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The Space Time Continuum: Thoughts from Dublin

2013-02-08 · documentary visit · Hank, John · 3:57 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities · mode: Personal essay · tags: on location, recurring series, guest or collab

Hank says Dublin first looked like old set right beside new, but its long history turned it into a continuum; as the self is made by continuity with its past, so are places and cultures, and without that perspective we may be culturally stunted.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — From London to Dublin: 'this place is old' - and new; old-beside-new juxtaposition; an American's lack of historical perspective

  • ★★ After London, Hank (with John and Katherine) went to Dublin, where he was hit by the realization Americans have in Europe: this place is old. (playful) — 00:00:07 · Katherine Green, London
  • ★★ Hank says Dublin at first seemed a city of extreme juxtaposition, old right across from new, as if two categories with a fine line between them. — 00:00:24
  • ★★ Hank admits that someone raised where the oldest building dates from the 1950s might lack historical perspective, as he does. (playful, hedged) — 00:00:48

00:00:54 — Bookshops checked for TFIOS; a cathedral with Romanesque and Gothic arches and a crypt, Dublin's oldest structure; Dublinia and the pooping Viking

  • ★ Travelling around, they popped into every bookshop to see if it had The Fault in Our Stars; John was caught videotaping his own book. (playful) — 00:00:54 · The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
  • ★★ Hank says a Dublin cathedral took so long to build that Romanesque arches sit right next to Gothic arches, over a crypt older than both and Dublin's oldest structure. — 00:01:07
  • ★★ At Dublinia, which celebrates Dublin's founding as a Viking colony, they learned that Dublin's history reaches back much further. — 00:01:33

00:01:49 — National Museum of Archaeology: a chained timeline of objects from axe heads and bog mummies to the cat and rat in Christ Church Cathedral and the first Viking

  • ★★ At the National Museum of Archaeology Hank chains objects across Irish history: axe heads 5,800 years before brooches, then Strongbow's death, a library, bog mummies, Christ Church's mummified cat and rat. — 00:01:49

00:02:43 — The self, a place, a culture are continuities; Dublin became a continuum Hank felt part of; without consciousness of the past we may be culturally stunted; watch Crash Course World History

  • ★★★ Hank says we only have a concept of self because we can recall our past and stitch together a story of who we are; continuity, not sameness from instant to instant, makes us us. — 00:02:43
  • ★★★ Hank says the same holds for a place, a culture or a species: Dublin, at first a city of juxtaposition, became a continuum reaching back tens of thousands of years that he felt part of. — 00:02:58
  • ★★★ Hank: without consciousness of our past, easy to lack in towns barely 100 years old, we forget we are part of an ancient continuum, and may be culturally stunted. (hedged) — 00:03:21
  • ★ Hank's playful conclusion: watch Crash Course World History. (playful) — 00:03:41 · Crash Course

00:03:51 — Sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★ Hank says that on the trip he also got to see Charles Darwin's grave, the man who figured out that life, like an individual, is a continuum of inter-related species. — video description
  • ★★ Hank adds that a city, like a human life, all life, culture and technology, is a series of events; being where those continuums are obvious makes him feel part of the human endeavor. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Dublin · National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology · personal identity

Also: People: Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke

Projects: Crash Course

Works: The Fault in Our Stars

Organizations: Dublinia

Groups: Vikings

Concepts: bog body · Gothic architecture · history · Romanesque architecture

Places: Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin · Ireland · London

Only in the description or credits: Charles Darwin · Katherine Green · Thoughts from Places

Also centred on personal identity: We're all Scared · Becoming Someone Else · Who Am I?! - Some thoughts on Personal Identity · Can You Ever Really Change? · Are We The Same Person? · NOW I AM THE SCIENCE ONE…

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2013-02-12 · Talking to the President (John) — answers — “but then I realized that you took all of my footage and used it in your Dublin video” (00:00:05)