Fwd: You're Invited! MakerSpace VR Night - Wednesday, March 4, 5-7pm!

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Valerie Hackworth <Valerie.Hackworth@mtsu.edu>

Hello Friends and Supporters of the Library, Technology, and the MakerSpace,

You're invited to join us for our Annual Virtual Reality Night in the MakerSpace on Wednesday, March 4, from 5-7pm!

Try out our headsets! You can choose to dance with Beat Saber in Mixed Reality with our VIVE Pro 2 and experience a variety of adventure, art, history, space, and strategy games in our Classic VIVE headsets. Plus, we encourage you to try your hand at flying with our Logitech gear and Microsoft Flight Simulator. And we'd love for you to check out our game cabinet that was Made in the MakerpSpace!

Returning this year, you can test out speaking the new language you've been practicing or try a new language in our Meta Quest 3!

All are welcome! This event is open to the public. Bring your friends and family! Snacks will be provided.

 See you in the MakerSpace!

 Cheers,

Valerie

 

 

 

Valerie Hackworth, MSCIS

She/Her

Manager, Liaison, and Program Director - MakerSpace

Library Technology Department

MTSU Walker Library

1611 Alumni Drive

Murfreesboro, TN 37132

615-904-8545 – LIB 246A

Valerie.Hackworth@mtsu.edu

https://library.mtsu.edu/vhackworth

https://mtsunews.com/tag/makerspace

https://library.mtsu.edu/makerspace

https://library.mtsu.edu/technology

 

"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat."
- Thich Nhat Hanh 

Consciousness

Astounding

"It's entirely possible to go through life without worrying about the "problem" of consciousness—what it is and how it came to be. In fact, it takes a certain kind of mind for "the problem" to arise—one that is self-conscious, or aware that it is aware, and marvels at this mystery (which is, when you stop to think about it, astounding). It is astounding that in a universe we often assume to be dead and purposeless, there evolved beings who can experience this reality and have feelings and thoughts not only about the appearing world but about the fact that they have feelings and thoughts at all! And it is still more astounding that these beings have minds capable of imagining counterfactuals, such as the possibility of a world without consciousness."

— A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan

Who am I to unravel the mystery of consciousness?

"Who am I to unravel one of the three biggest mysteries in the universe? (The other two: Why is there something rather than nothing? And how did life arise from dead matter?) My main qualification is that I am a conscious human being who has become intensely curious about that fact. I also happen to be a science writer with a background in the humanities, which turned out to be more valuable than I would have expected. Literature, philosophy, and religion have been thinking longer and harder about consciousness than the sciences have, and I discovered that they have at least as much light to shed on the phenomenon. They can also help us defend the richness and complexity of consciousness from science's tendency to simplify whatever it is trying to explain."

— A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan

Exam review

The March 3 exam will feature objective-format questions about Be Mine, drawn from the questions I've posted each week. The answers will all be provided, you'll just need to match them to the right questions. You get a point for each correct answer, up to a possible 25... so there's no harm in guessing. But with adequate review, you shouldn't have to guess.

Here are some topics and relevant accompanying texts to review:

JAN 27

1. Frank's opening statement about happiness, and on happiness and aging on  p.11 ...
2. Frank on the remoteness of neighbors in America 5
3. Frank's characterization of "white southerners," Pug, etc. 17, 18
4. Frank on fearing death, suffering,  a "good death," denial... 24, 26
5. Frank on understanding, making sense, and meaning, and how to "make living steal a march on dying" 37

FEB 3

1. Frank on making plans for merely-possible contingencies in life 47
2. Frank's thoughts on scattering his ex's ashes 53-5
3. Frank on what you need to do, to be happy 56
4. Frank's remarks on Heidegger 73
5. Frank on having specific life-goals for one's children 77

FEB 10

1. Paul's attitude, and "full awareness of death": "Dying is the last of [Paul's] life's great escapades and the last he would want to undertake with ill-fitting spirits. In this way he aspires to be full of life more than anyone I know..." 89-90; 97
2. Optimists 101
3. Frank on choice 144
4. Nietzsche's view of discourse and happiness 134
5. "Spiritual insulation" and aging 157-9

FEB 17

1. The Mayo Clinic's culture of sickness, and celebration 173, 182-3
2. Paul as escape artist 190
3. What Krista says she explains to people, and her variety of spirituality. 195, 199
4. Mount Rushmore as  "most notional... most American," and "how much lighter on its feet the world would be" etc. 216
5. The "key to happiness" 243

FEB 24

1. "Cashing in," "awful places" 267f.
2. Paul's epitaph choices 281
3. On "looking toward deepest space" 283
4. Why Paul likes Mount Rushmore 324
5. How Paul died "fundamentally unchanged" 331

There will also be a few bonus questions, so you can afford to miss a few and still earn 25 points. Your suggestions for those, in the comments space below, are welcome.

Music

"The use of music is to remind us how short a time we have a body." —Richard Powers

https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/02/24/richard-powers-music/

Is Frank a kind of epicurean?

Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus argues death is absolutely nothing to fear, "because as long as we exist, death is not here. And once it does come, we no longer exist."

From this doctrine arose the popular epitaph, engraved on tombs throughout the Roman Empire: Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo (I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care)...

https://www.threads.com/@philosophybreak/post/DVJkXt5jBec?xmt=AQF0wUCdOklXn4QhbPaBSRGUG50ydkp2NY4yjTqbjIXtrquCDgiiLkdhnG7RbhZYomqbzbtp&slof=1

Memento mori: Steve Jobs & authenticity

Today is the birthday of Steve Jobs, born in San Francisco (1955) to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who placed him for adoption. Clara and Paul Jobs, an accountant and a machinist, adopted him when he was still a baby. Growing up, Jobs and his father would tinker with electronics in the garage...

...Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003. He opted for a variety of alternative treatments, but eventually — in 2004 — he underwent surgery to remove the tumor. His health began to decline in 2009. He was 56.Jobs once said, "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

https://open.substack.com/pub/thewritersalmanac/p/the-writers-almanac-from-tuesday-13e?selection=5b9402a9-2dd5-4b31-b8d4-717fe23492f3&r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios