Episode 77

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Published on:

23rd Feb 2024

The Mind of a Bee: Dialogue with Lars Chitka

Lars Chittka is the author of the book The Mind of a Bee and Professor of Sensory and Behavioural Ecology at Queen Mary College of the University of London. He is also the founder of the Research Centre for Psychology at Queen Mary. He is known for his work on the evolution of sensory systems and cognition using insect-flower interactions as a model system. Chittka has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of animal cognition and its impact on evolutionary fitness studying bumblebees and honeybees.

I often say that human beings have lost the sense of the mindedness all around us—that we exist fully embedded in mind. In this episode we cultivate an appreciation of the remarkable mind of a bee.

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About the Podcast

Dangerous Wisdom
Journey into Mystery
A podcast for wild souls who want to live with open eyes and an enlivened heart. The world needs dangerous wisdom, and our education system functions primarily to keep us away from it—to stop us from taking the journey into the mystery and magic of the world. Because of this, we have achieved a catastrophic level of confusion, anxiety, and ignorance—with boatloads of tame wisdom, false wisdom, and self-help nonsense that only adds to the challenges we face. The path of wisdom—the path of wonder—deals with how things really work, and how we can become skillful and successful. Following it leads beyond concepts to a wonderstanding that can heal us, and empower us to help the world, realize our hidden potential, and experience the profound meaningfulness of life. In this podcast, we turn toward the dangerous stuff, the wild stuff, and confront the need to handle authentic wisdom with skill and grace, making sure the medicine doesn’t become another poison. If you want an inspiring space to explore the big and sometimes scary questions, a space that opens up into insights that can change your life and the world we share, join us. Find out more at https://dangerouswisdom.org/

About your host

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nikos patedakis

“Vain is the word of the philosopher that heals no suffering.” ~ Epicurus

Following in the footsteps of Epicurus, nikos patedakis works with individuals, groups, and organizations, bringing to bear the most powerful and holistic teachings of the wisdom traditions in relation to our most daunting personal and global challenges. nikos works with the unity of Nature and Culture, drawing from the sciences, the arts, and the wisdom traditions.

His educational and consulting practice offers a genuinely holistic approach to creativity and critical thinking, ecoliteracy and true sustainability, achievement and excellence, mindfulness and attention, wellness and stress reduction, burnout prevention and recovery, and more.

This work encompasses the traditional areas of ethics, knowledge, meditation, creativity, beauty, being, and metaphysics, remaining rooted in the ancient Greek orientation of philosophy as a way of life, in which philosophy is seen as therapy for the soul and fundamental to the healthy transformation of self and society. This is the tradition of Western philosophy that influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and the approach of world philosophies that have shaped our world.

The philosophical traditions serve as a sacred storehouse of practical wisdom, trainable compassion, and effortless beauty that can help us resolve complex personal and global challenges, uncover our hidden potentials, and realize our highest ideals. Wisdom is what works.