TED Community » David Everling

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Science, philosophy, psychology, the pursuit of understanding.

An idea worth spreading

Atheism is difficult for the human mind to reconcile. Blissful ignorance must be willingly cast aside. It takes perseverance and yields cold reward. Certainly, it is good to no longer fear the irrational. Conversely it is hard to shed the warmth of love, protection, after-life, meaning.

Atheism leaves a void, but it is filled by human perseverance and passion. We delve with intense focus into the means of our existence, but to justify what end?

What drives the nihilist? We edge closer to the threshold of immortality, hoping answers come before we must face this question of purpose.

Talk to me about

Anything. I only request you gently remind me to maintain an open mind.

People don't know that I'm good at

Athletic sports (well, some), creative writing. Most of the time I'm likely one of the people that don't know I'm good at these things.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +10.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +2

  A comment on Talk: Lawrence Lessig: Re-examining the remix

  May 31 2010: Larry helps make the case for an important idea: conservatives shape progress as much as progressives. Like Yin and Yang, each ideology helps balance the other.
  
  Thanks for opening my mind a little, it's easy to get stuck in the us vs. them mindset of the political arena!
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Craig Venter unveils "synthetic life"

  May 21 2010: I give a general reply to your comments in my response to Roque below, but I do want to be clear: this is in fact a 'TED talk', and "comparing this announcement with a TED talk" is certainly appropriate given this context. We're commenting in the Talks section of TED after all, and it was billed as a talk like any other. They could easily classify it otherwise if they wanted to discourage contrast with other TED talks.
  
  Now clearly this press conference isn't equivalent to a prepared presentation at a TED event, so you're perhaps right that putting this announcement in the same category as other TED talks is an inapt designation that warrants inappropriate comparison. TEDsters are smart enough to see the differences, and those who are more familiar with the sciences are often willing to adjust their expectations somewhat in light of the unstated implications, as you have. Comparison is invited nonetheless.

• A reply on Talk: Craig Venter unveils "synthetic life"

  May 21 2010: I didn't ask for a marketeer or a CEO, I asked the same thing that the reporter asked because that's what everyone is there to hear. The nitty-gritty science is in the papers and text that come with the initial unveiling; this is a press conference.
  
  I do believe that those listening will take over now, as Craig Venter presupposed, and add creative narratives to make it more of a "TED" presentation or layman's article. I only commented to lament that Craig missed a chance to really excite listeners, to inspire by showing off his own excitement at the achievement.
  
  In any case I don't expect the scientific ramifications of Venter's announcement to be at all impeded by his choice of style.
• +7

  A comment on Talk: Craig Venter unveils "synthetic life"

  May 21 2010: I'm thrilled by Craig Venter's announcement of his achievement and the new possibilities he has enabled in synthetic life, but he sure knows how to turn his own big media event into a dry reading. Maybe see if Steve Jobs is available next time. ;-)
  
  I'm not denigrating Craig for being the one to announce an important achievement in this work, but it took the press to explicitly ask him to say what any TED talk or press conference should really start with, and even then he didn't want to fully answer even though he knows his announcement is being widely publicized to the lay public (e.g. TED): "Could you explain in layman's terms, how significant a breakthrough this is, please?"

• A comment on Talk: Lies, damned lies and statistics (about TEDTalks)

  May 16 2010: Funny, you can tell this hits a nerve because we're all rating it "funny". It's like a roast of the TED audience itself, reminding us that we're still machines, easily swayed by irrelevant contextual cues.
  
  I suppose laughter is the best way to distract the suddenly self-conscious ego. :-D

• A comment on Talk: Stephen Wolfram: Computing a theory of everything

  Apr 27 2010: Utterly fascinating topic. The idea of knowing the computational basis for all of physical reality seems ambitious yet somehow tantalizingly close at the same time.
  
  The WNYC show Radiolab recently featured a segment about Cornell University's "Eureqa" robotic scientist. In it they discuss how Eureqa, software running on fast modern hardware, can correlate its observations (e.g. using a camera) with mathematical language, eventually producing an answer in the form of an equation (e.g. F=ma). More importantly, the speakers in the segment raise the question of humanity's role alongside a future of automated science.
  
  Stephen's talk here discusses many of the same concepts; if you're looking for another interesting presentation on this topic of computational theory, I highly recommend the Radiolab segment mentioned above, from the "Limits" episode: http://bit.ly/LimitsOfScience [wnyc.org]
• +4

  A comment on Talk: Elizabeth Pisani: Sex, drugs and HIV -- let's get rational

  Apr 7 2010: I love a speaker that assumes rational actors. It's a powerful point that can't be stressed enough in policy debate.
  
  Although, it almost feels as if her concluding plea for the community to 'stop acting stupid and vote' is only a prelude to another rationale, on why voters likewise don't seem to act rationally. After all, given that many of the TEDsters watching this already know and agree with Elizabeth's hypothesis, shouldn't we have already voted to fix it? Or is this just the interim between theory and practice?