu/econ206_01_s2011/files/2012/05/87-Akerlof_and_Dickens_Coase-group.pdf

Cognitive-dissonance is just one of many biases that work in our everyday lives. We don’t like to believe that we may be wrong, so we may limit our intake of new information or thinking about things in ways that don’t fit within our pre-existing beliefs. Psychologists call this “confirmation bias.” (Link)  I see this often in religious faiths - the idea that to learn/read about another religious faith or theology/philosophy/scientific idea causes fear and so the person rejects learning and thus denies him or herself the opportunity to increase their knowledge and awareness. 

Age of Aquarius

The Aquarius Constellation

"A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted."
-Robert Louis Stevenson, Puerisque (1878)

"The soul that is united with God is feared by the Devil as though it were God Himself."
- St. John of the Cross, Counsels of Light and Love

"The next great truth which obtrudes itself upon our rapt attention, and which produces a shock of glad surprise, is the realization that the spiritual realm is no less material than the physical. It is merely composed of smaller particles, responding to shorter force-waves with more rapid vibrations; and in its aggregate manifestations to sight and touch attuned to sense it, it is just as firm and real as are the manifestations of physical matter to the physical senses."
-Daniel Augustus Simmons, The Science of Religion (1916)

Our prayers are answered not when we are given what we ask, 
but when we are challenged to be what we can be.

"Figures don't lie, but liars figure."

"Figures don't lie, but liars figure."

Carroll D. Wright was a prominent statistician employed by the U.S. government, and he did use the expression in 1889 while addressing the Convention of Commissioners of Bureaus of Statistics of Labor. But Wright did not claim that he coined the expression [CDW1]:

The old saying is that “figures will not lie,” but a new saying is “liars will figure.” It is our duty, as practical statisticians, to prevent the liar from figuring; in other words, to prevent him from perverting the truth, in the interest of some theory he wishes to establish.

Still later in 1889 another instance of the quote appears in an article arguing about sewer routes in California. Soon the maxim will be attached to Carroll Wright, but there are still examples, like this one in 1889 and others in the 1890s, where the saying is unattributed [LSL]:

Statements are easily made; their value, however, depends upon the reliability of the parties who make them. Figures don’t lie, but liars will figure. I challenge an investigation of the situation

See link.

"ma" - word in Japanese

...I told him I love the "gratuitous motion" in Miyazki's films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story, sometimes people will just sit for a moment, or sigh, or gaze at a running stream, or do something extra, not to advance the story but only to give the sense of time and place and who they are.

"We have a word for that in Japanese," he said. "It's called 'ma.' Emptiness. It's there intentionally." He clapped his hands three or four times. "The time in between my clapping is 'ma.' If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it's just busyness."

This is extremely "Japanese" in and of itself, if that makes sense.
I'm thinking of Tonari no Totoro, Mononoke-Hime, The Wind Rise, in particular.

-Spirited Away Movie Review & Film Summary (2002) | Roger Ebert

The Conceptual Age

We had the agricultural age dominated by farmers, the industrial age dominated by factory workers, and the information age enabled by knowledge workers. According to Daniel Pink, now we are in the "conceptual age" - the age dominated by creative "right-brainers". Yay! Finally I'm in vogue! Machines are programmed to do the routines work, freeing me up to do all the jobs only humans can do: create beauty, create solutions to new problems, and...play!