Bodymind_Dynamics
The Profound Impact of Our Unconscious - "Whether you are a habitual list maker, or you prefer to keep your tasks in your head, everyone pursues their goals in this ever changing, chaotic environment. We are often aware of our conscious decisions that bring us closer to reaching our goals, however to what extent can we count on our unconscious processes to pilot us toward our destined future? People can learn rather complex structures of the environment and do so implicitly, or without intention. Could this unconscious learning be better if we really wanted it to?” - There are several new studies on subconscious processes and how they influence our behavior. This particular article makes a strong argument for both the existence of deeply implicit learning and the possibility of working with subconscious processes to develop more congruent life-goal modes of consciousness.
Decision-making May Be Surprisingly Unconscious Activity – “Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain actually unconsciously prepares our decisions. ‘Many processes in the brain occur automatically and without involvement of our consciousness. This prevents our mind from being overloaded by simple routine tasks. But when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings.’” - It should be no surprise to people who study human psychology that many of our behaviors and decisions are influenced greatly by subconscious and/or unconscious processes; but what remains of equal importance is investigating how we might develop and increase whatever capacity for higher order consciousness we do have. No doubt further research into embodied subjectivity and integrated personal cognition will provide us with some resources to begin aligning deep biological potentials with our more psychological and existential imperatives and potential. The more we come to know what we are, the more fully we can begin asking who we want to be.
In the News - Therapy, Psychology, and Neuroscience – “It's been an interesting week for mind and psychology articles in the news. From the effectiveness of psychology and psychiatry to moral psychology to neuroscience and literature and beyond, here are a few of the best articles I found this week (in no particular order), with some relevant quotes and a little commentary.”
How The Brain Copes In Language Impaired Kids - "Researchers at UCL (University College London) have discovered that a system in the brain for processing grammar is impaired in some children with specific language impairment (SLI), but that these children compensate with a different brain area... The UCL suggest that educational methods that enhance these compensatory mechanisms may help such children overcome their difficulties..." – This article provides some new information about brain plasticity and neuro-adaptation.
Rationalization of our choices - statistics rather than psychology? – “Tierny has done it again - a really really kewl article on what appears to be an error in some classical psychological experiments on cognitive dissonance and rationalization. He provides online exercises you can do. Those early experiments suggested choice rationalization: Once we reject something, we tell ourselves we never liked it anyway (and thereby spare ourselves the painfully dissonant thought that we made the wrong choice). It turns out that in the free-choice paradigm used to test our tendency to rationalize decisions, any bias or slight preference for one of the initial choices can lead to results on subsequent choices that are explained by simple statistics rather than a psychological explanation. The article is worth a careful read...”
Brains: Are They Really Like Anything? – “It's increasingly accepted that the brain uses a sparse, distributed code for representing information. Computational models based on these principles are able to account for an increasingly wide variety of interactions between cognition, pharmacology, and deep brain stimulation. Work on the sparse distributed nature of these representations, and the learning processes which generate them, has driven the development and partial success of pattern classifiers for deciphering fMRI data - providing converging evidence that we do have an increasingly good idea of how brains represent information. Peter is probably uncomfortable with equating "sparse distributed representation" with "analog," as I may have in my original post.”
Setting Personal Boundaries – “In the previous post, we spoke of the importance of developing personal boundaries. The question remains, then – how? The first step is recognition; it always is. This step might seem silly, absurd – but for many, an important step. Recognise first and foremost that you have a right to boundaries. Do everything you can – affirmations, meditations, or social support – to drive that point in: you have a right to be respected, to be safe, and to be treated as an equal. We have to take care of ourselves, no one else can do it for us.”
The Examined Life: Is Mind Distinct From Body? – “In honor of the Toward a Science of Consciousness, of which this is the last day, here is another episode from The Examined Life -- Is Mind Distinct From Body?” - This is a great article with several informative links.
The Collective Mind – “Durkheim was obviously not the first to advance a notion of mind which transcended the individual. But while it may have been common for many nineteenth century figures to write about group minds with distinctive emergent or transcendent properties (think for example of all that interest in the spirit of history, or more concretely in crowds, or 'primitive' minds), which required minds to be viewed collectively rather than as separate entities bounded by the skulls or skins of individualized human beings, from the early 20th century such notions were gradually abandoned or discredited, such that even Durkheim himself was compelled to drop his term in favor of the far more innocuous-sounding 'collective representation'.”
Communication_Culture_Discourse
6 Difficult Types of People and How to Deal With Them - “We all have difficult people we need to deal with in our lives on a daily basis. While such characteristics may be exaggerations, you may find traits of them in a few of the people in your workplace, amongst your friends, or even a loved one. Psychological research has suggested several ways of coping with difficult people in your life, e.g. hostile co-workers or bosses, complainers, super-agreeables, know-it-all experts, pessimists, and stallers”.
The Women’s Liberation Movement and Public Schools – “The comments on Sean’s post below brought to mind a conversation I had long ago. I had been a postdoc at the Carnegie Observatories, which was a research foundation funded by donors. We were having a meet-n-greet with the folks who had given money to the institute — showing them the machine shop, the offices, etc. I was sitting down with one of the more elderly donors, who announced, “Women’s lib killed the public school system.”
Can We Solve It Like This? Why the ‘We Campaign’ Needs Change – ‘We Can Solve It is barely out of the chute, and already there's widespread clamor in the green media that its approach is, well, flawed. One of the biggest questions is why what's known about the project's $300 million three-year budget sounds like a dream campaign plan from 1989: heavy on expensive TV ads, media consultants, and the like, and extremely short on funding for items that could push much broader grass roots outreach... that as a campaign it is, as someone said to me this weekend, "way more Hillary than Obama."’
Where angels no longer fear to tread - "The Economist has an article which serves as an interesting summary of some of the recent work on the psychology and neuroscience of religious belief. It's a little bit clumsy in places. For example, it summarises some of the work on the role of the temporal lobes as saying that "religious visions are the result of epileptic seizures that affect this part of the brain"."
Giant Statue of Ancient Egypt Queen Found – “A 12-foot-tall (3.6-meter-tall) colossus of Queen Tiye—the influential main wife of noted pharaoh Amenhotep III—has been unearthed at a sprawling temple complex in Luxor.”
Ancient Temple Discovered Among Inca Ruins - “A temple thought to have once housed idols and mummies has been unearthed near an ancient Inca site in Cusco, Peru, scientists say.”
Millennium Foundation Recognizes Inventors and Technologies That Changed the World – “Trailblazing technologies that improved high-speed long-distance communication, provided the blueprint for mobile phone networks, introduced DNA fingerprinting, and created new drug delivery systems were announced Tuesday as finalists for Finland's 2008 Millennium Technology Prize.”
Can We Please Retire the “ID Isn't Science” Meme? – “Not because it's false, mind you. There is no reasonable definition of science that includes Intelligent Design and Creationism, and it is perfectly legitimate to point that out. In certain contexts, like when you are arguing that it is unconstitutional to teach ID in public high school science classes, it is even an important and relevant point. But it is not the main reason serious scientists want nothing to do with the notion and it should not be the first thing you say when debating the subject.”
Evolution In The Classroom – “Evolution has taken another step away from being dismissed as "a theory" in the classroom. A new article documents the automation of evolution: researchers have produced a computer-controlled system that can drive the evolution of improved RNA enzymes -- biological catalysts -- without human input. In the future, this "evolution-machine" could feature in the classroom as well as the lab, allowing students to watch evolution happen in their biology lessons.”
Environment_Health_Sustainability
VIDEO: Antarctica Ice Collapses – “A section of Antarctic ice seven times the size of Manhattan has broken away from a large ice shelf. Scientists say it is a sign of continued global warming.”
Largest Ice Shelf In Northern Hemisphere Has Fractured Into Three Pieces – “The largest ice shelf in the Northern Hemisphere has fractured into three main pieces. During a recent patrol across the northernmost parts of Canada, researchers found a new 18 kilometer-long network of cracks running from the southern edge of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf to the Arctic Ocean. This accompanies a large central fracture that was first detected in 2002, and raises the concern that the remaining ice shelf will disintegrate within the next few years.”
Find Earth Day Events in Your Area – “On April 22, people and communities around the world celebrate one of the coolest holidays on the books — Earth Day! Find out what's going on in your town or state, search for specific Earth Day events, and find tools for organizing your own celebration using these online resources.” – As Earth day approaches prepare yourself by becoming more aware of events and activities going on locally. Be the change you want to see...
Green Buildings and Smart Grids – “a new energy ecosystem is emerging that connects smart, green buildings with a smart, green grid to optimize energy flows. Since commercial and industrial buildings represent around 40 percent of U.S. energy use, and homes another 30 percent, this represents the most significant opportunity for energy efficiency and mass-scale renewable generation.”
Climate Change Will Erode Foundations Of Health, World Health Organization Warns – “Scientists tell us that the evidence the Earth is warming is "unequivocal." Increases in global average air and sea temperature, ice melting and rising global sea levels all help us understand and prepare for the coming challenges. In addition to these observed changes, climate-sensitive impacts on human health are occurring today. They are attacking the pillars of public health. And they are providing a glimpse of the challenges public health will have to confront on a large scale.”
Future Of Solar-powered Houses Is Clear – “People could live in glass houses and look at the world through rose-tinted windows while reducing their carbon emissions by 50 percent, thanks to new Australian research.”
Polity_Justice_Organization
AUDIO: Oil and the 'New International Energy Order' – “With both the cost of and demand for oil rising, nations with large energy reserves are redrawing political and military alliances, and oil-rich countries like Russia and Venezuela are enjoying greater influence. Michael Klare, author of Rising Power, Shrinking Planet, calls it the "new international energy order." – A fascinating discussion of the politics of oil, including insights from those at the center of power.
Haiti's government falls after food riots – “Haiti's government fell on Saturday when senators fired the prime minister after more than a week of riots over food prices, ignoring a plan presented by the president to slash the cost of rice.”
Modern slaves – “Hardly a thing of the past, slavery thrives in our world. Investigative reporter Benjamin Skinner tells Salon the shocking truth about human trafficking.”
VIDEO: Rogue Economics: Capitalism's New Reality – “Italian economist, journalist and author Loretta Napoleoni argues that recent events on Wall Street indicate a much larger upheaval and could “signal the end of the ‘Roaring Nineties,’ nearly two decades of easy money, cheap credit, and soaring global debt.” It’s an argument Napoleoni develops in her latest book called Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality.”
'Surge' Threatens to Unravel in Iraq – “Fighting between Shiite militias and Iraqi troops continues in Basra and Baghdad, raising concerns that security gains made during the U.S. "surge" might unravel”.
Strike Fails to Shake Mugabe – “An opposition protest action fizzles, as fear of violence and poverty discourages people from staying away from work.”
Neuroweapons, war crimes and the preconscious brain – “ A new generation of military technology interfaces directly with the brain to target and trigger weapons before our conscious mind is fully engaged. In a new article in the Cornell International Law Journal, lawyer Stephen White asks whether the concept of a 'war crime' becomes irrelevant if the unconscious mind is pulling the trigger.”
Bomb kills at least 9 in Iran mosque – “A bomb exploded in a mosque in the southern Iranian city Shiraz on Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 100, Iranian media reported.”
Brown calls for G8 action on food crisis – “Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Wednesday called for a coordinated response led by the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund to address soaring food prices.”
VIDEO: Maoist Rebels Win Majority in Nepalese Assembly – “Maoist rebels in Nepal say an end to monarchy is near following their surprise victory in last week’s national elections. The Communist Party of Nepal is expected to come out with more than half the seats in the Constituent Assembly when final results are released. Maoist officials say one of their first orders of business will be to abolish the monarchy and declare a republic. We speak with New York-based journalist, Kashish Das Shrestha and we go to Nepal to speak with anthropologist, Mary Des Chenes.”
Showing posts with label .MetaLinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label .MetaLinking. Show all posts
April 16, 2008
April 3, 2008
MetaLinking – 2008/04/03
Bodymind_Dynamics
Hominid Bipedalism began 6 Million Years Ago – “First detailed look at Orrorin tugenensis bones proves earliest hominin walked upright, researchers say. Far from being a recent, revolutionary development, the ability to walk upright on two legs began at the dawn of human evolution more than six million years ago, new research confirms.” - Current research on the historical development (phylogenesis) of our species is endlessly fascinating. This argument makes a strong case for the definitive role of walking upright in our transition to more sophisticated modes of existing.
The Science Behind Cross-Linguistic Psychology - “While communication may be recognized as a universal phenomenon, differences between languages -- ranging from word-order to semantics -- undoubtedly remain as they help to define culture and develop language. Yet, little is understood about similarities and differences in languages around the world and how they affect communication. Recently, however, two studies have emerged that aid in our understanding of cross-linguistic distinctions in language usage.” - Linguistics and the study of language use and semantics becomes so important when we want to begin understanding the integrated (bio-psycho-social-contextual) nature of ‘meaning’. In essence, the study of memetics is a close cousin to linguistics.
Important Outcomes In Emerging Adulthood Can Be Predicted By Childhood Personality – “A new study in the Journal of Personality reveals the extent to which children's personality types can predict the timing of key transitional moments between childhood and adulthood.”
How to Distinguish between Appropriate and Inappropriate Emotions: A Guide to Using Cognitive Techniques – “...what if the joy of being human lies in dancing at the highest peaks of joy, and crying in the lowest valleys? Perhaps without sadness, without fear, without all the frustrations – the tapestry will be incomplete, a garish painting composed only of the brightest colours. Perhaps whatever we are experiencing right now – the deepest sorrows, a mild melancholy, or the highest bliss – is exactly what we are meant to experience.”
Is The Brain Damaged By Stress? – “The authors measured the gray matter density of the brains of combat-exposed Vietnam veterans, some with and some without PTSD, and their combat-unexposed identical twins using a technology called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The detailed images provided by the MRI scans then allowed the investigators to compare specific brain regions of the siblings. They found that the gray matter density of the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain involved in emotional functioning, was reduced in veterans with PTSD, but not in their twins who had not experienced combat. According to Dr. Pitman, "this finding supports the conclusion that the psychological stress resulting from the traumatic stressor may damage this brain region, with deleterious emotional consequences."
‘Multiple Intelligences’ at 25 – “Inside Higher Ed. takes a look at the influence of the concept of multiple intelligences, 25 years after the release of Howard Gardner's ‘Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences’.”
Communication_Culture_Discourse
Has the Einstein Revolution Gone Too Far? – “Einstein ended science's devotion to experience, believing the constancy of the speed of light. With physicists now theorizing about subatomic strings, parallel universes, and higher dimensions, the challenge may be to come back down to earth.” - This is a fantastic article on science, culture and human knowledge.
Meditation gets cool and sexy makeover aimed at youth – “Max Simon is a man with a mission -- to give the ancient art of meditation a cool, sexy makeover that will appeal to young people who have never heard of Maharishi Yogi. Forty years after Western baby boomers started dabbling in yoga and Indian transcendental practices, Simon, 25, is ditching some of the traditions in a bid to encourage 1 million young people to connect with their inner selves.”
Wrestling With God - "The Road Less Traveled may well have been a life-changing work and one of the best-selling books of all time... Scott Peck had a station-wagon with plates that read "THLOST" in his driveway. They speak of his lifelong journey as a self-described mystic. His last book is a memoir titled Glimpses of the Devil."
Indirect Truths: Gore Aims to Go Beyond His Base – “…a quick post on Gore's new ad campaign, launched officially with an appearance last night on 60 Minutes. I haven't see the ads yet and I didn't see last night's program, but from news reports, the campaign appears to incorporate the types of necessary strategies that I've written about at this blog, in articles, or that I have highlighted in talks over the past year.”
Religion and Tribal Cooperation – “What are your thoughts on kashrut primarily as a means of group indentity reinforcement, ritual, and control? In pre-literate times or in unstable social settings, wouldn't dietary habits be a useful means of tracking who is and is not a member of one's tribe? (Dietary laws also have the effect of confering monopoly power to those preparing and selling the food.) To test whether religion might have emerged as a way of improving group co-operation while reducing the need to keep an eye out for free-riders, Dr Sosis drew on a catalogue of 19th-century American communes published in 1988 by Yaacov Oved of Tel Aviv University.”
Environment_Health_Sustainability
When Evolution Tends To Maximize the Diversity and Functioning Of Ecosystems – “Evolution can lead to greater biological diversity, and particularly to improvements in the functioning of ecosystems. New research shows evolution as a structuring force for ecosystems, and it open new paths to interpreting the relationship between the diversity of living beings and the functioning of ecosystems.”
Blurring Boundaries Between The Real And The Virtual - "Using a virtual pendulum and its real-world counterpart, scientists at the University of Illinois have created the first mixed reality state in a physical system. Through bidirectional instantaneous coupling, each pendulum "sensed" the other, their motions became correlated, and the two began swinging as one."
13 Best Energy Ideas – “Energy policies and technologies that can get us on the path toward a sustainable future (plus a few that won’t). Investments in energy projects will total $16 trillion in the next two decades. That investment—along with spending for long-lived buildings, transportation, manufacturing, and public works—could lock us into climate chaos.”
Greenwashing. Environment, Perils, Promises and Perplexities – “Today people will look down on you if your art space doesn't have an exhibition dedicated to ecological issues on its agenda. Unsurprisingly, Milan still hasn't organized anything worth mentioning but her little neighbour, the enlightened and chilly Turin, did. The show is called Greenwashing. Environment, Perils, Promises and Perplexities and is on view at the Fondazione Rebaudengo until May 11, 2008.”
Disentangling the SES-health correlation – “In the field of social health research, it has been shown difficult to disentangle the correlation between poor health and low social economic status (SES) into causal effects in either direction. Both causal interpretations seem plausible: when in poor health, improving your career becomes more difficult, and people of a low SES generally live in a more unhealthy manner, for instance due to poor housing and eating habits. Despite all the difficulties of disentangling this correlation, Case et al. (2005) have made a very serious attempt in doing so...” - A few of us at IRG have direct experience with the methodological and theoretical challenges of studying the relationship between economics and public health dynamics. The research featured in this link goes a long way to overcoming some of these challenges. For readers seriously interested in public health issues and social equality this is a must read.
Polity_Justice_Organization
The Politics of Optimism – “Optimism is a political act. Entrenched interests use despair, confusion and apathy to prevent change. They encourage modes of thinking which lead us to believe that problems are insolvable, that nothing we do can matter, that the issue is too complex to present even the opportunity for change. It is a long-standing political art to sow the seeds of mistrust between those you would rule over: as Machiavelli said, tyrants do not care if they are hated, so long as those under them do not love one another.”
Exodus: Where Will Iraq Go Next? – “Refugees International estimates that up to five million Iraqis have been displaced since 2003. That’s one-in-five Iraqis who have had to flee their homes since the US-led invasion of their country. Two-and-a-half million Iraqis have been internally displaced, and an equal number have managed to leave the country to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, the Gulf States and, most of all, Syria, which hosts 1.5 million Iraqis.”
VIDEO: From the Frontlines of Humanity: Former UN Relief Coordinator on World Crises—Congo, Darfur, Iraq, Colombia and Palestine – “As former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the former UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland spent years working with the world’s neediest and in conflict zones including Darfur, Colombia, Gaza, Lebanon, Uganda, the Congo and Iraq. Egeland joins us to talk about his time dealing with world crises, which he documents in a new memoir, ‘A Billion Lives: An Eyewitness Report from the Frontlines of Humanity’.”
Jeff Sachs on water policy – “Chapter five of Common Wealth is called "Securing Our Water Needs," an important topic but one neglected by most economists. One lesson is that climate change will put a big stress on water supplies. So far, so good, but the recommendations start with greater international cooperation…” - We can't stress enough how important water and the politics of water is becoming. Please take the time learn more about this important topic.
Beware the Military-Industrial Complex – “President Eisenhower, himself a former general, famously warned about the military-industrial complex and its potential hold on the U.S. in the late 1950s. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, al Qaeda's lack of traditional forces and China's relatively peaceful rise, said complex may have found a new security threat looming in climate change late in the first decade of the 21st century. Reports about the threat of global warming have been prepared for the Pentagon. World leaders have been warned about the imminent security risk it poses. And, most importantly, military strategies and their attendant hardware to cope with the potential threat are being developed.”
Hominid Bipedalism began 6 Million Years Ago – “First detailed look at Orrorin tugenensis bones proves earliest hominin walked upright, researchers say. Far from being a recent, revolutionary development, the ability to walk upright on two legs began at the dawn of human evolution more than six million years ago, new research confirms.” - Current research on the historical development (phylogenesis) of our species is endlessly fascinating. This argument makes a strong case for the definitive role of walking upright in our transition to more sophisticated modes of existing.
The Science Behind Cross-Linguistic Psychology - “While communication may be recognized as a universal phenomenon, differences between languages -- ranging from word-order to semantics -- undoubtedly remain as they help to define culture and develop language. Yet, little is understood about similarities and differences in languages around the world and how they affect communication. Recently, however, two studies have emerged that aid in our understanding of cross-linguistic distinctions in language usage.” - Linguistics and the study of language use and semantics becomes so important when we want to begin understanding the integrated (bio-psycho-social-contextual) nature of ‘meaning’. In essence, the study of memetics is a close cousin to linguistics.
Important Outcomes In Emerging Adulthood Can Be Predicted By Childhood Personality – “A new study in the Journal of Personality reveals the extent to which children's personality types can predict the timing of key transitional moments between childhood and adulthood.”
How to Distinguish between Appropriate and Inappropriate Emotions: A Guide to Using Cognitive Techniques – “...what if the joy of being human lies in dancing at the highest peaks of joy, and crying in the lowest valleys? Perhaps without sadness, without fear, without all the frustrations – the tapestry will be incomplete, a garish painting composed only of the brightest colours. Perhaps whatever we are experiencing right now – the deepest sorrows, a mild melancholy, or the highest bliss – is exactly what we are meant to experience.”
Is The Brain Damaged By Stress? – “The authors measured the gray matter density of the brains of combat-exposed Vietnam veterans, some with and some without PTSD, and their combat-unexposed identical twins using a technology called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The detailed images provided by the MRI scans then allowed the investigators to compare specific brain regions of the siblings. They found that the gray matter density of the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain involved in emotional functioning, was reduced in veterans with PTSD, but not in their twins who had not experienced combat. According to Dr. Pitman, "this finding supports the conclusion that the psychological stress resulting from the traumatic stressor may damage this brain region, with deleterious emotional consequences."
‘Multiple Intelligences’ at 25 – “Inside Higher Ed. takes a look at the influence of the concept of multiple intelligences, 25 years after the release of Howard Gardner's ‘Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences’.”
Communication_Culture_Discourse
Has the Einstein Revolution Gone Too Far? – “Einstein ended science's devotion to experience, believing the constancy of the speed of light. With physicists now theorizing about subatomic strings, parallel universes, and higher dimensions, the challenge may be to come back down to earth.” - This is a fantastic article on science, culture and human knowledge.
Meditation gets cool and sexy makeover aimed at youth – “Max Simon is a man with a mission -- to give the ancient art of meditation a cool, sexy makeover that will appeal to young people who have never heard of Maharishi Yogi. Forty years after Western baby boomers started dabbling in yoga and Indian transcendental practices, Simon, 25, is ditching some of the traditions in a bid to encourage 1 million young people to connect with their inner selves.”
Wrestling With God - "The Road Less Traveled may well have been a life-changing work and one of the best-selling books of all time... Scott Peck had a station-wagon with plates that read "THLOST" in his driveway. They speak of his lifelong journey as a self-described mystic. His last book is a memoir titled Glimpses of the Devil."
Indirect Truths: Gore Aims to Go Beyond His Base – “…a quick post on Gore's new ad campaign, launched officially with an appearance last night on 60 Minutes. I haven't see the ads yet and I didn't see last night's program, but from news reports, the campaign appears to incorporate the types of necessary strategies that I've written about at this blog, in articles, or that I have highlighted in talks over the past year.”
Religion and Tribal Cooperation – “What are your thoughts on kashrut primarily as a means of group indentity reinforcement, ritual, and control? In pre-literate times or in unstable social settings, wouldn't dietary habits be a useful means of tracking who is and is not a member of one's tribe? (Dietary laws also have the effect of confering monopoly power to those preparing and selling the food.) To test whether religion might have emerged as a way of improving group co-operation while reducing the need to keep an eye out for free-riders, Dr Sosis drew on a catalogue of 19th-century American communes published in 1988 by Yaacov Oved of Tel Aviv University.”
Environment_Health_Sustainability
When Evolution Tends To Maximize the Diversity and Functioning Of Ecosystems – “Evolution can lead to greater biological diversity, and particularly to improvements in the functioning of ecosystems. New research shows evolution as a structuring force for ecosystems, and it open new paths to interpreting the relationship between the diversity of living beings and the functioning of ecosystems.”
Blurring Boundaries Between The Real And The Virtual - "Using a virtual pendulum and its real-world counterpart, scientists at the University of Illinois have created the first mixed reality state in a physical system. Through bidirectional instantaneous coupling, each pendulum "sensed" the other, their motions became correlated, and the two began swinging as one."
13 Best Energy Ideas – “Energy policies and technologies that can get us on the path toward a sustainable future (plus a few that won’t). Investments in energy projects will total $16 trillion in the next two decades. That investment—along with spending for long-lived buildings, transportation, manufacturing, and public works—could lock us into climate chaos.”
Greenwashing. Environment, Perils, Promises and Perplexities – “Today people will look down on you if your art space doesn't have an exhibition dedicated to ecological issues on its agenda. Unsurprisingly, Milan still hasn't organized anything worth mentioning but her little neighbour, the enlightened and chilly Turin, did. The show is called Greenwashing. Environment, Perils, Promises and Perplexities and is on view at the Fondazione Rebaudengo until May 11, 2008.”
Disentangling the SES-health correlation – “In the field of social health research, it has been shown difficult to disentangle the correlation between poor health and low social economic status (SES) into causal effects in either direction. Both causal interpretations seem plausible: when in poor health, improving your career becomes more difficult, and people of a low SES generally live in a more unhealthy manner, for instance due to poor housing and eating habits. Despite all the difficulties of disentangling this correlation, Case et al. (2005) have made a very serious attempt in doing so...” - A few of us at IRG have direct experience with the methodological and theoretical challenges of studying the relationship between economics and public health dynamics. The research featured in this link goes a long way to overcoming some of these challenges. For readers seriously interested in public health issues and social equality this is a must read.
Polity_Justice_Organization
The Politics of Optimism – “Optimism is a political act. Entrenched interests use despair, confusion and apathy to prevent change. They encourage modes of thinking which lead us to believe that problems are insolvable, that nothing we do can matter, that the issue is too complex to present even the opportunity for change. It is a long-standing political art to sow the seeds of mistrust between those you would rule over: as Machiavelli said, tyrants do not care if they are hated, so long as those under them do not love one another.”
Exodus: Where Will Iraq Go Next? – “Refugees International estimates that up to five million Iraqis have been displaced since 2003. That’s one-in-five Iraqis who have had to flee their homes since the US-led invasion of their country. Two-and-a-half million Iraqis have been internally displaced, and an equal number have managed to leave the country to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, the Gulf States and, most of all, Syria, which hosts 1.5 million Iraqis.”
VIDEO: From the Frontlines of Humanity: Former UN Relief Coordinator on World Crises—Congo, Darfur, Iraq, Colombia and Palestine – “As former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the former UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland spent years working with the world’s neediest and in conflict zones including Darfur, Colombia, Gaza, Lebanon, Uganda, the Congo and Iraq. Egeland joins us to talk about his time dealing with world crises, which he documents in a new memoir, ‘A Billion Lives: An Eyewitness Report from the Frontlines of Humanity’.”
Jeff Sachs on water policy – “Chapter five of Common Wealth is called "Securing Our Water Needs," an important topic but one neglected by most economists. One lesson is that climate change will put a big stress on water supplies. So far, so good, but the recommendations start with greater international cooperation…” - We can't stress enough how important water and the politics of water is becoming. Please take the time learn more about this important topic.
Beware the Military-Industrial Complex – “President Eisenhower, himself a former general, famously warned about the military-industrial complex and its potential hold on the U.S. in the late 1950s. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, al Qaeda's lack of traditional forces and China's relatively peaceful rise, said complex may have found a new security threat looming in climate change late in the first decade of the 21st century. Reports about the threat of global warming have been prepared for the Pentagon. World leaders have been warned about the imminent security risk it poses. And, most importantly, military strategies and their attendant hardware to cope with the potential threat are being developed.”
March 22, 2008
MetaLinking – 2008/03/22
Bodymind_Dynamics
Body-Subjects and Disordered Minds – “In his Republic, Plato called 'mental disorder' a "drunken, lustful, passionate" frenzy, in which one gives in to one's "lawless wild-beast nature;" he further suggested that people with such a condition should be punished. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, sociology and law, continue to debate the theoretical and practical bearings of this phenomenon... Despite the number of works attempting to answer these questions, it is rare to find a book that proposes a well-developed theory of mental disorder which can be implemented in both clinical and political practices.”
Monkey Language and Human Evolution - “The ability to string different words together to express complex ideas was a milestone in the development of language that researchers figure occurred relatively late in human evolution. Now for the first time, scientists reveal a primate other than humans can also express a variety of messages by combining sounds into different sequences. The finding suggests this level of language might have occurred far earlier in evolution than before thought.”
The Visible Body - “The Visible Body is the most comprehensive human anatomy visualization tool available today. This entirely Web-delivered application offers an unparalleled understanding of human anatomy. The Visible Body includes 3D models of over 1,700 anatomical structures, including all major organs and systems of the human body.”
Regulating Negative Emotions And The Impact On Brain Activity – “Emotions play an important role in the lives of humans, and influence our behavior, thoughts, decisions, and interactions. The ability to regulate emotions is essential to both mental and physical well-being. "Conversely, difficulties with emotion regulation have been postulated as a core mechanism underlying mood and anxiety disorders," according to the authors of a new study published in Biological Psychiatry on March 15th. Thus, these researchers set out to further expand our understanding of the differential effects of emotion regulation strategies on the human brain.”
Native Americans Traced to 6 'Founding Mothers' – “Nearly all of today's Native Americans in North, Central and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests.”
Are Humans Meant to be Monogamous? – “News of politicians' extramarital affairs seems to be in no short supply lately, but if humans were cut from exactly the same cloth as other mammals, a faithful spouse would be an unusual phenomenon. Only 3 percent to 5 percent of the roughly 5,000 species of mammals (including humans) are known to form lifelong, monogamous bonds, with the loyal superstars including beavers, wolves and some bats. Social monogamy is a term referring to creatures that pair up to mate and raise offspring but still have flings. Sexually monogamous pairs mate with only with one partner. So a cheating husband who detours for a romantic romp yet returns home in time to tuck in the kids at night would be considered socially monogamous.”
“Meant” to be monogamous? This article, although raising some interesting questions, is mostly speculative and does not address the more significant ‘philosophical questions’ about directionality in evolution, nor whether or not what was in the past 'ought' to be in the future. Humans are much more than their genes.
The Same Region Of The Brain Is Used For Thoughts Of Self And Similar Others - "Using fMRI scanning, researchers have found that the region of the brain associated with introspective thought is also accessed when inferring the thoughts of other people who are similar to oneself. However, this is not the case when considering those who are different politically, socially, or religiously. "Our research helps to explain how and when people draw on their own inner experiences to make inferences about the experiences of others," says Jenkins. "The findings suggest that the part of the brain that is responsible for introspection also helps us to understand what other people might be thinking or feeling. But this primarily seems to be the case for people who we perceive to be similar to ourselves."
Communication_Culture_Discourse
AUDIO: Reconciling Science and Religion – “Roman Catholic priest and cosmologist Michael Heller won this year's Templeton Prize. "Science without religion is not only meaningless, it's lame," he says.”
The Age of American Unreason – “Identifying herself as a “cultural conservationist” (but by no means a cultural conservative), Jacoby laments the decline of middlebrow American culture and presents a cogent defense of intellectualism. America, she believes, faces a “crisis of memory and knowledge,” in which anti-intellectualism is not only tolerated but celebrated by those in politics and the media to whom we are all “just folks.”
Music fans' favorite drugs don't quite match the stereotype – “Music has been associated with drug use for decades -- from the flower children smoking weed at Woodstock to jazz great Charlie Parker getting hooked on heroin, it seems that every type of music has a drug that we associate with it. Last month we discussed a study where college students were asked what type of substances they thought music fans of 14 different genres of music were likely to use. Here are the results…”
Help bring compassion back to religion – “As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions -- Islam, Judaism, Christianity -- have been diverted from the moral purpose they share: to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") as the central global religious doctrine.”
Environment_Health_Sustainability
Native North Americans Gather to Save the Planet – “North American Indians assembled in the shadow of ancient Mayan pyramids Monday discussed how their tradition wisdom could help save the planet, and were told that even indigenous cultures have struggled with environmental abuse. More than 200 leaders from 71 American Indian nations in Mexico, the United States and Canada came together in this Mexican jungle to find indigenous solutions to pollution and ecological problems threatening the planet.”
The Economist Has No Clothes – “Unscientific assumptions in economic theory are undermining efforts to solve environmental problems… Unfortunately, it is clear that neoclassical economics has also become outdated. The theory is based on unscientific assumptions that are hindering the implementation of viable economic solutions for global warming and other menacing environmental problems.”
It might seem common sensical that classical and traditional economics is far from being a scientific discipline. At best economics is a interpretive dialog on economic systems, and worse it is a repressive discourse that reduces human life and social complexity to a set of 'games' or proscriptions of white capitalist elites. The injustices done in the name of "markets" is a shadow 'economics' continues to cast over the lives of millions.
Review: Critical Perspectives in Public Health – “This collection of readings takes its name from the journal Critical Public Health in which many of the chapters were originally published as individual papers, between 1998 and 2005. The book contains sixteen chapters in four sections, with an integrative introduction to each section. This is a wide ranging collection, covering inequalities, research, colonization/globalization, and the environment. Authors are about evenly spread across both sides of the Atlantic and appear to be mainly social science or medical academics from the specialty of public health. Critical Perspectives in Public Health is a useful reader in providing an overview of methodology and theory, as well as case studies of particular issues.”
The U.S.'s First Smart Grid? – “One of the fun things about editing a project like Worldchanging in times like these is the frequency with which our predictions and speculations get run down and overtaken by commercial realities. We've written a lot about smart grids, touting their potential benefits, from neighborhood survivability to enabling pug-in hybrid-electrics to act as a system of batteries during peak use surges. Now Xcel Energy has announced that it's going to turn Boulder, Colorado, into the United States' first smart grid community”
This is an outstanding project - a must read. If you are in the Boulder area please reach out and support this leading edge work.
Water under pressure – “More than a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and two billion have inadequate sanitation. This is despite two international decades, a millennium declaration goal, two international years and a string of global celebratory days — all dedicated to drinking-water or sanitation. Why has progress been so slow?”
Water will be THE global issue in a future of scarce resources and POTENTIAL international strife.
Top 10 Questions About Earth – “In an attempt to remedy that, a panel of geologists and planetary scientists announced this week the top 10 questions about our planet that linger today, which have strangely baffled humanity and researchers for hundreds of years and longer. "We have to look to the past and ask deeper fundamental questions about the origins of the Earth and life, the structure and dynamics of planets, and the connections between life and climate, for example," said panel chairman Donald DePaolo, a University of California at Berkeley geochemist.”
Polity_Justice_Organization
Tibetans in China: Fearing the Worst - “It's early evening in Litang, a normally bustling city of some 50,000 in the far west of China's Sichuan province. On a normal day, the streets would be crowded with cars, bicycles, throngs of shoppers, even the odd yak. But today there is an eerie silence, with only the occasional resident hurrying home, eyes to the ground. The shops are all shuttered and the only vehicles on the roads are prowling police cars whose blue and red lights flash in the gathering dusk. Litang, 90% of whose population is ethnically Tibetan, is a city under siege.” - Bill Harryman at IOC is keeping a close eye on the situation in Tibet - check out his latest postings.
AUDIO: China Cuts Off Access to Western News Sites – “Over the past week of uprisings in Tibet, the Chinese government has cut access to Western media websites to keep the Chinese people from finding out how serious the crisis has been. James Fallows of Atlantic Monthly talks to Susan Stamberg about how China's "Great Firewall" works.”
On Obama: Those Who Hear Only Empty Optimism Aren’t Listening - “I've been trying to avoid the word integral, but that is my sense of Obama -- someone who works with aperspectival thinking and understands that the only way to make sense of chaos is to generate meaning. Some may not approve of the meaning he seeks to generate, but compared to the other options, he is the most advanced mind in the game.”
Over 100 anti-war protesters arrested at NATO HQ - “Around 100 anti-war protesters were arrested trying to force their way into NATO's headquarters in Belgium on Saturday, police said. Police in riot gear and on horses clashed with over 500 activists from across Europe -- opposed to military action in Iraq and Afghanistan and the use of nuclear weapons -- outside NATO's Brussels hub. Water cannons were used to prevent most of the protesters from gaining entry to the large security compound situated on the outskirts of the Belgian capital and close to Brussels national airport.”
AUDIO: Kenyans Struggle Toward Normalcy – “Kenya is getting back to business after two months of ethnic bloodletting kicked off by a contested presidential election. While the political combatants have figured out a way to work together, Kenyans are struggling to put the internecine clashes behind them.”
Body-Subjects and Disordered Minds – “In his Republic, Plato called 'mental disorder' a "drunken, lustful, passionate" frenzy, in which one gives in to one's "lawless wild-beast nature;" he further suggested that people with such a condition should be punished. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, sociology and law, continue to debate the theoretical and practical bearings of this phenomenon... Despite the number of works attempting to answer these questions, it is rare to find a book that proposes a well-developed theory of mental disorder which can be implemented in both clinical and political practices.”
Monkey Language and Human Evolution - “The ability to string different words together to express complex ideas was a milestone in the development of language that researchers figure occurred relatively late in human evolution. Now for the first time, scientists reveal a primate other than humans can also express a variety of messages by combining sounds into different sequences. The finding suggests this level of language might have occurred far earlier in evolution than before thought.”
The Visible Body - “The Visible Body is the most comprehensive human anatomy visualization tool available today. This entirely Web-delivered application offers an unparalleled understanding of human anatomy. The Visible Body includes 3D models of over 1,700 anatomical structures, including all major organs and systems of the human body.”
Regulating Negative Emotions And The Impact On Brain Activity – “Emotions play an important role in the lives of humans, and influence our behavior, thoughts, decisions, and interactions. The ability to regulate emotions is essential to both mental and physical well-being. "Conversely, difficulties with emotion regulation have been postulated as a core mechanism underlying mood and anxiety disorders," according to the authors of a new study published in Biological Psychiatry on March 15th. Thus, these researchers set out to further expand our understanding of the differential effects of emotion regulation strategies on the human brain.”
Native Americans Traced to 6 'Founding Mothers' – “Nearly all of today's Native Americans in North, Central and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests.”
Are Humans Meant to be Monogamous? – “News of politicians' extramarital affairs seems to be in no short supply lately, but if humans were cut from exactly the same cloth as other mammals, a faithful spouse would be an unusual phenomenon. Only 3 percent to 5 percent of the roughly 5,000 species of mammals (including humans) are known to form lifelong, monogamous bonds, with the loyal superstars including beavers, wolves and some bats. Social monogamy is a term referring to creatures that pair up to mate and raise offspring but still have flings. Sexually monogamous pairs mate with only with one partner. So a cheating husband who detours for a romantic romp yet returns home in time to tuck in the kids at night would be considered socially monogamous.”
“Meant” to be monogamous? This article, although raising some interesting questions, is mostly speculative and does not address the more significant ‘philosophical questions’ about directionality in evolution, nor whether or not what was in the past 'ought' to be in the future. Humans are much more than their genes.
The Same Region Of The Brain Is Used For Thoughts Of Self And Similar Others - "Using fMRI scanning, researchers have found that the region of the brain associated with introspective thought is also accessed when inferring the thoughts of other people who are similar to oneself. However, this is not the case when considering those who are different politically, socially, or religiously. "Our research helps to explain how and when people draw on their own inner experiences to make inferences about the experiences of others," says Jenkins. "The findings suggest that the part of the brain that is responsible for introspection also helps us to understand what other people might be thinking or feeling. But this primarily seems to be the case for people who we perceive to be similar to ourselves."
Communication_Culture_Discourse
AUDIO: Reconciling Science and Religion – “Roman Catholic priest and cosmologist Michael Heller won this year's Templeton Prize. "Science without religion is not only meaningless, it's lame," he says.”
The Age of American Unreason – “Identifying herself as a “cultural conservationist” (but by no means a cultural conservative), Jacoby laments the decline of middlebrow American culture and presents a cogent defense of intellectualism. America, she believes, faces a “crisis of memory and knowledge,” in which anti-intellectualism is not only tolerated but celebrated by those in politics and the media to whom we are all “just folks.”
Music fans' favorite drugs don't quite match the stereotype – “Music has been associated with drug use for decades -- from the flower children smoking weed at Woodstock to jazz great Charlie Parker getting hooked on heroin, it seems that every type of music has a drug that we associate with it. Last month we discussed a study where college students were asked what type of substances they thought music fans of 14 different genres of music were likely to use. Here are the results…”
Help bring compassion back to religion – “As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions -- Islam, Judaism, Christianity -- have been diverted from the moral purpose they share: to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") as the central global religious doctrine.”
Environment_Health_Sustainability
Native North Americans Gather to Save the Planet – “North American Indians assembled in the shadow of ancient Mayan pyramids Monday discussed how their tradition wisdom could help save the planet, and were told that even indigenous cultures have struggled with environmental abuse. More than 200 leaders from 71 American Indian nations in Mexico, the United States and Canada came together in this Mexican jungle to find indigenous solutions to pollution and ecological problems threatening the planet.”
The Economist Has No Clothes – “Unscientific assumptions in economic theory are undermining efforts to solve environmental problems… Unfortunately, it is clear that neoclassical economics has also become outdated. The theory is based on unscientific assumptions that are hindering the implementation of viable economic solutions for global warming and other menacing environmental problems.”
It might seem common sensical that classical and traditional economics is far from being a scientific discipline. At best economics is a interpretive dialog on economic systems, and worse it is a repressive discourse that reduces human life and social complexity to a set of 'games' or proscriptions of white capitalist elites. The injustices done in the name of "markets" is a shadow 'economics' continues to cast over the lives of millions.
Review: Critical Perspectives in Public Health – “This collection of readings takes its name from the journal Critical Public Health in which many of the chapters were originally published as individual papers, between 1998 and 2005. The book contains sixteen chapters in four sections, with an integrative introduction to each section. This is a wide ranging collection, covering inequalities, research, colonization/globalization, and the environment. Authors are about evenly spread across both sides of the Atlantic and appear to be mainly social science or medical academics from the specialty of public health. Critical Perspectives in Public Health is a useful reader in providing an overview of methodology and theory, as well as case studies of particular issues.”
The U.S.'s First Smart Grid? – “One of the fun things about editing a project like Worldchanging in times like these is the frequency with which our predictions and speculations get run down and overtaken by commercial realities. We've written a lot about smart grids, touting their potential benefits, from neighborhood survivability to enabling pug-in hybrid-electrics to act as a system of batteries during peak use surges. Now Xcel Energy has announced that it's going to turn Boulder, Colorado, into the United States' first smart grid community”
This is an outstanding project - a must read. If you are in the Boulder area please reach out and support this leading edge work.
Water under pressure – “More than a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and two billion have inadequate sanitation. This is despite two international decades, a millennium declaration goal, two international years and a string of global celebratory days — all dedicated to drinking-water or sanitation. Why has progress been so slow?”
Water will be THE global issue in a future of scarce resources and POTENTIAL international strife.
Top 10 Questions About Earth – “In an attempt to remedy that, a panel of geologists and planetary scientists announced this week the top 10 questions about our planet that linger today, which have strangely baffled humanity and researchers for hundreds of years and longer. "We have to look to the past and ask deeper fundamental questions about the origins of the Earth and life, the structure and dynamics of planets, and the connections between life and climate, for example," said panel chairman Donald DePaolo, a University of California at Berkeley geochemist.”
Polity_Justice_Organization
Tibetans in China: Fearing the Worst - “It's early evening in Litang, a normally bustling city of some 50,000 in the far west of China's Sichuan province. On a normal day, the streets would be crowded with cars, bicycles, throngs of shoppers, even the odd yak. But today there is an eerie silence, with only the occasional resident hurrying home, eyes to the ground. The shops are all shuttered and the only vehicles on the roads are prowling police cars whose blue and red lights flash in the gathering dusk. Litang, 90% of whose population is ethnically Tibetan, is a city under siege.” - Bill Harryman at IOC is keeping a close eye on the situation in Tibet - check out his latest postings.
AUDIO: China Cuts Off Access to Western News Sites – “Over the past week of uprisings in Tibet, the Chinese government has cut access to Western media websites to keep the Chinese people from finding out how serious the crisis has been. James Fallows of Atlantic Monthly talks to Susan Stamberg about how China's "Great Firewall" works.”
On Obama: Those Who Hear Only Empty Optimism Aren’t Listening - “I've been trying to avoid the word integral, but that is my sense of Obama -- someone who works with aperspectival thinking and understands that the only way to make sense of chaos is to generate meaning. Some may not approve of the meaning he seeks to generate, but compared to the other options, he is the most advanced mind in the game.”
Over 100 anti-war protesters arrested at NATO HQ - “Around 100 anti-war protesters were arrested trying to force their way into NATO's headquarters in Belgium on Saturday, police said. Police in riot gear and on horses clashed with over 500 activists from across Europe -- opposed to military action in Iraq and Afghanistan and the use of nuclear weapons -- outside NATO's Brussels hub. Water cannons were used to prevent most of the protesters from gaining entry to the large security compound situated on the outskirts of the Belgian capital and close to Brussels national airport.”
AUDIO: Kenyans Struggle Toward Normalcy – “Kenya is getting back to business after two months of ethnic bloodletting kicked off by a contested presidential election. While the political combatants have figured out a way to work together, Kenyans are struggling to put the internecine clashes behind them.”
March 16, 2008
MetaLinking – 2008-03-16
Metalinking offers readers an opportunity to follow-up on some of the most recent ‘strands’ of research that our group has encountered. In the interest of evolving more rigorous integral theories and applications we conduct original research, internet scans and literature reviews in four main strategic research domains: Bodymind Dynamics, Communication, Culture & Discourse, Environment, Health & Sustainability and Polity, Justice & Organization. All comments and feedback welcome.
Bodymind_Dynamics
Am I Normal? - "A more organic take on human nature is emerging. It sees behavior as a product of distinct personality traits that we all have to a greater or lesser degree. In this new view, we're all just a little bit crazy..."
Cooperation, Punishment And Revenge – “Research from The University of Nottingham has shed new light on the way in which people co-operate for the common good - and what happens when they don't. In a new international study of 16 countries, published in the prestigious journal Science, economists studied the extent to which some people will sacrifice personal gain to benefit the wider public, while 'freeloaders' try to take advantage of their generosity. Marked national differences arose when freeloaders were punished for putting their own interests ahead of the common good. And whether they accepted their punishment or retaliated in kind depended on what kind of society they lived in, the researchers found.”
Resisting temptation is energy intensive – “Cognitive Daily has just published a great write-up and demonstration of a study that illustrates how self-control is an energy intensive process that puts a big drain on the body's glucose levels. The article tackles a recent study led by psychologist Matthew Gailliot that found that exercising self-control in either conversations or in lab tasks reduces blood glucose levels.”
Consciousness is Nothing but a Word – “In 1991, Daniel Dennett published his tome, Consciousness Explained.1 Yet, ten years later he penned an article titled “Are We Explaining Consciousness Yet?”2 If he had to ask the question, the answer seems obvious. English-speaking philosophers and psychologists have been trying to understand consciousness at least since John Locke introduced the word into the English language in the 17th century. But despite the best efforts of those who’ve thrown their hats into the ring, we haven’t made much progress. Obviously, a different approach is needed.” Is this flatland reductionism or simply critical thinking? You decide.
How Effective and Integral are Your Current Spiritual Practices? – “How much of your current spiritual practice incorporates the 18 most validated methods for building a spiritually congruent life and an authentic and empowered spiritual lifestyle? We invite you to review the 18 central practices used by history's greatest spiritual leaders, mystics and saints and compare your current spiritual practices to theirs. You might just find out that you are doing a lot better than you ever dreamed...”
Eastern And Western Cultures Perceive Emotions Very Differently – “A team of researchers from Canada and Japan have uncovered some remarkable results on how eastern and western cultures assess situations very differently… "East Asians seem to have a more holistic pattern of attention, perceiving people in terms of the relationships to others," says Masuda. "People raised in the North American tradition often find it easy to isolate a person from its surroundings, while East Asians are accustom to read the air "kuuki wo yomu" of the situation through their cultural practices, and as a result, they think that even surrounding people's facial expressions are an informative source to understand the particular person's emotion."”
Genes and Happiness, or Free Will Revisited – “As I begin writing this post I can’t help but be reminded of the one I wrote a few weeks ago about the troubles one runs into when trying to reconcile present-day understandings of neuroscience and genetics with the traditional concept of free will. A team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research recently conducted a study to investigate how much our subjective sense of happiness is dependent upon our genetic makeup (and thus personality style). Is our ability to be happy solely up to us ("us" being defined as hypothetical beings with complete free will), or is it constrained by the type of person we are, which is determined to a large extent by our genes?”
Communication_Culture_Discourse
Economists Decode Rational Behaviors of Black Women – “There are a lot of African-American single moms around and some commentators are inclined to blame this fact on 'Black Culture'—whatever that phrase might mean," writes economist Tim Harford in his new book, The Logic of Life. Harford goes on: "But 'Black culture' doesn't explain why the single moms are disproportionately in the states where lots of young black men are in prison." Not sure we can endorse or agree with this type of “science” but nonetheless…
Scientist Turns Microscope on Herself – “One of the most fascinating talks at the TED conference so far was given by Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, who gave a riveting account of a stroke she experienced in 1996. (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.) Taylor's knowledge of the brain made her the perfect witness to her body's gradual shutdown. Over the course of four hours she watched her body deteriorate in stages, all the while processing its breakdown as if she were a curious explorer taking field notes. The first to go was her perception of herself as separate from the objects around her.”
Not by Reason Alone - "Can you argue people out of a belief in God? And can science scratch that same itch? "If this book works as intended," avows Richard Dawkins in the preface to his best-selling book The God Delusion, "religious readers who open it will be atheists by the time they put it down." Show people data, and enough of it, and in a process as inevitable as Darwinism itself, people will drop their babyish dependency on magical thinking and return to their natural state, which is atheism (or at least a sober agnosticism). This is Dawkins's basic premise, shared by many of today's vocal neo-atheists..."
VIDEO: Nietzsche on Hardship - Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness – “Nietzsche on Hardship - British philosopher Alain De Botton explores Friedrich Nietzsche's (1844-1900) dictum that any worthwhile achievements in life come from the experience of overcoming hardship. For him, any existence that is too comfortable is worthless, as are the twin refugees of drink or religion.”
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense – “Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up… Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage. To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.”
Environment_Health_Sustainability
British Columbia "the clear leader in North American climate policy" – “B.C.'s provincial government has instituted a carbon tax. It's pretty significant: Taylor said the new carbon tax will begin July 1, starting at a rate that will have drivers paying about an extra 2.4 cents per litre of gasoline at the pumps. The tax -- which will apply to virtually all fossil fuels, including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane and home heating fuel -- will then increase each year after that until 2012, reaching a final price of about 7.2 cents per litre at the pumps. After that, Taylor said, it will rest with the government of the day to decide if the tax rate should change any further.
VIDEO: James Howard Kunstler: The tragedy of suburbia – “In James Howard Kunstler's view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life and the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about. Reengineering our cities will involve more radical change than we are prepared for, Kunstler believes, but our hand will be forced by earth crises stemming from our national lifestyle. "Life in the mid-21st century," Kunstler says, "is going to be about living locally.”
Welcome to the Post-Carbon World – “Why do some planets survive their carbon crises and others don’t? It doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Buildings, electricity production, transportation, and food & forestry contribute the bulk of the greenhouse gases. But climate-friendly options are ready. Author Guy Dauncey takes us out of this world as we begin to imagine some down-to-earth solutions.”
5 Factors Of Social Ills In Energy, Mining And Logging Communities Revealed By Study - “The troubling link between boom towns and high rates of substance abuse is usually attributed to workers having too much money and too little to do. But a recent study of one Canadian community suggests underlying pressures including loneliness, a lack of healthy social connections and a need to "keep up with the Joneses". Two University of Alberta researchers, working with the Canadian Forest Service to conduct the study, found that substance abuse in the town of Hinton runs far deeper than the current economic boom. Because many resource-based communities have similar social and economic structures, the study's findings may provide insights into the social challenges of mining, logging, and oil and gas-based communities across North America.”
Polity_Justice_Organization
Dalai Lama calls Tibetan crackdown 'cultural genocide' – “The Dalai Lama on Sunday called for an international probe of China's treatment of Tibet, which he said is causing "cultural genocide" of his people. The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet spoke at a news conference Sunday in Dharmsala, India, two days after violent clashes between pro-autonomy demonstrators and Chinese security forces in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. A spokesman for the self-declared Tibetan exile government said it has confirmed at least 80 deaths in Friday's violence and that protests were continuing outside the capital on Sunday, further undermining China's hopes of a smooth run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.”
New Pakistan Government May Mean Trouble for U.S. – “Pakistani opposition leaders agreed to form a coalition government on Sunday. According to Islamabad-based reporter Graham Usher, this could spell bad news for President Pervez Musharraf and also complicate things for the U.S.”
Colonization of the Americas - “There is a fairly new paper on the colonization of the New World. It is the latest in a series of attempts to synthesize biogeography, climate change related paleoenvironmental reconstruction, genetics, and archaeology…The authors draw these conclusions: These results support a model for the peopling of the New World in which Amerind ancestors diverged from the Asian gene pool prior to 40,000 years ago and experienced a gradual population expansion as they moved into Beringia. After a long period of little change in population size in greater Beringia, Amerinds rapidly expanded into the Americas ≈15,000 years ago either through an interior ice-free corridor or along the coast. This rapid colonization of the New World was achieved by a founder group with an effective population size of 1,000-5,400 individuals. Our model presents a detailed scenario for the timing and scale of the initial migration to the Americas, substantially refines the estimate of New World founders, and provides a unified theory for testing with future datasets and analytic methods.”
New Instruments of Surveillance and Social Control: Wireless Technologies which Target the Neuronal Functioning of the Brain – “Increasingly there are indications that the uses of wireless technologies have been developed to target an individual’s biological body, with specific focus upon the neuronal functioning of the brain. In this paper I examine how some of these uses have had detrimental effects, and what this implies for both present and upcoming developments for particular wireless/sensor technologies. I consider whether this is not shifting dangerously towards a psycho–civilised society, where greater emphasis is placed upon social control and pre–emptive strategies.”
VIDEO: Social Networks and the Development of Society - "NICHOLAS A. CHRISTAKIS, a physician and sociologist, is a Professor at Harvard University with joint appointments in the Departments of Health Care Policy, Sociology, and Medicine. For the last ten years, he has been studying social networks."
Shifting Baselines, Climate Change and War – “Last summer, one million square miles of Arctic Ocean melted. The Arctic icecap is half the size that it was 50 years ago. The Northwest Passage is now a reality, and territory and resource claims are starting to show up at the United Nations. While the UN has rejected all Arctic claims, things are heating up in the north in more ways than one. Russian icebreakers, submarines, and bombers are lingering around. Canadian icebreakers have joined them. Ironically (and uncharacteristically), the US is on the sidelines of this new, emerging arms race for Arctic resources and shipping shortcuts. Guess how many US icebreakers are included in our $440 million annual defense budget? Uno.”
Bodymind_Dynamics
Am I Normal? - "A more organic take on human nature is emerging. It sees behavior as a product of distinct personality traits that we all have to a greater or lesser degree. In this new view, we're all just a little bit crazy..."
Cooperation, Punishment And Revenge – “Research from The University of Nottingham has shed new light on the way in which people co-operate for the common good - and what happens when they don't. In a new international study of 16 countries, published in the prestigious journal Science, economists studied the extent to which some people will sacrifice personal gain to benefit the wider public, while 'freeloaders' try to take advantage of their generosity. Marked national differences arose when freeloaders were punished for putting their own interests ahead of the common good. And whether they accepted their punishment or retaliated in kind depended on what kind of society they lived in, the researchers found.”
Resisting temptation is energy intensive – “Cognitive Daily has just published a great write-up and demonstration of a study that illustrates how self-control is an energy intensive process that puts a big drain on the body's glucose levels. The article tackles a recent study led by psychologist Matthew Gailliot that found that exercising self-control in either conversations or in lab tasks reduces blood glucose levels.”
Consciousness is Nothing but a Word – “In 1991, Daniel Dennett published his tome, Consciousness Explained.1 Yet, ten years later he penned an article titled “Are We Explaining Consciousness Yet?”2 If he had to ask the question, the answer seems obvious. English-speaking philosophers and psychologists have been trying to understand consciousness at least since John Locke introduced the word into the English language in the 17th century. But despite the best efforts of those who’ve thrown their hats into the ring, we haven’t made much progress. Obviously, a different approach is needed.” Is this flatland reductionism or simply critical thinking? You decide.
How Effective and Integral are Your Current Spiritual Practices? – “How much of your current spiritual practice incorporates the 18 most validated methods for building a spiritually congruent life and an authentic and empowered spiritual lifestyle? We invite you to review the 18 central practices used by history's greatest spiritual leaders, mystics and saints and compare your current spiritual practices to theirs. You might just find out that you are doing a lot better than you ever dreamed...”
Eastern And Western Cultures Perceive Emotions Very Differently – “A team of researchers from Canada and Japan have uncovered some remarkable results on how eastern and western cultures assess situations very differently… "East Asians seem to have a more holistic pattern of attention, perceiving people in terms of the relationships to others," says Masuda. "People raised in the North American tradition often find it easy to isolate a person from its surroundings, while East Asians are accustom to read the air "kuuki wo yomu" of the situation through their cultural practices, and as a result, they think that even surrounding people's facial expressions are an informative source to understand the particular person's emotion."”
Genes and Happiness, or Free Will Revisited – “As I begin writing this post I can’t help but be reminded of the one I wrote a few weeks ago about the troubles one runs into when trying to reconcile present-day understandings of neuroscience and genetics with the traditional concept of free will. A team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research recently conducted a study to investigate how much our subjective sense of happiness is dependent upon our genetic makeup (and thus personality style). Is our ability to be happy solely up to us ("us" being defined as hypothetical beings with complete free will), or is it constrained by the type of person we are, which is determined to a large extent by our genes?”
Communication_Culture_Discourse
Economists Decode Rational Behaviors of Black Women – “There are a lot of African-American single moms around and some commentators are inclined to blame this fact on 'Black Culture'—whatever that phrase might mean," writes economist Tim Harford in his new book, The Logic of Life. Harford goes on: "But 'Black culture' doesn't explain why the single moms are disproportionately in the states where lots of young black men are in prison." Not sure we can endorse or agree with this type of “science” but nonetheless…
Scientist Turns Microscope on Herself – “One of the most fascinating talks at the TED conference so far was given by Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, who gave a riveting account of a stroke she experienced in 1996. (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design.) Taylor's knowledge of the brain made her the perfect witness to her body's gradual shutdown. Over the course of four hours she watched her body deteriorate in stages, all the while processing its breakdown as if she were a curious explorer taking field notes. The first to go was her perception of herself as separate from the objects around her.”
Not by Reason Alone - "Can you argue people out of a belief in God? And can science scratch that same itch? "If this book works as intended," avows Richard Dawkins in the preface to his best-selling book The God Delusion, "religious readers who open it will be atheists by the time they put it down." Show people data, and enough of it, and in a process as inevitable as Darwinism itself, people will drop their babyish dependency on magical thinking and return to their natural state, which is atheism (or at least a sober agnosticism). This is Dawkins's basic premise, shared by many of today's vocal neo-atheists..."
VIDEO: Nietzsche on Hardship - Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness – “Nietzsche on Hardship - British philosopher Alain De Botton explores Friedrich Nietzsche's (1844-1900) dictum that any worthwhile achievements in life come from the experience of overcoming hardship. For him, any existence that is too comfortable is worthless, as are the twin refugees of drink or religion.”
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense – “Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up… Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage. To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom.”
Environment_Health_Sustainability
British Columbia "the clear leader in North American climate policy" – “B.C.'s provincial government has instituted a carbon tax. It's pretty significant: Taylor said the new carbon tax will begin July 1, starting at a rate that will have drivers paying about an extra 2.4 cents per litre of gasoline at the pumps. The tax -- which will apply to virtually all fossil fuels, including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, propane and home heating fuel -- will then increase each year after that until 2012, reaching a final price of about 7.2 cents per litre at the pumps. After that, Taylor said, it will rest with the government of the day to decide if the tax rate should change any further.
VIDEO: James Howard Kunstler: The tragedy of suburbia – “In James Howard Kunstler's view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life and the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about. Reengineering our cities will involve more radical change than we are prepared for, Kunstler believes, but our hand will be forced by earth crises stemming from our national lifestyle. "Life in the mid-21st century," Kunstler says, "is going to be about living locally.”
Welcome to the Post-Carbon World – “Why do some planets survive their carbon crises and others don’t? It doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Buildings, electricity production, transportation, and food & forestry contribute the bulk of the greenhouse gases. But climate-friendly options are ready. Author Guy Dauncey takes us out of this world as we begin to imagine some down-to-earth solutions.”
5 Factors Of Social Ills In Energy, Mining And Logging Communities Revealed By Study - “The troubling link between boom towns and high rates of substance abuse is usually attributed to workers having too much money and too little to do. But a recent study of one Canadian community suggests underlying pressures including loneliness, a lack of healthy social connections and a need to "keep up with the Joneses". Two University of Alberta researchers, working with the Canadian Forest Service to conduct the study, found that substance abuse in the town of Hinton runs far deeper than the current economic boom. Because many resource-based communities have similar social and economic structures, the study's findings may provide insights into the social challenges of mining, logging, and oil and gas-based communities across North America.”
Polity_Justice_Organization
Dalai Lama calls Tibetan crackdown 'cultural genocide' – “The Dalai Lama on Sunday called for an international probe of China's treatment of Tibet, which he said is causing "cultural genocide" of his people. The exiled spiritual leader of Tibet spoke at a news conference Sunday in Dharmsala, India, two days after violent clashes between pro-autonomy demonstrators and Chinese security forces in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. A spokesman for the self-declared Tibetan exile government said it has confirmed at least 80 deaths in Friday's violence and that protests were continuing outside the capital on Sunday, further undermining China's hopes of a smooth run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.”
New Pakistan Government May Mean Trouble for U.S. – “Pakistani opposition leaders agreed to form a coalition government on Sunday. According to Islamabad-based reporter Graham Usher, this could spell bad news for President Pervez Musharraf and also complicate things for the U.S.”
Colonization of the Americas - “There is a fairly new paper on the colonization of the New World. It is the latest in a series of attempts to synthesize biogeography, climate change related paleoenvironmental reconstruction, genetics, and archaeology…The authors draw these conclusions: These results support a model for the peopling of the New World in which Amerind ancestors diverged from the Asian gene pool prior to 40,000 years ago and experienced a gradual population expansion as they moved into Beringia. After a long period of little change in population size in greater Beringia, Amerinds rapidly expanded into the Americas ≈15,000 years ago either through an interior ice-free corridor or along the coast. This rapid colonization of the New World was achieved by a founder group with an effective population size of 1,000-5,400 individuals. Our model presents a detailed scenario for the timing and scale of the initial migration to the Americas, substantially refines the estimate of New World founders, and provides a unified theory for testing with future datasets and analytic methods.”
New Instruments of Surveillance and Social Control: Wireless Technologies which Target the Neuronal Functioning of the Brain – “Increasingly there are indications that the uses of wireless technologies have been developed to target an individual’s biological body, with specific focus upon the neuronal functioning of the brain. In this paper I examine how some of these uses have had detrimental effects, and what this implies for both present and upcoming developments for particular wireless/sensor technologies. I consider whether this is not shifting dangerously towards a psycho–civilised society, where greater emphasis is placed upon social control and pre–emptive strategies.”
VIDEO: Social Networks and the Development of Society - "NICHOLAS A. CHRISTAKIS, a physician and sociologist, is a Professor at Harvard University with joint appointments in the Departments of Health Care Policy, Sociology, and Medicine. For the last ten years, he has been studying social networks."
Shifting Baselines, Climate Change and War – “Last summer, one million square miles of Arctic Ocean melted. The Arctic icecap is half the size that it was 50 years ago. The Northwest Passage is now a reality, and territory and resource claims are starting to show up at the United Nations. While the UN has rejected all Arctic claims, things are heating up in the north in more ways than one. Russian icebreakers, submarines, and bombers are lingering around. Canadian icebreakers have joined them. Ironically (and uncharacteristically), the US is on the sidelines of this new, emerging arms race for Arctic resources and shipping shortcuts. Guess how many US icebreakers are included in our $440 million annual defense budget? Uno.”
March 7, 2008
MetaLinking - 2008/03/08
Today we are introducing something new on Integral Praxis: 'MetaLinking'.
Recently Bill Harryman discontinued his amazing "Speedlinking" on the Integral Options Café blog. We were huge fans of Bill’s daily offering of interesting & informative articles and weblinks. With Speedlinking, Bill was able to provide his readers with links to a wide range of easily accessible and relevant information. Although Bill’s Speedlinking was not the only incarnation (similar features can be found on SEED and various science blogs) of this type of blogging.
Therefore the IRG has decided to offer our readers our version of easy access linking. We hope readers find MetaLinking informative and rigorous in the promotion of innovative research, debate and public interest stories - addressing topics that span the whole spectrum of integral thinking.
Links will reflect IRG’s 4 main strategic research domains:
We sincerely hope that you enjoy and make ample use of this new feature. Feedback and comments about MetaLinking or this weblog as a whole are always welcome.
Look for more positive changes here at Integral Praxis in the near future…
Bodymind_Dynamics:
What Are We? – “Anyone who has thought about the title question "What are we?" can easily attest how the seemingly straightforward question leads to conceptual quagmires in no time. [philosopher Eric] Olson acknowledges this difficulty, and points out that regrettably many discussions in contemporary metaphysics (on personal identity over time in particular) presuppose that we already have an answer to the title question.”
Thinking With the Body: Embodied Cognition – “A newer theory that is gaining ground among neuroscientists, embodied cognition, departs from the "computer-as-mind" metaphor. Instead, the body is seen as playing an important role in cognitive processes. Cognition evolved to guide real bodies in the real world, argue the researchers in favor of this idea. Our thoughts are constrained and influenced by the details of our flesh. How you move your arm or leg actually shapes the way you perceive, think and remember. The latest research in embodied cognition demonstrates just how entangled the body and brain are…”
Can a Person Change their Brain Structure? - “…you can actually affect your brain struct5nure without drugs or any strange or life-altering treatments. Simply by doing something repetitively, or doing something differently, can affect a change — not only in your life, but in your actual brain’s structure…”
The Art of Cognitive Reframing - “We never, ever, see the world as it is. Our awareness – our beliefs, past conditionings, upbringing, the list goes on – these distort everything we see. They creep into every interpretation and misinterpretation. This is obvious; you must have seen it for yourself… One of the most painful misinterpretations lies in self-perception. How do you see yourself? Realistic self concepts are rare, but a negatively distorted perception ruins lives. Weaknesses are magnified, assets and strengths are ignored. We have a tendency to compare; this leads to low self-esteem; a strong feeling of inadequacy and constant unhappiness…”
Fragments of Consciousness - “Dissociation is a term that's used rather loosely in modern psychology and psychiatry. It is sometimes used to be synonymous with derealisation or depersonalisation, describing a feeling of being detached from reality or not being 'grounded' in your usual sense of self. However, in its original and most interesting formulation by the French psychiatrist Pierre Janet, it describes the splitting of consciousness so one part of conscious experience is compartmentalized, becomes inaccessible, is literally 'dis-associated' from the rest.”
Gender Differences Found In Forgiveness - “In seven forgiveness-related studies conducted between 1998 through 2005 with more than 1,400 college students, gender differences between men and women consistently emerged. When asked to recall offenses they had committed personally, men became less vengeful toward people who had offended them. Women reflecting on personal offenses, and beginning at a lower baseline for vengeance, exhibited no differences in levels of unforgiving. When women had to recall a similar offense in relation to the other's offense, women felt guilty and tended to magnify the other's offense.”
Communication_Culture_Discourse:
Culture matters in foreign policy – “All of last week I have been travelling through Southeast-Asia as part of an official delegation accompanying the German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier. Having blogged about him before on Culture Matters, I was really interested to find out how “culture matters” in international politics.”
The Shift And The Hundredth Monkey Effect - “The Hundredth Monkey Effect was first introduced by biologist Lyall Watson in his 1980 book, ‘Lifetide.’ He reported that Japanese primatologists, who were studying Macaques monkeys in the wild in the 1950s, had stumbled upon a surprising phenomenon.”
Desmond Tutu on Compassion - “Compassion is not just a sentimental, passive action, according to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He also ponders apartheid, justice and forgiveness…He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 not just for his struggle against South African apartheid but for his outline of a just society for all. Archbishop Tutu spoke to PT about the limits of conventional justice.”
Tim Black on Integral Naked: Where Worlds Collide – “A published author in the areas of trauma, group counseling, and applied Integral theory in counseling ethics engages Ken Wilber on why it's so difficult to find Integrally-minded individuals in the indigenous peoples of his native British Columbia—an issue experienced globally, but...”
Environment_Health_Sustainability:
World’s First Positive Energy Building in Masdar, Abu Dhabi - Not settling for mere zero-energy, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill’s Masdar Headquarters are setting new design standards for green building, with their scheme that generates more energy than it consumes. The Masdar Headquarters building outside of Abu Dhabi is also the first building in history to generate power for its own assembly, using a solar roof pier that will be built first to power the rest of the construction.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) model simulation archive - “In the lead up to the 4th Assessment Report, all the main climate modelling groups (17 of them at last count) made a series of coordinated simulations for the 20th Century and various scenarios for the future. All of this output is publicly available in the PCMDI IPCC AR4 archive (now officially called the CMIP3 archive, in recognition of the two previous, though less comprehensive, collections). We've mentioned this archive before in passing, but we've never really discussed what it is, how it came to be, how it is being used and how it is (or should be) radically transforming the comparisons of model output and observational data.”
Maya May Have Caused Civilization-Ending Climate Change – “A satellite program designed to improve environmental policies in Central America has found evidence of ancient, self-induced climate change—offering lessons on how to combat today's warming.”
Sustainability Goes to College – “From using biodiesel in their buses to serving locally grown food in their cafeterias, universities that belong to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) are taking steps to reduce their environmental impact and build stronger, more self-sufficient communities. AASHE began in 2005 and now boasts a membership of more than 250 colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada…”
Polity_Justice_Organization:
PODCAST: What Human Rights Activists Want from China – “China's policies have had groups like Human Rights Watch on its case for years. Now the upcoming Olympic Games is bringing attention that may force change, says HRW's Minky Worden, editor of China's Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges.”
Samantha Power on stopping genocide – “Samantha Power has a hell of a resume. She’s a celebrated journalist, a Pulitzer-winning author, a Harvard professor and an Obama advisor. She deserves the recognition she gets - she’s one of the smartest people in the world on foreign policy, and especially on the subject of mass atrocities…”
Towards Politics with Heart – “Heart Politics gatherings have been a regular fixture in the lives of a wide variety of New Zealanders involved in peace, social justice, indigenous and environmental issues. The first ‘Festival of Heart Politics’ in 1989 was held at the Tauhara Centre, a retreat and conference venue overlooking Lake Taupo, at the centre of New Zealand’s North Island…”
Seattle-Area Fires May Be Ecoterror – “Fires gutted four multimillion-dollar model homes in a Seattle suburb on Monday, and authorities found a sign purportedly left by ecoterrorists that mocks claims that the homes were environmentally friendly. "Built Green? Nope black!" said the spray-painted sign that bore the initials of the radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front...”
Recently Bill Harryman discontinued his amazing "Speedlinking" on the Integral Options Café blog. We were huge fans of Bill’s daily offering of interesting & informative articles and weblinks. With Speedlinking, Bill was able to provide his readers with links to a wide range of easily accessible and relevant information. Although Bill’s Speedlinking was not the only incarnation (similar features can be found on SEED and various science blogs) of this type of blogging.
Therefore the IRG has decided to offer our readers our version of easy access linking. We hope readers find MetaLinking informative and rigorous in the promotion of innovative research, debate and public interest stories - addressing topics that span the whole spectrum of integral thinking.
Links will reflect IRG’s 4 main strategic research domains:
1) Bodymind Dynamics – human development, consciousness, cognition, physiology and personal health.Individual links will not necessarily provide integrally-informed content; however, when the various streams of information are considered in relationship to each other integral patterns emerge.
2) Communication, Culture & Discourse - collective discourse, information, art, values, ideas, semiotics
3) Environment, Health & Sustainability - habitat, ecology, technology, community and collective health
4) Polity, Justice & Organization – governance, war, social movements, power, resistance and law.
We sincerely hope that you enjoy and make ample use of this new feature. Feedback and comments about MetaLinking or this weblog as a whole are always welcome.
Look for more positive changes here at Integral Praxis in the near future…
Bodymind_Dynamics:
What Are We? – “Anyone who has thought about the title question "What are we?" can easily attest how the seemingly straightforward question leads to conceptual quagmires in no time. [philosopher Eric] Olson acknowledges this difficulty, and points out that regrettably many discussions in contemporary metaphysics (on personal identity over time in particular) presuppose that we already have an answer to the title question.”
Thinking With the Body: Embodied Cognition – “A newer theory that is gaining ground among neuroscientists, embodied cognition, departs from the "computer-as-mind" metaphor. Instead, the body is seen as playing an important role in cognitive processes. Cognition evolved to guide real bodies in the real world, argue the researchers in favor of this idea. Our thoughts are constrained and influenced by the details of our flesh. How you move your arm or leg actually shapes the way you perceive, think and remember. The latest research in embodied cognition demonstrates just how entangled the body and brain are…”
Can a Person Change their Brain Structure? - “…you can actually affect your brain struct5nure without drugs or any strange or life-altering treatments. Simply by doing something repetitively, or doing something differently, can affect a change — not only in your life, but in your actual brain’s structure…”
The Art of Cognitive Reframing - “We never, ever, see the world as it is. Our awareness – our beliefs, past conditionings, upbringing, the list goes on – these distort everything we see. They creep into every interpretation and misinterpretation. This is obvious; you must have seen it for yourself… One of the most painful misinterpretations lies in self-perception. How do you see yourself? Realistic self concepts are rare, but a negatively distorted perception ruins lives. Weaknesses are magnified, assets and strengths are ignored. We have a tendency to compare; this leads to low self-esteem; a strong feeling of inadequacy and constant unhappiness…”
Fragments of Consciousness - “Dissociation is a term that's used rather loosely in modern psychology and psychiatry. It is sometimes used to be synonymous with derealisation or depersonalisation, describing a feeling of being detached from reality or not being 'grounded' in your usual sense of self. However, in its original and most interesting formulation by the French psychiatrist Pierre Janet, it describes the splitting of consciousness so one part of conscious experience is compartmentalized, becomes inaccessible, is literally 'dis-associated' from the rest.”
Gender Differences Found In Forgiveness - “In seven forgiveness-related studies conducted between 1998 through 2005 with more than 1,400 college students, gender differences between men and women consistently emerged. When asked to recall offenses they had committed personally, men became less vengeful toward people who had offended them. Women reflecting on personal offenses, and beginning at a lower baseline for vengeance, exhibited no differences in levels of unforgiving. When women had to recall a similar offense in relation to the other's offense, women felt guilty and tended to magnify the other's offense.”
Communication_Culture_Discourse:
Culture matters in foreign policy – “All of last week I have been travelling through Southeast-Asia as part of an official delegation accompanying the German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier. Having blogged about him before on Culture Matters, I was really interested to find out how “culture matters” in international politics.”
The Shift And The Hundredth Monkey Effect - “The Hundredth Monkey Effect was first introduced by biologist Lyall Watson in his 1980 book, ‘Lifetide.’ He reported that Japanese primatologists, who were studying Macaques monkeys in the wild in the 1950s, had stumbled upon a surprising phenomenon.”
Desmond Tutu on Compassion - “Compassion is not just a sentimental, passive action, according to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He also ponders apartheid, justice and forgiveness…He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 not just for his struggle against South African apartheid but for his outline of a just society for all. Archbishop Tutu spoke to PT about the limits of conventional justice.”
Tim Black on Integral Naked: Where Worlds Collide – “A published author in the areas of trauma, group counseling, and applied Integral theory in counseling ethics engages Ken Wilber on why it's so difficult to find Integrally-minded individuals in the indigenous peoples of his native British Columbia—an issue experienced globally, but...”
Environment_Health_Sustainability:
World’s First Positive Energy Building in Masdar, Abu Dhabi - Not settling for mere zero-energy, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill’s Masdar Headquarters are setting new design standards for green building, with their scheme that generates more energy than it consumes. The Masdar Headquarters building outside of Abu Dhabi is also the first building in history to generate power for its own assembly, using a solar roof pier that will be built first to power the rest of the construction.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) model simulation archive - “In the lead up to the 4th Assessment Report, all the main climate modelling groups (17 of them at last count) made a series of coordinated simulations for the 20th Century and various scenarios for the future. All of this output is publicly available in the PCMDI IPCC AR4 archive (now officially called the CMIP3 archive, in recognition of the two previous, though less comprehensive, collections). We've mentioned this archive before in passing, but we've never really discussed what it is, how it came to be, how it is being used and how it is (or should be) radically transforming the comparisons of model output and observational data.”
Maya May Have Caused Civilization-Ending Climate Change – “A satellite program designed to improve environmental policies in Central America has found evidence of ancient, self-induced climate change—offering lessons on how to combat today's warming.”
Sustainability Goes to College – “From using biodiesel in their buses to serving locally grown food in their cafeterias, universities that belong to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) are taking steps to reduce their environmental impact and build stronger, more self-sufficient communities. AASHE began in 2005 and now boasts a membership of more than 250 colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada…”
Polity_Justice_Organization:
PODCAST: What Human Rights Activists Want from China – “China's policies have had groups like Human Rights Watch on its case for years. Now the upcoming Olympic Games is bringing attention that may force change, says HRW's Minky Worden, editor of China's Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges.”
Samantha Power on stopping genocide – “Samantha Power has a hell of a resume. She’s a celebrated journalist, a Pulitzer-winning author, a Harvard professor and an Obama advisor. She deserves the recognition she gets - she’s one of the smartest people in the world on foreign policy, and especially on the subject of mass atrocities…”
Towards Politics with Heart – “Heart Politics gatherings have been a regular fixture in the lives of a wide variety of New Zealanders involved in peace, social justice, indigenous and environmental issues. The first ‘Festival of Heart Politics’ in 1989 was held at the Tauhara Centre, a retreat and conference venue overlooking Lake Taupo, at the centre of New Zealand’s North Island…”
Seattle-Area Fires May Be Ecoterror – “Fires gutted four multimillion-dollar model homes in a Seattle suburb on Monday, and authorities found a sign purportedly left by ecoterrorists that mocks claims that the homes were environmentally friendly. "Built Green? Nope black!" said the spray-painted sign that bore the initials of the radical environmental group Earth Liberation Front...”
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