Eliminative Materialism First published Thu May 8, 2003; substantive revision Tue Apr 16, 2013 Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist. Descartes famously challenged much of what we take for granted, but he insisted that, for the most part, we can be confident about the content of our own minds. Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point, since they challenge the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted. 1. In principle, anyone denying the existence of some type of thing is an eliminativist with regard to that type of thing. Nevertheless, contemporary eliminative materialism—the sort of eliminativism that denies the existence of specific types of mental states—is a relatively new theory with a very short history. 2. 2.1 Folk Psychology and the Theory-Theory 3.
Values-Conscious Business Below are resources on business ethics, tools for integrating spirituality and business, and how to demonstrate spiritual-based leadership. Business ethics top^ 20 Questions to Ask About Your Code of Conduct Looks at questions that confront those who are responsible for codes of conduct today and at the questions that today’s compliance and ethics professionals are considering in reviewing their codes to meet current standards. 7 Principles of Admirable Business Ethics: Business Ethics for Small Business A short overview of seven principles the author suggests should be considered as an important insight for companies striving for long-term success and growth. A Global Ethic Now An internet learning platform of the Global Ethic Foundation addressing five themes: What is a global ethic? Applied Ethics Resources on the WWW A range of resources on business and professional ethics, as well as ethical decision making.Ethicsweb, linked 04/ Ethical Corporation
When the brain refuses to take the cash EMORY (US) — Brain images show personal values that people refuse to disavow—even when offered cash to do so—are processed differently than values that are willingly sold. “Our experiment found that the realm of the sacred—whether it’s a strong religious belief, a national identity or a code of ethics—is a distinct cognitive process,” says Gregory Berns, director of the Center for Neuropolicy at Emory University and lead author of the study published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Sacred values prompt greater activation of an area of the brain associated with rules-based, right-or-wrong thought processes, the study shows, as opposed to the regions linked to processing of costs-versus-benefits. Berns headed a team that included economists and information scientists from Emory University, a psychologist from the New School for Social Research, and anthropologists from the Institute Jean Nicod in Paris, France. The research was funded by the U.S.
Plexus Institute: Thursday Complexity Post Global Economies New Network Study Suggests Tight Connectivity in Global Economies is Inevitable and Dangerous Author: Prucia Buscell If there is indeed a tiny elite with disproportionate control over the world economy, it may be more a matter of science than conspiracy, new research suggests. A study by complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology analyzes the relationships among 43,000 international corporations and identifies a small tightly interconnected group that wields exceptional global power. The Swiss researchers used mathematical modeling used in studying natural systems to analyze comprehensive corporate data of ownership among the world's transnational corporations. "Our analysis is reality based." Concentration of power isn't a bad thing in itself, the team says, implying that greed and corruption are not inevitable. The study has its critics. Catch up on all the complexity posts from the last quarter - Q3 Complexity Posts - or listen to an archived PlexusCall.
Why kindness can help businesses grow 24 December 2012Last updated at 19:35 ET By Peter Day Global Business, BBC World Service Tea and kindness: Good deeds can help businesses thrive Do not make tea with boiling water. That is what the Rare Tea Lady told me the other afternoon. A shocking statement for someone like me brought up from childhood to take the teapot to the kettle to ensure that the tea leaves were woken up by the hottest possible infusion. "It was World War II propaganda because we had cheap industrial tea," said the Rare Tea Lady, Henrietta Lovell. But real tea has lots more taste than that bitterness, and that is what Henrietta Lovell has built her Rare Tea Company around. She is a tea fanatic who has turned her fanaticism into a neat little business run from her flat just close to Primrose Hill in north London. She is also an advocate for random acts of kindness. She firmly believes that kind gestures are an important force in the way we conduct our personal and professional lives. Encounter Charm Clever Why? Personal
Capitalism’s future part 1: Why we can’t ignore a rethink We’ve heard it being said many times, especially on a Sunday afternoon National Geographic special, “You can remove all animals from earth and man won’t survive but remove man and animals will survive.” Whilst it does wonders in stirring up a fuzzy feeling towards the animal kingdom with regards to how great and apparently self sustaining they are, at the same time it has the power to remove fuzzy logic that our decision making equates to that of the animal kingdom and that we can live as we please and all should be fine. No one quite transforms like humans. Whether we consciously live by it or not, all our decisions have a transformational impact on everything around us. As the world of capitalism has been shaken now for the umpteenth time, and this shake brought with it a few more tremors than before, even as a proponent it is hard not to pause for thought at exactly what this system propagates. Creating value was once synonymous with the increase of the bottom line.
Will the End of Oil Mean the End of Growth? - Environment It’ll be nice when this recession is over and the economy starts chugging along again. When GDP resumes its ordained upward trajectory. When we finally get back to growth. After all, the economy should always be growing, right? Well, maybe not. In the early 1970s a team of young scientists at MIT set out to answer that question. Their findings appeared in a 1972 book called . But here’s the scary thing: The model has been pretty reliable so far. So when will we hit the limit of economic growth? The standard view among economists is that economic growth doesn’t depend on any given resource. Gail Tverberg, an actuary and energy analyst, thinks this oil shortage is going to keep us mired in recession for a long time to come. …when prices of oil and food rise, consumers (except for those making more money because of higher oil and food prices) tend to cut back on discretionary spending. We should take that possibility seriously. And if they don’t?
The Future of Management: Is it Deja vu all over again? If you are a regular reader of the MIX, you probably already have a point of view on the future of management. Indeed, the MIX was created to help accelerate the evolution of management, so chances are you have already bought into the argument that we are going through a period of upheaval that will transform the way we work in organizations in the years ahead. I hope and believe this argument is right. And in future blog posts on this site I will discuss examples of some of the changes in management that are currently underway. But let me develop a contrarian line of argument first, before offering a synthesis. Here's the problem with all this talk of virtual and networked organizations, and this vision of empowered and engaged employees. So there is an enduring puzzle that we need to come to grips with. Why is this? I see four interlinked reasons: First, the traditional model of management is so pervasive that it is still the safe way of doing things. So what does the future look like?
Intertemporal Selfishness It turns out that we have widely varying levels of psychological connectness to our future selves, and the ‘me’ of today is more likely to defer rewards to the future if there is a belief that the ‘me’ of a distant tomorrow will be very like today’s. Daniel Bartels and Oleg Urminsky explore this intertemporal selfishness, by setting contexts where experimental subjects are led to believe that their future selves will have changed drastically. In such cases, the subjects are much less likely to defer rewards, and more likely to consume them in the near term. This is explored using the idea of discount rates: subjects’ willingness to discount rewards by comsuming them in the near term increases as their sense on connection to a future ‘me’ decreases. I suppose that the sense of connectedness with future groups — families, communities, nations — plays an important role in our willingness to defer rewards for their benefit. (via James Warren) related articles