Scientists say your “mind" isn’t confined to your brain, or even your body — Quartz. You might wonder, at some point today, what’s going on in another person’s mind. You may compliment someone’s great mind, or say they are out of their mind. You may even try to expand or free your own mind. But what is a mind? Defining the concept is a surprisingly slippery task. Traditionally, scientists have tried to define the mind as the product of brain activity: The brain is the physical substance, and the mind is the conscious product of those firing neurons, according to the classic argument. No doubt, the brain plays an incredibly important role. He first came up with the definition more than two decades ago, at a meeting of 40 scientists across disciplines, including neuroscientists, physicists, sociologists, and anthropologists.
After much discussion, they decided that a key component of the mind is: “the emergent self-organizing process, both embodied and relational, that regulates energy and information flow within and among us.” Commons e. The Science of “Enlivenment” and the Commons. One of the more provocative talks at the Economics and the Commons Conference last week was Andreas Weber’s critique of the “bio-economics” narrative that blends social Darwinism and free market economics. Bioeconomics is the default worldview for contemporary economic thought, public policy and politics. The only problem is that, by the lights of the latest biological sciences, this narrative is wrong, seriously wrong. Worse, it is impeding the emergence of a more accurate account of natural systems and life itself. It is thwarting our ability to develop a new, more respectful relationship with nature.
Weber proposes instead a new story of “enlivenment” that points to a different vision of the "more than human world" and to commons-based based ways of organizing our political economy. Weber’s essay “Enlivenment: Towards a Fundamental Shift in the Concepts of Nature, Culture and Politics,” was just published by the Heinrich Boell Foundation. Biopoetics | The Biology of Wonder. Quantum mechanics 101: Demystifying tough physics in 4 easy lessons. Ready to level up your working knowledge of quantum mechanics? Check out these four TED-Ed Lessons written by Chad Orzel, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College and author of How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog. 1. Particles and waves: The central mystery of quantum mechanics One of the most amazing facts in physics is that everything in the universe, from light to electrons to atoms, behaves like both a particle and a wave at the same time.
But how did physicists arrive at this mind-boggling conclusion? In this lesson, Orzel recounts the string of scientists who built on each other’s discoveries to arrive at this ‘central mystery’ of quantum mechanics. 2. Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, posed this famous question: If you put a cat in a sealed box with a device that has a 50% chance of killing the cat in the next hour, what will be the state of the cat when that time is up?
3. 4. Small Arcs. System Innovation for Sustainability: Using Systems Thinking and Design Thinking | systeminnovationforsustainability. I recently attended a webinar on using systems thinking and design thinking conjointly to address sustainability challenges. The webinar was presented by Peter Coughlan of IDEO and Colleen Ponto of Seattle University. It was great to hear from these forefront thinkers/doers thoughts similar to mine on the potential of using systems thinking and design thinking conjointly.
I also derived a lot of learning on how to communicate these ideas using simple language and examples. I am looking forward to seeing this thinking spread to a wider audience and used by policy makers (top-down actors) and innovators (bottom-up) alike, preferably in collaborative projects. Inspired by this webinar, I explain my thoughts on conjoint use of systems thinking and design thinking that I’ve been mulling over for a while. I have five main messages. 1. Sustainability is a system property. Figure 1. 2. Figure 2. 3. Figure 3. 4. 5. Temporal and spatial influences of personal action and vision Brezet, H. (1997).
The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority. 4 Practical Philosophies That Will Empower You. Philosophy is a fascinating branch of wisdom. However these esoteric ideas are sometimes difficult to translate into practical application. What are all of those thoughts, suppositions and theories actually good for? How can an understanding of philosophy ultimately help you lead a better life? Today I want to examine with you four philosophical ideas that have influenced my life in a very positive way. With the right twists I’ll be able to show you that they are indeed empowering. 1) Friedrich Nietzsche – Eternal Recurrence The Idea Several times throughout his works, Nietzsche talks about the thought experiment of eternal recurrence. Does the idea of eternal recurrence – that every moment of your life will repeat itself into eternity – leave you shivering with fear or with joy; whether you are living life fully everyday or just waiting for better times to come.
Heaven or hell, you decide 2) Socrates – No One Does Wrong Willingly Learn your way to pleasure L’idée Liberté et responsabilité. From relativity to quantum theory – our physical world explored through coffee | Aeon Videos. Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World. In the Summer of 1995, a young graduate student in anthropology at UCLA named Joe Henrich traveled to Peru to carry out some fieldwork among the Machiguenga, an indigenous people who live north of Machu Picchu in the Amazon basin. The Machiguenga had traditionally been horticulturalists who lived in single-family, thatch-roofed houses in small hamlets composed of clusters of extended families. For sustenance, they relied on local game and produce from small-scale farming. They shared with their kin but rarely traded with outside groups. While the setting was fairly typical for an anthropologist, Henrich’s research was not. Rather than practice traditional ethnography, he decided to run a behavioral experiment that had been developed by economists.
Henrich used a “game”—along the lines of the famous prisoner’s dilemma—to see whether isolated cultures shared with the West the same basic instinct for fairness. Advertisement — Continue reading below “We were scared,” admitted Henrich. Rhetorics and Hermeneutics: Wilhelm Wuellner and His Influence. NOT KNOWING – How to explore the power of “holding” a question? – DIAMOND LEADERSHIP. I would like you to share my experience about the difference between knowing and answering a question, and not-knowing and holding a question.
The difference between this two is very important, powerful and ads value in the creation processes. People In their personal lives and especially people that manage and lead other people often have difficulty with not knowing the answer to something. My life shows me that there are 2 main obstacles we face when we deal with the unknown. First is the powerful believe present in our western culture that if we don’t know or solve the question/issue, we are stupid, inadequate, not good enough etc. The second obstacle is the feeling of not knowing itself. In my experience, both as a human being and as a coach, this is one of the most difficult feelings to sit with and be present. The cocktail of not knowing and the believe about “not knowing” is a blend that presents an amazing challenge to anyone.
Like this: Like Loading... Categories: Diamonding. What Is Character? Debunking the Myth of Fixed Personality. We’ve previously explored what it means to be human and what defines a “person.” Much of our understanding of personhood hinges on what we call “character” — but what, exactly, is it? Here is an omnibus of definitions and insights from notable cross-disciplinary thinkers, from philosophy to neuroscience to literature, underpinning which is a shared sentiment that “character” is fluid and responsive to context, rather than a static and unflinching set of traits. Philip K. Dick, from The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick 1972-1973: A person’s authentic nature is a series of shifting, variegated planes that establish themselves as he relates to different people; it is created by and appears within the framework of his interpersonal relationships. (via Feltron) Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher in This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking: Psychologists Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon in A General Theory of Love:
Quantum physics has just been found hiding in one of the most important mathematical models of all time. The Four Qualities of Love. The teachings on love given by the Buddha are clear, scientific, and applicable… Love, compassion, joy, and equanimity are the very nature of an enlightened person. They are the four aspects of true love within ourselves and within everyone and everything. – Thich Nhat Hahn Happiness is only possible with true love. True love has the power to heal and transform the situation around us and bring a deep meaning to our lives. There are people who understand the nature of true love and how to generate and nurture it. The teachings on love given by the Buddha are clear, scientific, and applicable. Every one of us can benefit from these teachings. During the lifetime of the Buddha, those of the Brahmanic faith prayed that after death they would go to Heaven to dwell eternally with Brahma, the universal God.
A vihara is an abode or a dwelling place. Continuing the Buddha’s spirit through the four qualities of love Love Maitri/Metta Love, the intention and capacity to offer joy and happiness. Forget mindfulness, stop trying to find yourself and start faking it. People are often surprised to learn that Confucius, Mencius, Laozi and other classical Chinese philosophers weren’t rigid traditionalists who taught that our highest good comes from confining ourselves to social roles. Nor were they placid wise men preaching harmonious coexistence with the natural world.
Rather, they were exciting and radical thinkers who exploded the conventions of their society. They sought to make the world a better place by expanding the scope of human possibility. The mid-first millennium BC was a similarly turbulent age to our own, giving rise to debates about how to live, how to be ethical and how to build a good society. Stop finding yourself Our thinkers would be sceptical of the existence of a true self, especially one you can discover in the abstract Here’s one popular assumption: it’s important to look within and discover who you really are, your true self.
Be inauthentic We aren’t just who we think we are, we can work on becoming better people all the time. Feminist Theory Workshop Keynote - Karen Barad. Interviewed: David Bollier on Patterns of Commoning. The Commons Strategies Group (Michel Bauwens, Silke Helfrich and David Bollier) Please share with Shareable. DONATE today to support our ad-free coverage of the real sharing economy David Bollier is a policy strategist, activist, and a leading voice in the commons movement.
In a new book, Bollier and commons activist Silke Helfrich, both members of the Commons Strategies Group, collaborated to underscore the fact that commons are not things, resources or goods; they are social structures, processes and patterns. The second book in a planned trilogy, Patterns of Commoning is a collection of more than 50 essays written by activists, academics, and commons project leaders from 20 countries. Shareable spoke with Bollier about the book, the future of the commons, and how we can transform ourselves into commoners. Shareable: In the book, you and Silke focus on what is described as the consciousness of thinking, learning, and acting as a commoner as the heart of the commons movement. Reality doesn’t exist until we measure it, quantum experiment confirms. Australian scientists have recreated a famous experiment and confirmed quantum physics's bizarre predictions about the nature of reality, by proving that reality doesn't actually exist until we measure it - at least, not on the very small scale.
That all sounds a little mind-meltingly complex, but the experiment poses a pretty simple question: if you have an object that can either act like a particle or a wave, at what point does that object 'decide'? Our general logic would assume that the object is either wave-like or particle-like by its very nature, and our measurements will have nothing to do with the answer. But quantum theory predicts that the result all depends on how the object is measured at the end of its journey. And that's exactly what a team from the Australian National University has now found. "It proves that measurement is everything. They then randomly added a second grating that recombined the paths, but only after the atom had already passed the first grating.
The Skills and Approaches of Multisolvers: Our Research Agenda at COP-21 | Climate Interactive. What is the secret ingredient behind some of the most innovative and promising approaches to climate change, approaches that protect the climate for the long term while increasing health, well-being and equity today? We think it’s a particular type of leader – one who is able to implement solutions that solve multiple problems for the same investment of time and money, and I am off to Paris and COP-21 to test and refine our thinking.
COP-21 provides a focusing point for tens of thousands of change agents from around the world. Within the official venue – as well as at hundreds of events outside of it – these thinkers and doers are gathering to share their work with one another. Among these thousands of people, we know that there are very many multisolvers: We love tracking and sharing these examples, and expect to bring many more back from Paris. As I arrange to sit down and talk with multisolvers in Paris, I have a long list of questions to explore: Related. We Need Both Networks and Communities. If you want to understand the difference between a network and a community, ask your Facebook friends to help paint your house. Social media certainly connects us to whoever is on the other end of the line, and so extends our social networks in amazing ways.
But this can come at the expense of deeper personal relationships. When it feels like we’re up-to-date on our friends’ lives through Facebook or Instagram, we may become less likely to call them, much less meet up. Networks connect; communities care. Marshall McLuhan wrote famously about the “global village,” created by new information technologies. But what kind of a village is this?
A century or two ago, the word community “seemed to connote a specific group of people, from a particular patch of earth, who knew and judged and kept an eye on one another, who shared habits and history and memories, and could at times be persuaded to act as a whole on behalf of a part.” The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships. The Social Poetics of Relationally Engaged Research.
… it is the poet who plays with language, with interpretation, with imagery. It is in juxtaposition to this portrait of the poet, the poem, the poetic that I embrace the move toward a social poetic. Here we move rapidly from the interior of the poet or the particular poetic moment to the relational nexus from which all meaning emerges. No longer are we strapped with a view of the lonely poet or that difficult to capture moment we call poetic.
Rather, we recognize that the “genius” of the poet and the ineffability of the poetic moment reside in the discursive resources that have been generated within relationships. Our resources emerge from our communities, from our negotiated ways of coordinating our actions within local moments. Social poetics describes how participants in relation jointly create meaning and how, in that meaning, the seeds of transformative dialogue are sewn. Read. Deep listening (dadirri) Enlivenment: Towards a fundamental shift in the concepts of nature, culture and politics - Commons Transition Wiki. The Para-Ethnographic Trajectories Of Professional Ethnography | EPIC.
Get Out of Your Own Light: Aldous Huxley on Who We Are, the Trap of Language, and the Necessity of Mind-Body Education. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave - Alex Gendler. Helder Guimarães: A magical search for a coincidence. Indigenous Knowledge Systems / Alaska Native Ways of Knowing. Kanyini with Tjilpi Bob Randall (Uncle Bob) - HD Quailty.
Varieties of Scientific Experience: Carl Sagan, Who Died on This Day in 1996, on Science and God. Physics. The Politics of Ontology.