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jason silva
JASON SILVA


I first saw 6'4" (1.93m) Jason Silva (born 1982) on Netflix because he was hosting Nat Geo's charming "Brain Games" show.  If you haven't seen it it is full of examples of how your mind plays tricks on you.  He is a very good host.  I'm not always attracted to thin guys but I am when they are this smart and this handsome.  He has also done a lot of philosophical videos that sound like they are about some pretty mushy subjects like "the metaphysics of imagination." What a bunch of BS!

Silva was born in Caracas, Venezuela. His mother, an artist, is Ashkenazi Jewish. His father converted to Judaism, but, according to Silva, they were secular and lived in a household "more akin to a Woody Allen film" with lots of humor and love for art and theater. Inspired by Charles Baudelaire's Hashish House, Silva's obsession with filmmaking and documentation started as a teenager when he hosted "salons" at his house to discuss ideas. Video, rather than pen, became his preferred way to memorialize what he calls "ecstatic moments".

For Silva, it is not enough to "feel" the experience. These moments need to be "narrated in real time." Silva earned a degree in film and philosophy from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. He, along with Max Lugavere, produced and starred in a video documentary/performance piece entitled "Textures of Selfhood." The short, experimental film about hedonism and spirituality based on Silva's and Lugavere's life in Miami, gained the attention of Current producers who were looking for "passionate storytellers". Silva currently lives in New York City.

Silva is a self-described wonder junkie and performance philosopher, a term he first heard on a website called Space Collective by Rene Dallier. He uses television, online media and lecture halls to share his perspectives. For example, in the video The Mirroring Mind, Silva "explores human consciousness and the creation of that consciousness through self-reference." An active and prolific speaker, Silva has spoken at Google, The Economist Ideas Festival, the prestigious DLD Digital Life Design Conference in Munich, TEDGlobal, the Singularity Summit, the PSFK Conference, and the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. At TEDGlobal in June 2012, Jason premiered a short video entitled "Radical Openness". In September 2012, Silva presented his Radical Openness videos at the opening keynote at Microsoft TechEd Australia. Radical Openness was also featured in his presentation at La Ciudad de las Ideas conference on November 10, 2012. In September 2012, presented "We Are the Gods Now" at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

In 2013, Silva and Apollo Robbins became the hosts of Brain Games on the National Geographic Channel. The show explores the brain through interactive games that look at perception, decision-making, and patterning, as well as how easily the brain can be fooled. Experts in psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience appear on the show, as Silva states, "to make sure we're doing the science right." The show, which premiered in 2011, received 1.5 million viewers for episodes one and two and set a National Geographic record as the highest rated series launch in that channel's history.

 In May 2013, Jason began "Shots of Awe", an YouTube channel on the Discovery Digital Networks TestTube, presenting weekly "micro-documentaries" on creativity, innovation, exponential technology, futurism, metaphysics, existentialism and the human condition. Zoltan Istvan, editor for the Huffington Post, wrote that Shots of Awe is a blend of philosophy and art and has been massively popular to the younger generation.

Silva has been featured in The Atlantic, The Economist, Vanity Fair, Forbes, Wired, and many others. In 2011 he became a fellow at the Hybrid Reality Institute, examining the symbiosis between man and machine. His film ATTENTION: The Immersive Power of Cinema was part of the exhibition 'KINO und der kinamatografische Blick' ('CINEMA and the cinamatographic gaze'), 20 March - 2 June 2013, at MEWO Kunsthalle in Memmingen (Germany).  In 2014, Silva served as advisor for National Geographic Channel's Expedition Granted competition in which finalists are chosen based on their project's originality, viability and potential impact on either the local or global community.




JASON SILVA TALKS ABOUT SOMETHING I CAN'T QUITE FIGURE OUT
I'm sure Jason Silva is an intelligent guy and he is certainly very handsome and a fine host of Nat Geo's "Brain Games."  But, c'mon gang.  I could not get through this entire talk.  Isn't this a lot of science oriented psychobabble?  Maybe it's just me but I kind of gave up on religion to get away from talk like this.

METRIC / ENGLISH CONVERTER


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