Brothers of the Serpent

Conversation on the main topic starts in the second half of the episode. It's the end of August, and for us, it is the harvest season. We discuss this year's harvest of the grapes and the beginnings of this season's winemaking. Kyle reads a few news stories and we discuss those, then in the second segment Russ reads a long story from the Mysterious Universe website about four cases of strange mass animal deaths. In the second half of the show, Kyle talks about the "philosophy of narrative", how common stories have a powerful influence on people and culture. How much have ancient mythologies influenced us? We also talk about the ability to focus on one thing versus the need to pay attention to the big picture, and how to balance these two ways of looking at the world, and how that connects to ancient mysteries, structures, and mythology.   Thanks very much to everyone who supports the show! And big thanks to the following producers of this episode: Executive Producers: Michael Burroughs Philip Baklamov Matt Shy Peter Shell Zachariah Baker Frank M. Associate Executive Producers: Daniel Gandy Dave Cortes Patrick Hicks You can support the show as well through paypal or patreon, just visit our website for details: http://www.brothersoftheserpent.com/p/support.html

We invited Laura to join us on this episode of listener communications, where we catch up on news stories and listener emails. There is some physics and cosmology discussion at the beginning after Kyle reads some science articles, then we dive into the emails on all manner of topics: the moon and the Younger Dryas, the Mississippi Mounds, ancient tech and tools, skeptics and the standard model.   Thanks to the following Producers of episode 255! Executive Producer: Greg Kaighin Associate Executive Producer: Antonio Kasljevic

Is it possible that human civilization is much older than we've been taught? Maarten from Mario Buildreps has put together an enormous body of research that implies humans have been constructing complex structures going back hundreds of thousands of years, through multiple catastrophic periods of crustal displacement. Mario Buildreps website: https://www.mariobuildreps.com/ Mario Buildreps YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MarioBuildreps

Saved by the swapcast! This was originally scheduled as a guest appearance on the excellent Where Did the Road Go podcast with Seriah, but our plans for our regular episode this week fell through, so Seriah kindly allowed us to use this episode as a swapcast. We discuss Charles Fort and the Book of the Damned, Feynman, cosmology, physics, electric universe, cryptids, UFOs, and the limits of human knowledge, as well as reading a few news stories and discussing those.   Find Where Did the Road Go here: https://wheredidtheroadgo.com/

In this final episode of our book report on The Character of Physical Law, we go through Dr. Feynman's final lecture, Seeking New Laws, in which he describes how science works, and the methods physicists must use to attempt to discover new fundamental aspects of the natural world. See the full set of lectures here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLez3PPtnpncQLg_H7f6T9yJmJ2aCIBUHS Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Character-Physical-Law-MIT-Press/dp/0262533413 Get the new Fifty Dollar Dynasty album "Precession" here: https://www.fiftydollardynasty.com/ Support the band here: https://www.patreon.com/fiftydollardynasty Support the podcast here: https://www.patreon.com/brothersoftheserpent   Executive Producers: Philip Baklamov Matt Shy Peter Shell Frank M. Associate Executive Producer: Daniel Gandy

Continuing our book report on The Character of Physical Law, we read through the 5th and 6th lectures, The Distinction of Past and Future and Probability and Uncertainty. These are discussions on entropy and quantum mechanics, done in Dr. Feynman's unique style.   See the full set of lectures here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLez3PPtnpncQLg_H7f6T9yJmJ2aCIBUHS Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Character-Physical-Law-MIT-Press/dp/0262533413   Get the new Fifty Dollar Dynasty album "Precession" here: https://www.fiftydollardynasty.com/ Support the band here: https://www.patreon.com/fiftydollardynasty   Support the podcast here: https://www.patreon.com/brothersoftheserpent   Here's the black hole video Kyle mentions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeRgFqbBM5E

We finish the chapter on The Great Conservation Principles, and move on to Symmetry in Physical Law. We understand what it means for an object to have symmetry, but what about a mathematical expression of a physical law? This chapter is full of interesting concepts, delivered in Feynman's unique style as always. We discuss relativity, lightspeed, gravitational lensing, angular momentum, and how to tell an alien the difference between "right" and "left".   Find the full playlist of the lectures on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLez3PPtnpncQLg_H7f6T9yJmJ2aCIBUHS Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Character-Physical-Law-MIT-Press/dp/0262533413   Support the podcast through Patreon and get extra content here: https://www.patreon.com/brothersoftheserpent Get the new Fifty Dollar Dynasty album, Precession, here: https://fiftydollardynasty.com/ Support the band through their Patreon and get extra content here: https://www.patreon.com/fiftydollardynasty

We dive back in to The Character of Physical Law by Richard Feynman, again using short clips pulled from the lectures themselves and reading excerpts from the book.  This episode we focus mostly on the second lecture, "The Relation of Mathematics to Physics", where Feynman talks about how Nature seems to follow sets of mathematical rules, and how those mathematics might be related--at least in some cases--to large numbers of simple processes in the physical universe. Near the end of the episode we start on the third lecture, "The Great Conservation Principles", discussing the various "conservation" laws in physics such as the conservation of charge, the conservation of energy, etc. At the beginning of the episode we also take a quick look at the working relationship between Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, their backgrounds, and the standard history of their story. If you want to support the podcast and get extra content, bonus episodes, and bumper music, sign up to our Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/brothersoftheserpent If you'd like to support Kyle's band Fifty Dollar Dynasty and get extra content related to their music, sign up to their Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/fiftydollardynasty Meanwhile you can get all of the music from the new album, Precession, for free on their website: http://www.fiftydollardynasty.com

Having just returned from the Montana megafloods trip with Randall Carlson and crew, we aren't ready to continue the Character of Physical Law series yet, but we did have a backlog of emails we needed to get to, so we dedicate yet another episode to reading and responding to a series of fantastic and sometimes hilarious communications from listeners.   We operate on the Value for Value model here at Brothers of the Serpent. If you get value from our podcast, you can support us in turn and also get special content through our Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/brothersoftheserpent   Check out Kyle's band, Fifty Dollar Dynasty, and their new album release "Precession" at their website, the music is free! http://www.fiftydollardynasty.com Support the band and get special content through their Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/fiftydollardynasty   Thanks to all of you who do support the band and the podcast! Our producers for this episode are listed below: Executive Producers: Anne who Knits Matt Shy Philip Baklamov Peter Shell Frank M. Associate Executive Producer: Daniel Gandy

For this special episode we have most of the members of Kyle's band Fifty Dollar Dynasty in studio with us for a long-form conversation about making music, writing songs, and specifically, making the new Precession album. Through clouds of smoke and many beers we joke and laugh and poke fun at each other while also giving our history of making music and this album. This episode is scheduled to drop the day of the public release of Precession, so go check it out at the FDD website: https://fiftydollardynasty.com/ Want to support the band and their continued efforts to make amazing music? Join their Patreon and get early access and special content: https://www.patreon.com/fiftydollardynasty/posts