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The Archdruid Report: Not The End Of The World: May 1, 9:47am 1 review evolution, society, change, worldviews
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/04/not-end-of-world.html; Not The End Of The World in The Archdruid Report by John Michael Greer
It's not the end of the world, or even the end of industrial civilization, but if history is anything to go by, we could be in for a couple of very rough decades. A crisis phase in the downward arc of catabolic collapse is not a pleasant thing to live through, and we can expect it to have social, economic, political, and (unless we're extraordinarily lucky) military dimensions that will transform most people\u2019s lives for the worse, temporarily or forever. That need not stop us from facing the emerging crisis with as much grace and humanity as we can muster, while doing our part to lay the foundations for the ecotechnic societies of the future - unless, that is, we allow premature proclamations of triumph or catastrophe to distract us from the work that must be done. Not The End Of The World. A most enlightened vision of societal change. This post is perhaps John Michael Greer's most influential one. He is undoubtedly right that "Human societies are complex homeostatic systems that respond to changes in their environments by trying to maintain their equilibrium." Failing to understand this organic way of societies leads to simplistic interpretations of present events that contracts reality into its dualistic visions of doom and gloom versus technophilia. Those are unhelpful perception crutches at best and devastating at worst. We are not close to the end of the world as the title of Greer's post states but we are at a societal stage of evolution that is going to displace modernity for something new often referred to as postmodernity. But the word has been twisted to say so many things that its meaning has often been lost on its users. Postmodernity is the stage of societal evolution that follows modernity and the transition is, for sure, going to be traumatic for most. Each stage of societal evolution has its own economic, social, cultural and other characteristics but what differentiates each of them is the worldview (understanding of reality) that is shared by the citizens within their societies. We observe 4 stages of evolution: - animism: citizens of tribes share an animistic worldview. - religion: citizens of kingdoms and empires share one or another form of religious belief and or one or another philosophic derivation of animism. - modernity: citizens of nation-states share a common vision of rationality (derived from the logic of capital) and believe that science has technological answers to everything. - postmodernity: citizens of the world will share a common vision of reality wherein humans are seen as interconnected minuscule particles of a whole that is unattainable. The transition between modernity and postmodernity is a process of change that will take many decades to stabilize and, for sure, there will be ups and downs along the road. Before to tackle the causes of climate change we'll suffer its consequences. Before to tackle peak oil and other resources we'll be confronted with shortages in energy and materials that will oblige us to revise our ways of living. Before to tackle poverty we'll be confronted with individual and societal violence that will oblige us to care for the weakest ones among us. Our future is in ecotechnic societies interconnected through solidarity.

Informed Comment: Global Affairs: LET ONE HUNDRED BOYCOTTS BLOOM!: Apr 21, 9:05am 1 review china, globalization, worldviews
http://icga.blogspot.com/2008/04/let-one-hundred-boycotts-bloom.html; LET ONE HUNDRED BOYCOTTS BLOOM! in Informed Comment: Global Affairs by PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM
Boycotts are a blunt instrument, albeit drawn from the trusty democratic toolbox. That boycott fever seems to be the mood on the streets of China these days is a testament to how discontent with domestic problems has been eclipsed by disappointment with the West. LET ONE HUNDRED BOYCOTTS BLOOM! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApn09pRZCk Excellent article. The beneficiaries of the recent demonstrations against the Olympic Torch Relay in Britain, France and the US are clearly the Chinese authorities, indeed, "discontent with domestic problems has been eclipsed by disappointment with the West." 25% of the world population are staying up, with their leaders, against the hypocrisy of the West. And let's not forget that the biggest losers are the Tibetans. Their case has indeed been eclipsed by something a lot bigger and to make matters even worse the Dalai Lama himself comes out of this story as a wounded leader whose Tibetan following appears to desert his middle of the road course. And, for the first time, the feudal past of Tibet has erupted in the Western public sight thus shedding doubts on what the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism really stand for. How to say? The only thing that comes to my mind is "how naive and dumb" the activist lesson-givers now appear to be. On manipulation of Western Public opinion about facts in Tibet: On Tibet and Propaganda: Follow the "Information" by Zwoof in the Daily Kos

Truth (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): Apr 21, 8:08am 3 reviews philosophy, religion, reality, worldviews
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/; Truth via the NYT / Stanley Fish, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Michael Glanzberg
Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth. It would be impossible to survey all there is to say about truth in any coherent way. Instead, this essay will concentrate on the main themes in the study of truth in the contemporary philosophical literature. It will attempt to survey the key problems and theories of current interest, and show how they relate to one-another. A number of other entries investigate many of these topics in greater depth. Generally, discussion of the principal arguments is left to them. The goal of this essay is only to provide an overview of the current theories. Truth French Theory in America Many theories about what truth is all about. But all those theories only present hypotheses about what it is and those hypotheses leave us as hungry as ever before for its true meaning. We are able to say the truth about facts happening within our close environment but when we speak about "the truth" in its philosophical sense it relates to something a lot vaster that our environment. Truth relates to our understanding of the global reality in which we are such tiny particles. But we don't understand what is this "whole". We could even add that there is a structural impossibility for a particle to reason its way through the whole and even if such a feat was feasible it would still be a "view" from within or better a "view" seen through the lense of an inside observer. The "truth" about reality, or to say this otherwise, about the "whole in which we are such tiny particles" is conceivable only from the viewpoint of an outside observer one who could relate this "whole in which we are such tiny particles" to its own environment. In other words if we could per any chance induce or deduce that this "whole in which we are such tiny particles" were a pink elephant how would we ever be able to know something about the family of this pink elephant? What I mean to say is that there is a systemic impossibility for us particles to ever reach the truth about this "whole in which we are such tiny particles". What we can reach is an understanding of how we particles relate to the environment within the realm of what is observable to us (in our Island-Universe as per Villenkin). This kind of understanding has a functional value for us but it does in no way qualify as truth about reality. We intuitively understand that our "functional understanding" does not account for the impact on our Island-Universe of all that lays outside of it. But we most often brush away that thought, for, life continues and we know no better. In conclusion our grasp of reality is physically flawed by our impossibility to see further than the boundary of our Island-Universe and it is furthermore systemically flawed by our insider observation. What is presented as truth, by philosophers, logicians, religious thinkers and others, is thus no more than a viewpoint about something that is unattainable. When the men of knowledge of the day share such a viewpoint among themselves it will then be shared further down in a simplified form with all the citizens in their societies. That's when the viewpoint becomes a worldview. The history of man witnessed 3 classes of worldviews: the animist, the religious and the modern. From all possible accounts we are presently witnessing the slowl transitioning from late modernity into early post-modernity. That means that the men of knowledge of our days are debating the contours of a new viewpoint. Once this debate settles a new worldview will eventually be shared globally by all. But patience this takes time...

Shedding Light on Life&&(May-June&2008): Apr 19, 1:27pm 2 reviews science, art, visualization, worldviews
http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/05/shedding-light-on-life.html; Shedding Light on Life in Harvard Magazine by Courtney Humphries
"The human brain is vision-focused," says professor of molecular and cellular biology Jeff Lichtman. "If we see things, then we think we know what they mean." To be able finally to see events that were known only in theory is incredibly satisfying for scientists. Even more important, this revolution also opens up the possibility of learning things about life that could never be studied before. \u201cWhat we hope to do at the end of the day,\u201d he says, \u201cis to understand biology as it unfolds in vivo rather than in snapshots.\u201d The resurgence in imaging excites biologists for two reasons: it allows them to see individuals, and it allows them to count the masses. Being able to watch and track a single molecule, cell, or process offers a much more complete picture of how life works. Tom Kirchhausen predicts that in the next few years, scientists will use imaging to better understand complex processes such as cell division and the paths that viruses take to cause infection. Shedding Light on Life via Harvard Magazine, Courtesy of Jeff Lichtman Laboratory Color-coded neural circuits in the brains of mice allow Jeff Lichtman to trace the fate of individual nerve cells over time and across distances.
via Harvard Magazine, Courtesy of Gene-Wei Li and Peter Sims, Harvard University Sunney Xie combines a transmission image of bacteria (blue) with a fluorescence image of molecules (yellow) binding to sites on the bacteria\u2019s DNA in order to create a complete picture of the interaction. This article is a useful follow-up on my post about Could Science and Art Become One and the Same? . The subject of my comment is thus visualization versus art. In recent years science has made a dramatic usage of visual imaging techniques to understand what is going on at the micro and macro levels. But the fact is that digital imaging are photos taken from various kinds of microscopes or telescopes that are then often reprocessed by pairing 2 or more of those initial cliches in order to try to catch the meaning of what is going on in those images. Those images are often stunning and offer a depth of meaning and beauty that puts to shame most modern art works. But for scientists it is only a question of making sense in what they observe. Visual imaging is no more than a tool. But what about the images they obtain? Are those art works? Those digital images are not art works in the traditional sense of the concept of art: the production of visual signs about the worldview of the men of knowledge of the day. Those images are tools for scientists to discover sense and they are only fragments of the ensemble of images and ideas that forms their worldview. Art should not be confused with scientific imaging. The mission of the artist is to illustrate the worldview of the men of knowledge of our days. And the men of knowledge in late modernity and early post-modernity are not the scientists. Those men of knowledge are the rare individuals who are succeeding to integrate scientific knowledge within the more globally encompassing realm of philosophy and history. Some are scientists, some are philosophers or historians and some are artists. The late-modern and early post-modern artist has thus to accumulate the widest possible knowledge-base in order to be able to pinpoint the rare true men of knowledge in his time. And his mission is then to render visual signs about their worldview for all to share.

Reality Sandwich | Could Science and Art Become One and the Same?: Apr 15, 6:05pm 2 reviews science, art, reality, worldviews
http://www.realitysandwich.com/could_science_art_become_one_same; Could Science and Art Become One and the Same? in Reality Sandwich by Greg Wendt
Reality encompasses that which is beyond science as we know it, or at least beyond that which the current scientific mindset can explain. Is it possible that art can be used in a scientific way to create a more accurate expression of reality and a greater understanding of human experience? Capra points out that Da Vinci's genius came from his ability to use art as a way to be scientific, hence throwing the whole distinction between science and art into question. Could Science and Art Become One and the Same? To answer our most fundamental questions, science needs to find a place for the arts. by Jonah Lehrer in Seed The Science of Leonardo new book of by Fritjof Capra Artsense by myself Acrylic n#39 of my "artsense collection". In summary Jonah Lehrer posits that "If we want to get an answer to our deepest questions - the questions of who we are and what everything is - we will need to draw from both science and art, so that each completes the other". Unfortunately this is a position that is founded on a confused understanding of what is knowledge and what is art. 1. Knowledge: Humans, since times immemorial, tried to understand reality in the sense of "the whole in which we are such tiny particles". We distinguish 3 ages in the history of human understanding of reality or of human knowledge and those 3 ages are driven by the sharing of a common "worldview" that is a vulgarization of the understanding attained by the men of knowledge of the day: - the animist age: all parcels of the whole are inter-related: the shaman is the man of knowledge. - the religious or philosophic age: god or wisdom: the priest or the wise man are the men of knowledge. - the modern age: the logic of capital and its ideology of rationality: the capital holder and the scientist are the men of knowledge. 2. Art: Since time immemorial visual arts served at giving visual signs of the understanding of reality by the men of knowledge of the day. This societal functionality of art was lost upon all sometime around 1900 when thinker-artists experimented in devising something else than the first degree image that projects on the retina. But those experimentations concluded in the absurd when everything the artist was positing as being art was deemed to be art. The societal functionality of art was lost because rationality and science don't offer a global model of understanding of reality. Rationality and science are following a path of questioning that pushes till later the discovery of the answer. This model does not supply the artist with a knowledge of everything to illustrate and the artist is most often in no position to devise his own knowledge base, for, he never was given the tools for such an exercise. I agree with Jonah Lehrer that science left on its own will never come to the end of its mission to understand reality. But I disagree that art has to produce knowledge. This should be left to the philosophers and researchers of humanity's early cultures and most importantly animism. As Fritjof Capra mentioned in his "The tao of physics" the most advanced physics, chemistry, and other sciences often rediscover the fundamental truths expressed in animism and the later philosophies built over it. My take is that a new worldview for artists to illustrate will emerge out of the contact between science and animism.

Case Closed for Free Will? -- Youngsteadt 2008 (414): 3 -- ScienceNOW: Apr 14, 4:51pm 1 review science, worldviews
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/414/3?rss=1; Case Closed for Free Will? in ScienceNOW Daily News by Elsa Youngsteadt
Our brain may make up our minds before we do. Coffee or tea with lunch? Which pants to wear to work? Which movie to watch? Your mind might be made up before you know it. Researchers have found patterns of brain activity that predict people's decisions up to 10 seconds before they're aware they've made a choice. "We weren't expecting this kind of lead time, " Haynes says. Even though the predictions weren't perfect, "there's not very much space for operation of free will," Haynes says. "The outcome of a decision is shaped very strongly by brain activity much earlier than the point in time when you feel to be making a decision." Case Closed for Free Will? Libet's short delay The conclusions of this research paper imply that our personal decisions are not really determined by our consciousness. Wow! But let's not err, Our personal decision-making process is not determined by pre-determination either. It's more as if the working of our brains was producing decisions that we then consciously accept. But this would thus mean that free-will is a myth and that our personalities are resulting from the "computing process" of our neurones instead of what we long thought being ourselves or our freely thinking personalities. Practically that would mean that our present state of mind would be the computing result of all our lives' inputs since being born, or perhaps earlier since we were conceived and even earlier since our DNA could possibly be part of the total input. But then what about the idea of personal responsibility? If our decisions are the computing result of all of the inputs, one should think that, we should not be held responsible for our decisions and actions. But this squares with any societal form and norm. Societies are indeed the ones that fix the rules and personal responsibility is then no more than self imposed respect of those rules. This brings us back to the content of my earlier comments on You Can Blame the Bugs. Morality and personal responsibility are then the result, for each individual alike, of his sharing with all the others of the common societal worldview.

Eurozine - The rebirth of religion and enchanting materialism - Sven-Eric Liedma…: Apr 8, 12:31pm 1 review religion, modernity, worldviews
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2008-04-01-liedman-en.html; The rebirth of religion and enchanting materialism via CQD, in EuroZine by Sven-Eric Liedman
The untarnished optimism for progress has demanded, as we have witnessed, that all of life's and society's integral components be ingested into the same process. The dominating figure of thought was, for a long time, that modernity and religion were incompatible. Today, that notion occurs as outmoded. Religion has a stronger hold now than for a long time in many parts of the world. Often, it is paired with hard modernity. It is warranted here to speak of a renewed enchantment with the modern world. ... reality is comprised of a number of levels where each one has its origin in the closest, lower level, but where each higher lever implies new qualities and conditions which cannot be explained with reference to lower levels. What levels one wants to distinguish relies, in the end, upon the human knowledge. To imagine a creator behind all of this is to set up a simple explanation to something much greater. The rebirth of religion and enchanting materialism Great article. The fact is that humans everywhere feel the need to share with others a same view about reality; a worldview. Modernity wanted to replace the anterior religious worldview with rationality but it failed to supply a worldview that all could readily share. Rationality acts like the process of modernity. It is its ideology. It's central idea is that what can't be explained today science will explain or solve tomorrow. Under rationality one is thus left waiting for a future answer or solution. This demands a blind belief in the process of modernity without giving the reassurance one finds in a readily available interpretation of everything. Late-modernity gives us to observe a set of intertwining crises that destabilize our belief in the possibility of a future answer: SIDE-EFFECTS OF MODERNITY,: Environmental Chaos: Climate Change, loss of bio-diversity, poisoning of land, water and air, Resource Collapse: Oil. Water. Topsoil. Fisheries. Seeds. Arable land. Minerals. Copper. Food. Societal Atomization + ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION: Financialization, Outsourcing, Institutional lag and finally disruption of collapse. This is a time when we all feel an urgent need for societal comfort. Fact is this societal comfort can only be bestowed through the sharing of a common worldview.

Pankaj Mishra: At war with the utopia of modernity | Comment is free | The Guard…: Apr 2, 8:59am 4 reviews china, geopolitics, modernity, worldviews
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/22/tibet.china1; Tibet at war with the utopia of modernity in The Guardian by Pankaj Mishra and in "Informed Comment: Global Affairs" by Philip J. Cunningham.
Tibetans' rage is directed not at communist rule, but the consumerist threat to their traditions and sacred lands. Well-off Chinese supporting harsh suppression of the "ingrate" Tibetans echo the middle-class media commentators in Delhi and Mumbai who egg on the police to "crush" those daring to resist their dispossession. But then corporate globalisation has rarely been more successful in inculcating a culture of greed and brutality among its most educated beneficiaries. Western commentators may continue to tilt at the straw man of communism in China. Tibetans, however, seem to have sensed that they confront a capitalist modernity more destructive of tradition, and more ruthlessly exploitative of the sacred land they walk on, than any adversary they have known in their tormented history. At war with the utopia of modernity by Pankaj Mishra MIDDLE WAY TO THE MIDDLE KINGDOM by Philip J. Cunningham Reading the media recently about what is going on in Tibet one is confronted mostly with propaganda that is reminiscent of the old days of the cold war and don't get me wrong it is not just Beijing that propagandizes; Western media and NGO's are equally painting their reporting and affirmations in propaganda colors. Here are 2 articles that stand out for their more objective tone. Pankaj Mishra observes a totalitarian modernity that is fighting the resistance of "primitivism" or religion or localism. The fact is that Tibetans like muslims and other local cultures are resisting their dispossession at the hands of capital holders. In the case of Tibet the capital holders are the Communist Chinese State and some of its Han citizens. Philip J. Cunningham narrates the dilemma of the Dalai Lama. "... after going on the CIA payroll at a time when the US sought to wage psychological warfare in tandem with covert destabilizing of China along its borders from 1959-1972"; the Dalai Lama is now preaching socialism as the future economic road for Tibet. What he envisions is not socialism with Chinese characteristics but socialism in its pure Marxist form. A form of socialism that he hopes will come to the rescue of traditional Tibetan culture that is being aggressed by the modernity of the logic of capital. The comments on Pankaj Mishra's article are most illuminating.

http://www.investorsinsight.com/otb_va_print.aspx?EditionID=673: Mar 31, 5:19pm 1 review economics, globalization, finance, worldviews
http://www.investorsinsight.com/otb_va_print.aspx?EditionID=673; How To Fix It in "InvestorsInsight : Thoughts From The Frontline" by Michael Lewitt
America is rushing headlong into the 21st century without a proper understanding of what economic policies and financial tools are going to be required to prosper in a changing world. For more than two decades, the United States economy has favored financial speculation over production. Over the past century, our legal system had developed an increasingly outmoded concept of fiduciary duty that privileges short-term, single-firm interests over the kind of long-term, society-wide interests that could lead to prolonged prosperity. The current meltdown in the financial markets is a symptom of a serious disease that is eating away at the stability of our most important institutions. What we are witnessing might well be the end of American financial hegemony, which is the result of a burgeoning global economy. The current crisis in financial markets gives us an opportunity to evaluate how we can better prepare ourselves to deal with a borderless world. If you want to look at the end of American economic hegemony, just look at the list of desperate actions taken by U.S. financial authorities above. It is a sad commentary on how the greed and short-sighted actions and policies of U.S. politicians and businessmen have inflicted permanent damage on our economy. The Criminalization of American Finance by Michael Lewitt of HCM (Hegemony Capital Management) How To Fix It by Michael Lewitt of HCM Ten Fundamental Issues in Reforming Financial Regulation and Supervision in a World of Financial Innovation and Globalization by Nouriel Roubini The articles linked to here above are written by most respected economists and their language is plain. They speak about the US economy of these last 20 years having been driven as a gigantic financial ponzi scheme that has inflicted permanent damage to the economic health of the country. My last post was oriented more on the beneficiaries of the damage done to the US economy and the consequences for the West and the emergence of a new economy-world. What is happening is going to have a drastic impact on our daily lives along the years and decades to come. This is valid for all of us. Artists will not be spared and the content of their works will definitely be driven by those changes...

The New York Times & Log In: Mar 31, 10:17am 1 review economics, globalization, finance, worldviews
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/opinion/31cohen.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=sl...; The Baton Passes to Asia in The NYT by Roger Cohen and in Times by Michael Schuman
It's the end of the era of the white man. For years, Americans have reveled in profligate, load-up-the-back- of-the-SUV-at-Target excess, much of it paid for by credit cards, home equity or other loans. The binge has produced some supposedly healthy economic growth and provided everyone lots of nice stuff. But now debt collectors from around the world are knocking. That's why today's turmoil in U.S. financial markets will end in a massive transfer of wealth from America to the rest of the globe. The Baton Passes to Asia America's Coming Garage Sale At long last the established media comes to the realization that globalization brings about the end of Whiteman's economic dominance. But the real significance of the end of Western dominance has still not sunk in the conscientiousness of Western intellectuals and the opinion leaders who diffuse theirs ideas. The end of our Western economic dominance implies the loss of our cultural hegemony and our gradual adoption of the value system and cultural traits of the nations that are gaining economic dominance. That means that the coming years and decades will be marked by: - a gradual ending of Laissez-Faire economics and a new phase of state interventionism. - the gradual adoption, by all the citizens of the world, of the values and cultural traits of the nations that assert their newly gained economic dominance. - the gradual emergence of a "worldwide worldview" that will glue the citizens of the earth through the sharing of a common understanding of reality that will be far apart from the dualism of the religions of the word. - This "emerging worldwide worldview" will displace modernity to the dustbin of history and bring answers and solutions to the numerous side-effects of modernity as well as the peaking of numerous resources... that are starting to be felt nowadays I have the feeling that the answers provided today by the most conscientious Western thinkers, to the numerous side-effects of modernity and the peaking of resources, are short-sighted and wrong. This is not the end of the world and the solution is also not related to a technological miracle. The problem is that they close their eyes to the rest of the world and are thus digging ever deeper into irrelevant postures. Western intellectual solutions to the problems of modernity will definitively not be adopted by the rest of the world but the culture and values of the rest of the world will definitely impose themselves on all...