I'd like to share this speech with you all.
http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/multimedia/randy-pausch-lecture.shtml
I found it to be very inspirational and meaningful.
This is the full speech which lasts an hour and 45 minutes.
There are smaller snippets available online as well.
Enjoy!
Jon
http://www.cmu.edu/homepage/multimedia/randy-pausch-lecture.shtml
I found it to be very inspirational and meaningful.
This is the full speech which lasts an hour and 45 minutes.
There are smaller snippets available online as well.
Enjoy!
Jon
5 comments:
Thank you, Jon. At 11:30pm I got to your email and decided to see what it was about. Fortunately I had a nap yesterday afternoon and so here I am at nearly I:30am feeling so grateful for having "met" Randy Pausch and experienced a small delicious taste of what it must have been like to actually know him.
I love you. Mom
I also found Randy Pausch's speech interesting enough to sit and watch for an hour and 45 minutes. It was genuine and moving, but I'm troubled in some way. It's similar to how I've felt about other extremely intellectual people, like Stephen Hawking. Their intense focus on mental pursuits seems to tip them off-balance. With Prof. Pausch, it's as though virtual reality holds more fascination for him than real reality. He's almost eager to shed the earthly coil and see what's behind the illusion.
I don't mean to say there's something wrong with that attitude; but why is he so happy and willing at 47 to accept the fatal prediction of his doctor (another scientist)? No doubt the scientific data suggests few survive his diagnosis - but isn't it so that a few do survive the diagnosis, statistically speaking? How do you get to be one of those?
Near the beginning (9:30), Prof. Pausch says, "We can't change the cards we're dealt," then he spends the rest of the lecture demonstrating how he's always controlled his cards and gotten what he wanted and lived his dreams.
In my cosmology, if he truly wanted to live, he would live. He would never have gotten so sick in the first place ... not that there's anything wrong with dying, mind you, and we all do, eventually. It could be said that he's found a wonderful way to attract loads of love and compassion on himself from a whole lot of people before he goes - not that there's anything wrong with intense egoism, either, especially when conducted with such positive playfulness and creativity as Randy Pausch has. It's just ... odd. "Watch, see me die young! See me leave my lovely wife and family with laughter, style and grace! See me leave my students and colleagues! I'm sick, I'm dying, but I can do push-ups! Cry for me! Am I not amazing? Bye!"
J( *}
I like your cosmology, Jeremy, and it’s similar to mine, but I don’t begrudge other people theirs, and I don’t think your reading of him as egotistic is accurate. Or maybe I should just say it doesn’t match my reading of him. I think he, as an intellectual scientist, values scientific conclusions and the laws of probability, and resultantly chalks his demise up as certain and soon. But he believes he has some value to impart, and he wants to share as much of it as he can before he runs out of time. I don’t think that’s ego, I think that’s valuing community.
On the other hand, I’ve only listened to the first half hour or so, so maybe I’m not judging him on enough data yet. I sure like what I’ve heard so far though.
Pete
Did not Randy Pausch say somewhere in the second half of the video that he especially had his three children in mind when he undertook this project? After all they're pretty young and in later years they will probably have only vague recall of their dad. I think this is a very special and valuable legacy for his children and his wife.
Mom
<< I don’t begrudge other people their [cosmologies], and I don’t think your reading of him as egotistic is accurate. >>
Pete,
I hoped to be clear that I don't begrudge Prof. Pausch any of his attitudes - neither his intellectual eagerness to see what's behind the earthly coil; nor his egoism. I didn't say he was egotistical, I said he was an egoist - in Ethics, Egoism is "The theory that the pursuit of your own welfare is the basis of morality." The video is essentially an explication and endorsement of that theory. "Live your dreams!"
The attitude that an ego is a bad thing may be yours, but it's not mine. The ego is a basically intellectual construct that separates one entity from all other entities. It's the part of you that has a name and a history. We can't function in the world without an ego. When we die, though, it's the ego that dies.
Prof. Pausch is clearly an intensely intellectual man who upholds science as the best possible describer of truth. Science is proven knowledge. My own attitude is that even science is inadequate to describe ultimate truth. This is why I used his video to point out the oddness in his highly intellectual reaction to the scientific prediction made by his doctor that he will soon die - that he accepts it cheerfully and excitedly as an opportunity to learn more about the ultimate nature of reality. But I also wanted to point out the flaw in his logic - that if he has proven to be the master of his own universe, as the video shows, he has also proven to be the victim of his own belief in the supremacy of science and the predictions of scientists such as his doctor. The reason for his success is also the reason for his failure.
Like Stephen Hawking, Randy Pausch's intellect has taken him to the heights of scientific mastery of life, but it's also destroying him.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm saying it's an interesting, odd thing.
In my cosmology, the irony is that Randy Pausch will cease to exist when he dies and merges with the infinite universe. The identity - the Id entity - he identifies so intensely with will dissolve. He - as ego - will never know the ultimate secret of the universe. But his family and his friends will know the pain of early separation from him. And that to me is the tragedy of extreme intellectualism. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
J( *}
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