http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwik_Fleck
http://fleck.umcs.lublin.pl/teksty.sady.introduction.htm
Another important hint can possibly be provided by Fleck's remarks that the passive element can sometimes be transformed, within a different thought style, into an active one. Elements developed within older thought styles, becoming autonomous, could give rise to new systems. Possibly, an important role is played by misunderstandings during the intercollective exchange of ideas. Words change their meanings in many ways and this in turn creates new facts and opens new cognitive possibilities. In this way, an avalanche of transformations can begin, as within scientific systems there are internal connections so that every new fact changes all facts known before.
His remarks on what happens in the result of such transformation are much more important. Fleck opposes the view that old, false statements are replaced by new ones, more true then their predecessors. Before and after the scientific revolution "the same" words have different meanings, so we do not talk more truly about the same facts, objects, etc. but rather we talk in a different way about different things.
As a result, a comparison of the cognitive advantages of incommensurable theoretical systems is not possible. All debates between adherents of different thought styles consist almost entirely of misunderstandings. Members of both parties are talking of different things (although they are usually under an illusion that they are talking about, the same thing). They are applying different methods and criteria of correctness (although they are usually under an illusion that their arguments are universally valid and if their opponents do not want to accept them, then they are either stupid or malicious).
IV. There are not only gains but also losses involved in the changing of a thought style. We become able to see new facts but at the same time we lose ability to perceive something that was perceived by our predecessors. For ancient thinkers things of which their world was composed had deep, symbolic meaning - those things were related to gods, good and evil, and destiny. Within some thought styles numbers were not only tools of description but were significant in themselves and formed meaningful connections. All those senses disappeared in our times. Contemporary thinkers read old books with the feeling of superiority - for they cannot understand that ancient people had more to say about what was of superior value for them.
Scientific thought styles are distinguished by the larger number of passive elements relative to the number of active ones. There are passive elements in every thought style, even in myths or fairy-tales. However, internal connections within mythical systems are more detached and that is why the world appears to the adherents of such thought styles as unstable and full of miracles. In contrast, scientific thought styles are characterized by a relatively large degree of internal connections, and this leads to the belief that there is objective reality that exists independently of our thoughts, feelings and wishes.
03 October 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), "together," and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), "sensation"—is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.
Over 60 types of synesthesia have been reported by people, but only a fraction have been evaluated by scientific research. Even within one type, synesthetic perceptions vary in intensity and people vary in awareness of their synesthetic perceptions.
O tends to be white or black
The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov.
Over 60 types of synesthesia have been reported by people, but only a fraction have been evaluated by scientific research. Even within one type, synesthetic perceptions vary in intensity and people vary in awareness of their synesthetic perceptions.
O tends to be white or black
- Synesthesia is involuntary and automatic.
- Synesthetic perceptions are spatially extended, meaning they often have a sense of "location." For example, synesthetes speak of "looking at" or "going to" a particular place to attend to the experience.
- Synesthetic percepts are consistent and generic (i.e., simple rather than pictorial).
- Synesthesia is highly memorable.
- Synesthesia is laden with affect.
The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/03/fred-hoyle-nobel-prize
... was simply "the most outrageous prediction" ever made in science. "If [the 7.65 MeV state] did not exist, Hoyle reasoned, the universe would contain no carbon. And if there was no carbon, there would be no human beings. Thus Hoyle was saying – and nobody had ever used logic as outrageous as this before – that the mere fact he was alive and pondering the question of carbon was proof the 7.65 MeV state existed."
http://reading.academia.edu/PatParslow
http://brains.parslow.net/node/1569
The problem is, we can never know exactly what stimuli someone (or something) else is experiencing, nor can we know what the sum-of-experience is that provides them with their own internal models. Even if we are entirely behaviouristic animals the simplest way of modelling the Other is to ascribe some form of free-will and self-awareness to them. It is a black box model, which allows our own internal modelling systems to take some shortcuts and guess what their behaviour will be on the basis of some abstractions from previous experience; a parameterisation of the 'other' to allow us to make timely predictions of what they might do next.
I think we do that, at least to a large extent, before we come to be fully self-aware of ourselves. Furthermore, I think we then go on to model our own 'self' in the light of those we have grown up amongst. This seems to be borne out by the rare cases of feral children which have been adequately reported, and it seems to be a relatively energy efficient way of organising our minds - we only need to develop the sense of self and ability to be independent once we start getting to a stage where we are also physically capable of surviving on our own.
So my thesis is that we have an emergent consciousness, coming out of a system which models other agents for the simple survival need of having to know what they are going to do, and then through self-similarity we recognise that we are similar to them, and consequently re-use the same modelling technique to provide ourselves with a model of our own minds.
01 October 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Spengler
A new culture starts, Spengler held, when persons in a dying, static, or purposeless society—at first only a few visionaries, often widely isolated—begin to see their surroundings from a new perspective. This intruding viewpoint, he suggests, becomes a driving force that grows to dominate their thinking like a Jungian archetype. Step by step the increasing influence of this new point of view transforms that entire society—its political and social structures, its business organizations and commercial practices, its technologies, mathematics, religious beliefs, music and visual arts, and architecture—to exemplify this unique outlook; he terms it the culture’s “prime symbol.”
The process, always similar, takes 1000–1200 years to run its course. In their final 200–300 years, Spengler said, all civilizations stiffen into rigidity and formalism; creativity dies out and cynicism surges...
Spengler made detailed analyses of six cultures, illustrating in charts of parallel columns how five passed through the same changes at corresponding stages in their development. Spengler described the dominating viewpoints of these cultures as:
The ossified forms of exhausted cultures, he wrote, can persist like pyramids for thousands of years. A new culture may emerge from their detritus or from within a society hitherto lacking a prime symbol. If the new culture’s start overlaps a dominant but dying culture, its early development will be masked and for a time, warped by that prior culture.
Cedric Villani
My main research interests are in kinetic theory (especially Boltzmann equation and its variants; see my long review paper), and optimal transport and its applications (I wrote a book on that subject too; and then another book). More generally, I am fond of subjects which combine several (if not all) of the following themes: evolution partial differential equations, fluid mechanics, statistical mechanics, probability theory, smooth and nonsmooth "metric" Riemannian geometry, and functional inequalities with geometric content.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9dric_Villani
A new culture starts, Spengler held, when persons in a dying, static, or purposeless society—at first only a few visionaries, often widely isolated—begin to see their surroundings from a new perspective. This intruding viewpoint, he suggests, becomes a driving force that grows to dominate their thinking like a Jungian archetype. Step by step the increasing influence of this new point of view transforms that entire society—its political and social structures, its business organizations and commercial practices, its technologies, mathematics, religious beliefs, music and visual arts, and architecture—to exemplify this unique outlook; he terms it the culture’s “prime symbol.”
The process, always similar, takes 1000–1200 years to run its course. In their final 200–300 years, Spengler said, all civilizations stiffen into rigidity and formalism; creativity dies out and cynicism surges...
Spengler made detailed analyses of six cultures, illustrating in charts of parallel columns how five passed through the same changes at corresponding stages in their development. Spengler described the dominating viewpoints of these cultures as:
- Egyptian—An arrow-straight path into eternity.
- Chinese—An indirect, seemingly-meandering path towards life’s goal.
- Hindu—Prime symbol not diagnosed by Spengler. Possibly nirvana, extinction through fulfillment. (The mathematical concept of zero was invented by the Hindu culture, which passed it to the West via Arabic mathematicians).
- Classical (Greek-Roman)—The tangible, free-standing object, exemplified by the nude statue.
- Magian (early Christianity, Mohammedanism)—A magical closed cavern, from whose upper reaches divine grace descends like a golden mist.
- Western (present culture, born in Western Europe about 1000 A.D.)—A spiritual reaching out into boundless space.
The ossified forms of exhausted cultures, he wrote, can persist like pyramids for thousands of years. A new culture may emerge from their detritus or from within a society hitherto lacking a prime symbol. If the new culture’s start overlaps a dominant but dying culture, its early development will be masked and for a time, warped by that prior culture.
Cedric Villani
My main research interests are in kinetic theory (especially Boltzmann equation and its variants; see my long review paper), and optimal transport and its applications (I wrote a book on that subject too; and then another book). More generally, I am fond of subjects which combine several (if not all) of the following themes: evolution partial differential equations, fluid mechanics, statistical mechanics, probability theory, smooth and nonsmooth "metric" Riemannian geometry, and functional inequalities with geometric content.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9dric_Villani
25 September 2010
http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2267847 Vast moral revolutions do take place once in a while, but it is hard to figure out exactly what sets them into motion or brings them to success. A high-minded prophet in some part of the world denounces an old and dreadful social custom. A smattering of do-gooders plead for reform. The reform in question appears, at a glance, to be impractical, unpopular, and unlikely. And yet enormous masses of people somehow—but how?—end up suddenly embracing the revolutionary idea, and they bend to the task of digging a new foundation for the whole of society. The improbable reform, upon completion, turns out to be irreversible. And in retrospect, absolutely everyone, or nearly so, solemnly agrees that good has, in fact, been done, and moral progress on the grandest of scales is more than a figment of the wistful and naive imagination.
03 September 2010
Fording a River. Japanese Woodblock print. Comments - Fantastic scene of a samurai on horseback fording a deep river. He urges the horse on with a small crop. The warrior wears full battle armor, including an eared battle helmet and a dragon patterned robe. Artist - 19th century artist (unsigned)
. Image Size - 18 1/2" x 13 7/8"
Beauty in a Rundown House. Kunichika (1835 - 1900). Japanese Woodblock print. Comments - Interesting kabuki scene of a woman kneeling inside a rather rundown house, tilting her head and with one hand resting on a broken wooden pillar. The wall behind her has a large hole in it, and a robe is draped over a paper lantern hanging in the window. Her kimono is beautiful. Image Size - 9 5/8" x 14 1/8"
02 September 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide
Suicide has been observed in salmonella seeking to overcome competing bacteria by triggering an immune system response against them.[107] Suicidal defences by workers are also noted in a Brazilian ant Forelius pusillus where a small group of ants leaves the security of the nest after sealing the entrance from the outside each evening.[108] Pea aphids, when threatened by a ladybug, can explode themselves, scattering and protecting their brethren and sometimes even killing the lady bug.[109] Some species of termites have soldiers that explode, covering their enemies with sticky goo.[110][111] There have been anecdotal reports of dogs, horses, and dolphins committing suicide, but little hard evidence.[112] There has been little scientific study of animal suicide.[113]
http://www.actnow.com.au/Issues/Aboriginal_Suicide_is_Different.aspx
Three to four decades ago suicide among Indigenous people was practically unheard of. Today the picture is much much bleaker. Suicide rates among Indigenous people is estimated to be three to four times the that of non Indigenous Australians. In some remote communities this number may be significantly higher (Institute of Health and Welfare 2007).
http://www.omh.state.ny.us/omhweb/savinglives/volume1/Vol1_TheChallenge.htm
The affective state most associated with a suicide crisis is desperation - a state of anguish accompanied by an urgent need for relief. The fear of emotional disintegration - of lives unraveling, collapsing or falling apart - has been described as greater than the fear of death. For many desperate patients, death seems to be the only way to attain both relief and control.
http://www.japanfocus.org/-John-Breen/2507
Also participating were three young women, who had all contemplated suicide in response to bullying of one sort or another. One girl, an anexoric aged 26, whose problems began in middle school when class mates instructed her to lose weight, spoke of the redeeming touch of her father. Her father greeted her home from hospital after she had cut her wrists in an attempted suicide, and for the first in his life embraced her. She said how awkward it had felt at first to be embraced by him, but this silent act made her realise her life was worth living. All three girls concurred with Shinohara that what they all needed was ai o kometa osekkai. Ai o kometa means ‘accompanied by’ or perhaps here ‘inspired by’ love, and osekkai ‘meddling’ or ‘interference’. Shinohara meant by this that parents, school and society should all interfere, demand to know what is going on, but they should do so motivated by love.
... Finland is renowned as the first country in the world to have launched, and scored success with, a state-led suicide strategy. The Finnish project was carried out between 1986 and 1998. During this period, epidemiological research was conducted with a psychiatric method involving the ‘psychological dissection’ of the suicide before his or her death.
http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Suicide/2279
The individual, in seemingly hopeless conflict with the
world, decides to end his or her existence in what amounts to a final assault against a society that can no longer be tolerated. In so doing, the person tries to obtain a final revenge on everything and everyone that have caused their feelings of depression.
www.gov.nu.ca/annirusuktugut/jun29a.pdf
In Nunavut, suicide is not an isolated tragedy. As the leading category of reportable death investigated by the Coroner, it is devastating the entire community.
Following the lead of initiatives such as CLEY’s Inuuqatiitsiarnirmut project1, Annirusuktugut regards Inuit Societal Values as an inextricable part of all GN operations. Instilling holistic Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) philosophy throughout Government activity, and reintegrating it into the larger Nunavut society, is essential.
The values observed in this strategy are:
Inuuqatigiitsiarniq• - Respecting others, relationships and caring for people
Tunnganarniq• - Fostering good spirits by being open, welcoming and inclusive
Pijitsiraniq• - Serving and providing for family and the community
Aajiiqatigiiniq• - Decision making through discussions and consensus
Pilimmaksarniq/Pijariuqsarniq• - Development of skills through practice and action
Piliriqutigiinniq/Ikajuqtigiinniq• - Working together for a common cause
Qanuqtuurniq• - Being innovative and resourceful
Avatittinnik Kamtsiarniq• - Respect and care for the land, animals and the environment
Suicide has been observed in salmonella seeking to overcome competing bacteria by triggering an immune system response against them.[107] Suicidal defences by workers are also noted in a Brazilian ant Forelius pusillus where a small group of ants leaves the security of the nest after sealing the entrance from the outside each evening.[108] Pea aphids, when threatened by a ladybug, can explode themselves, scattering and protecting their brethren and sometimes even killing the lady bug.[109] Some species of termites have soldiers that explode, covering their enemies with sticky goo.[110][111] There have been anecdotal reports of dogs, horses, and dolphins committing suicide, but little hard evidence.[112] There has been little scientific study of animal suicide.[113]
http://www.actnow.com.au/Issues/Aboriginal_Suicide_is_Different.aspx
Three to four decades ago suicide among Indigenous people was practically unheard of. Today the picture is much much bleaker. Suicide rates among Indigenous people is estimated to be three to four times the that of non Indigenous Australians. In some remote communities this number may be significantly higher (Institute of Health and Welfare 2007).
http://www.omh.state.ny.us/omhweb/savinglives/volume1/Vol1_TheChallenge.htm
The affective state most associated with a suicide crisis is desperation - a state of anguish accompanied by an urgent need for relief. The fear of emotional disintegration - of lives unraveling, collapsing or falling apart - has been described as greater than the fear of death. For many desperate patients, death seems to be the only way to attain both relief and control.
http://www.japanfocus.org/-John-Breen/2507
Also participating were three young women, who had all contemplated suicide in response to bullying of one sort or another. One girl, an anexoric aged 26, whose problems began in middle school when class mates instructed her to lose weight, spoke of the redeeming touch of her father. Her father greeted her home from hospital after she had cut her wrists in an attempted suicide, and for the first in his life embraced her. She said how awkward it had felt at first to be embraced by him, but this silent act made her realise her life was worth living. All three girls concurred with Shinohara that what they all needed was ai o kometa osekkai. Ai o kometa means ‘accompanied by’ or perhaps here ‘inspired by’ love, and osekkai ‘meddling’ or ‘interference’. Shinohara meant by this that parents, school and society should all interfere, demand to know what is going on, but they should do so motivated by love.
... Finland is renowned as the first country in the world to have launched, and scored success with, a state-led suicide strategy. The Finnish project was carried out between 1986 and 1998. During this period, epidemiological research was conducted with a psychiatric method involving the ‘psychological dissection’ of the suicide before his or her death.
http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Suicide/2279
The individual, in seemingly hopeless conflict with the
world, decides to end his or her existence in what amounts to a final assault against a society that can no longer be tolerated. In so doing, the person tries to obtain a final revenge on everything and everyone that have caused their feelings of depression.
www.gov.nu.ca/annirusuktugut/jun29a.pdf
In Nunavut, suicide is not an isolated tragedy. As the leading category of reportable death investigated by the Coroner, it is devastating the entire community.
Following the lead of initiatives such as CLEY’s Inuuqatiitsiarnirmut project1, Annirusuktugut regards Inuit Societal Values as an inextricable part of all GN operations. Instilling holistic Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) philosophy throughout Government activity, and reintegrating it into the larger Nunavut society, is essential.
The values observed in this strategy are:
Inuuqatigiitsiarniq• - Respecting others, relationships and caring for people
Tunnganarniq• - Fostering good spirits by being open, welcoming and inclusive
Pijitsiraniq• - Serving and providing for family and the community
Aajiiqatigiiniq• - Decision making through discussions and consensus
Pilimmaksarniq/Pijariuqsarniq• - Development of skills through practice and action
Piliriqutigiinniq/Ikajuqtigiinniq• - Working together for a common cause
Qanuqtuurniq• - Being innovative and resourceful
Avatittinnik Kamtsiarniq• - Respect and care for the land, animals and the environment
31 August 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
http://sv.wiktionary.org/wiki/ledstj%C3%A4rna
http://www.philosophynow.org/
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue80/80botzbornstein.htm What Does It Mean To Be Cool?
The aesthetics of cool developed mainly as a behavioral attitude practiced by black men in the United States at the time of slavery. Slavery made necessary the cultivation of special defense mechanisms which employed emotional detachment and irony. A cool attitude helped slaves and former slaves to cope with exploitation or simply made it possible to walk the streets at night. During slavery, and long afterwards, overt aggression by blacks was punishable by death. Provocation had to remain relatively inoffensive, and any level of serious intent had to be disguised or suppressed. So cool represents a paradoxical fusion of submission and subversion. It’s a classic case of resistance to authority through creativity and innovation.
... Epictetus the Stoic posited a strict difference between those things that depend on us and those things that do not depend on us, and advocated developing an attitude of regarding the things we can’t influence as unimportant. What depends upon us are our impulses, passions, attitudes, opinions, desires, beliefs and judgments. These things we must improve. Everything that cannot be controlled by us – death, the actions of others, or the past, for examples – should leave us indifferent. Through this insight that all the things upon which we have no influence are best neglected, a ‘cool’ attitude is nurtured.
... Once again, coolness is a matter of balance; or more precisely, of negotiating a way to survive in a paradoxical condition. It’s about maintaining control while never looking as though you might have lost control. All this is why losing and still keeping a straight face is probably the coolest behavior one can imagine.
... This paradox of the need for self-control in the face of a lack of control nurtured a cool attitude. Thus, instead of revelling in either total control or total detachment, the aesthetics and ethics of cool fractures and alienates in order to bring forward unusual constellations of ideas and actions. In a phrase: the cool person lives in a constant state of alienation.
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue45/45tangenes.htm The View from Mount Zapffe
Born in the arctic city of Tromsø, in Norway, Zapffe was a luminous stylist and wit, whose Law examination paper (1923) – in rhyming verse...
... Yet only rarely do persons lose their minds through this realisation, as our brains have evolved a strict regime of self-censorship – better known as ‘civilisation.’ Betraying a debt to Freud, Zapffe expands on how “most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness.” So, ‘isolation’ is the repression of grim facts by a code of silence; ‘anchoring,’ the stabilising attachment to specific ends; ‘distraction,’ the continuous stream of divertive impressions; and ‘sublimation,’ the conversion of anguish into uplifting pursuits, like literature and art. The discussion is sprinkled with allusions to the fate of Nietszche: the poster case, as it were, of seeing too much for sanity.
... This prophet of doom, an heir to the visionary caveman, will be as ill-fated. For his word, which subverts the precept to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” is not to please his fellow man: “Know yourselves – be infertile, and let the earth be silent after ye.”
... “The human race come from Nothing and go to Nothing. Above that, there is Nothing.” At the close of his last major writing, Zapffe answers all who despair of this view.
“ ‘Unfortunately,’ rues the playful pessimist, ‘I cannot help you. All I have for facing death myself, is a foolish smile.’ ”
- Descriptive ethics: What do people think is right?
- Normative (prescriptive) ethics: How should people act?
- Applied ethics: How do we take moral knowledge and put it into practice?
- Meta-ethics: What does 'right' even mean?
http://sv.wiktionary.org/wiki/ledstj%C3%A4rna
http://www.philosophynow.org/
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue80/80botzbornstein.htm What Does It Mean To Be Cool?
The aesthetics of cool developed mainly as a behavioral attitude practiced by black men in the United States at the time of slavery. Slavery made necessary the cultivation of special defense mechanisms which employed emotional detachment and irony. A cool attitude helped slaves and former slaves to cope with exploitation or simply made it possible to walk the streets at night. During slavery, and long afterwards, overt aggression by blacks was punishable by death. Provocation had to remain relatively inoffensive, and any level of serious intent had to be disguised or suppressed. So cool represents a paradoxical fusion of submission and subversion. It’s a classic case of resistance to authority through creativity and innovation.
... Epictetus the Stoic posited a strict difference between those things that depend on us and those things that do not depend on us, and advocated developing an attitude of regarding the things we can’t influence as unimportant. What depends upon us are our impulses, passions, attitudes, opinions, desires, beliefs and judgments. These things we must improve. Everything that cannot be controlled by us – death, the actions of others, or the past, for examples – should leave us indifferent. Through this insight that all the things upon which we have no influence are best neglected, a ‘cool’ attitude is nurtured.
... Once again, coolness is a matter of balance; or more precisely, of negotiating a way to survive in a paradoxical condition. It’s about maintaining control while never looking as though you might have lost control. All this is why losing and still keeping a straight face is probably the coolest behavior one can imagine.
... This paradox of the need for self-control in the face of a lack of control nurtured a cool attitude. Thus, instead of revelling in either total control or total detachment, the aesthetics and ethics of cool fractures and alienates in order to bring forward unusual constellations of ideas and actions. In a phrase: the cool person lives in a constant state of alienation.
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue45/45tangenes.htm The View from Mount Zapffe
Born in the arctic city of Tromsø, in Norway, Zapffe was a luminous stylist and wit, whose Law examination paper (1923) – in rhyming verse...
... Yet only rarely do persons lose their minds through this realisation, as our brains have evolved a strict regime of self-censorship – better known as ‘civilisation.’ Betraying a debt to Freud, Zapffe expands on how “most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness.” So, ‘isolation’ is the repression of grim facts by a code of silence; ‘anchoring,’ the stabilising attachment to specific ends; ‘distraction,’ the continuous stream of divertive impressions; and ‘sublimation,’ the conversion of anguish into uplifting pursuits, like literature and art. The discussion is sprinkled with allusions to the fate of Nietszche: the poster case, as it were, of seeing too much for sanity.
... This prophet of doom, an heir to the visionary caveman, will be as ill-fated. For his word, which subverts the precept to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” is not to please his fellow man: “Know yourselves – be infertile, and let the earth be silent after ye.”
... “The human race come from Nothing and go to Nothing. Above that, there is Nothing.” At the close of his last major writing, Zapffe answers all who despair of this view.
“ ‘Unfortunately,’ rues the playful pessimist, ‘I cannot help you. All I have for facing death myself, is a foolish smile.’ ”
30 August 2010
http://www.mortiis.com/
Go away from me.
I just want to flee.
The god i used to be.
Fill me no more with glee.
Where am I now?
Upon whom to bestow,
The Secrets locked inside.
The universe I hide.
The Monolith is I.
It was always me.
This world has always been,
The place I really lived in.
Here i stand, alone.
My soul has turned to stone.
Half my kingdom to,
Him that helps me through.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all It is not easy for us to conceive how Guugu Yimithirr speakers experience the world, with a crisscrossing of cardinal directions imposed on any mental picture and any piece of graphic memory. Nor is it easy to speculate about how geographic languages affect areas of experience other than spatial orientation — whether they influence the speaker’s sense of identity, for instance, or bring about a less-egocentric outlook on life. But one piece of evidence is telling: if you saw a Guugu Yimithirr speaker pointing at himself, you would naturally assume he meant to draw attention to himself. In fact, he is pointing at a cardinal direction that happens to be behind his back. While we are always at the center of the world, and it would never occur to us that pointing in the direction of our chest could mean anything other than to draw attention to ourselves, a Guugu Yimithirr speaker points through himself, as if he were thin air and his own existence were irrelevant.
23 August 2010
This morning I woke up with this song inside me.
Message In A Bottle by The Police 1979
The song is ostensibly about a castaway on an imagined island, who sends out a message in a bottle to seek love. A year later, he feels that there is no need for love. Later on, he sees "a hundred billion bottles" on the shore, finding out that there are more people like him out there.
Just a castaway
An island lost at sea
Another lonely day
With no one here but me
More loneliness
Than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair
I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
A year has passed since I wrote my note
But I should have known this right from the start
Only hope can keep me together
Love can mend your life
But love can break your heart
I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Oh, message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Walked out this morning
Don't believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles
Washed up on the shore
Seems I'm not alone at being alone
A hundred billion castaways
Looking for a home
I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message In A Bottle by The Police 1979
The song is ostensibly about a castaway on an imagined island, who sends out a message in a bottle to seek love. A year later, he feels that there is no need for love. Later on, he sees "a hundred billion bottles" on the shore, finding out that there are more people like him out there.
Just a castaway
An island lost at sea
Another lonely day
With no one here but me
More loneliness
Than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair
I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
A year has passed since I wrote my note
But I should have known this right from the start
Only hope can keep me together
Love can mend your life
But love can break your heart
I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Oh, message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Walked out this morning
Don't believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles
Washed up on the shore
Seems I'm not alone at being alone
A hundred billion castaways
Looking for a home
I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
Message in a bottle
21 August 2010
http://www.oilpress.com/bengt.htm
http://www.oilpress.com/linolja.htm
Martin Løjing Hægeland 19/9 1861 - 21/7 1937
http://www.oilpress.com/linolja.htm
As I understand Richard Dawson's arguments for his condemnations of religions they could be used against love as well.
Awful things have been done out of love (love for your ancestors, your children, your country...) and being in love resembles being psychotic and logic deserts us.
As for water; if given by a homeopath with a care that heals (in a not scientifically proven way) – why is that so bad? Even if he/she does it for a living.
I believe we inherit the power of love from our ancestors.
But it's up to us to better the ways of expressing and recognizing it.
Our world seems now very fast to transform; mixing cultures, religions and our minds and bodies.
I'm confident that this will lead to much improvements.
It will extract the best from all kinds of sources and this will for sure result in Love Potion No. 1.
I guess I'll stop here.
I'm getting carried away...
"Love Potion No. 9" is a song written in 1959.
The song describes a man seeking help finding love, so he talks to a gypsy, who determines through palm reading that he needs "love potion number 9". The potion causes him to fall in love with everything he sees, kissing whatever is in front of him, eventually kissing the policeman on the corner, who breaks his bottle. In an alternate version of the ending of the Clover's song, they recorded the alternate lyrics: "I had so much fun, that I'm going back again, I wonder what happens with Love Potion Number Ten?"...
Some radio stations banned the song, due to the lyrics involving "Kissing a cop".Awful things have been done out of love (love for your ancestors, your children, your country...) and being in love resembles being psychotic and logic deserts us.
As for water; if given by a homeopath with a care that heals (in a not scientifically proven way) – why is that so bad? Even if he/she does it for a living.
I believe we inherit the power of love from our ancestors.
But it's up to us to better the ways of expressing and recognizing it.
Our world seems now very fast to transform; mixing cultures, religions and our minds and bodies.
I'm confident that this will lead to much improvements.
It will extract the best from all kinds of sources and this will for sure result in Love Potion No. 1.
I guess I'll stop here.
I'm getting carried away...
Martin Løjing Hægeland 19/9 1861 - 21/7 1937
20 August 2010
WHAT IS LOVE?
This morning I woke up with this song inside me.
Axelrod777: ...I have worked on this piece for longer than any I can remember, it is longer than any I can remember Composing, and the composition part is probably a shining example of what I am capable of. I may have spent about 10 or so hours total or more on this. Unfortunately, the computer I usually work on had its sound card break, so I went on my secondary one to make this. Well, it has a different version of Camstudio that I don't like, and when I'm recording the sound quality is less than fabulous. Furthermore, I miscalculated where I could properly re-use clips, and some of the transitions aren't very clean. This piece didn't come out like I had hoped, and I'm planning on re-doing it once the better computer is fixed. Because I don't know how long that will take, I've uploaded this in the meantime. Expect an update sometime in the next 70 or so years (my way of saying I have no idea when it can be fixed). OK, well about the piece... Yes, I can do more than video game music, and I really like this song so I looked at some sheet music and it looked possible, but the sheet music was flawed, with the bass rhythm off and percussion next to illegible. The result: I did a lot more of this song by ear than I usually do. All of the percussion is by ear, the bass rhythm is by ear, and much of the gameboy parts are by ear (and since I'm not very good at pitch-picking, they could be wrong. If you know the correct notes PLEASE TELL ME so I can fix it in my update). The cars (strings) in this tune aren't very prominent in the real song, so I decreased the volume for most car parts, but it's not as quiet as the song had because I liked how it filled in a lot of the emptiness. If the string part was next to nothing in the song, though, I left it out of here. The cars aren't always on the exactly correct beat because if they were I couldn't decrease the volume for only the cars because volume control is for the whole beat. It makes the piece a little sloppy but I dealt with it. The flowers that seem to be in random (and sometimes off-the-scale) places are the result of a glitch that lets me make them shorter by placing them on the low A (I thank LoloGuru for teaching me this trick). My only instrument choice regret is that the plane sound is quiet. It would be perfect if it were louder, because it is long enough to simulate the echo effect that the actual song has during almost all of the vocals. Thanks for watching, and I dare you not to bob your head while listening. Software used: Music: Mario Paint Composer - http://www.unfungames.com/mariopaint/ Notation: MidiNotate Player - http://www.notation.com/MidiNotatePlayer.htm Video: Camstudio 2.5 beta - http://camstudio.org/ Editing: Windows Movie Maker All free, legal, and unlimited.
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Oh, baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Yeah
Oh, I don't know why you're not there
I give you my love, but you don't care
So what is right and what is wrong
Gimme a sign
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
Oh, I don't know, what can I do
What else can I say, it's up to you
I know we're one, just me and you
I can't go on
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
What is love, oooh, oooh, oooh
What is love, oooh, oooh, oooh
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
I want no other, no other lover
This morning I woke up with this song inside me.
Axelrod777: ...I have worked on this piece for longer than any I can remember, it is longer than any I can remember Composing, and the composition part is probably a shining example of what I am capable of. I may have spent about 10 or so hours total or more on this. Unfortunately, the computer I usually work on had its sound card break, so I went on my secondary one to make this. Well, it has a different version of Camstudio that I don't like, and when I'm recording the sound quality is less than fabulous. Furthermore, I miscalculated where I could properly re-use clips, and some of the transitions aren't very clean. This piece didn't come out like I had hoped, and I'm planning on re-doing it once the better computer is fixed. Because I don't know how long that will take, I've uploaded this in the meantime. Expect an update sometime in the next 70 or so years (my way of saying I have no idea when it can be fixed). OK, well about the piece... Yes, I can do more than video game music, and I really like this song so I looked at some sheet music and it looked possible, but the sheet music was flawed, with the bass rhythm off and percussion next to illegible. The result: I did a lot more of this song by ear than I usually do. All of the percussion is by ear, the bass rhythm is by ear, and much of the gameboy parts are by ear (and since I'm not very good at pitch-picking, they could be wrong. If you know the correct notes PLEASE TELL ME so I can fix it in my update). The cars (strings) in this tune aren't very prominent in the real song, so I decreased the volume for most car parts, but it's not as quiet as the song had because I liked how it filled in a lot of the emptiness. If the string part was next to nothing in the song, though, I left it out of here. The cars aren't always on the exactly correct beat because if they were I couldn't decrease the volume for only the cars because volume control is for the whole beat. It makes the piece a little sloppy but I dealt with it. The flowers that seem to be in random (and sometimes off-the-scale) places are the result of a glitch that lets me make them shorter by placing them on the low A (I thank LoloGuru for teaching me this trick). My only instrument choice regret is that the plane sound is quiet. It would be perfect if it were louder, because it is long enough to simulate the echo effect that the actual song has during almost all of the vocals. Thanks for watching, and I dare you not to bob your head while listening. Software used: Music: Mario Paint Composer - http://www.unfungames.com/mariopaint/ Notation: MidiNotate Player - http://www.notation.com/MidiNotatePlayer.htm Video: Camstudio 2.5 beta - http://camstudio.org/ Editing: Windows Movie Maker All free, legal, and unlimited.
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Oh, baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Yeah
Oh, I don't know why you're not there
I give you my love, but you don't care
So what is right and what is wrong
Gimme a sign
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
Oh, I don't know, what can I do
What else can I say, it's up to you
I know we're one, just me and you
I can't go on
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
What is love, oooh, oooh, oooh
What is love, oooh, oooh, oooh
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
I want no other, no other lover
19 August 2010
http://www.ahorie.net/
AKEMI HORIE
Musician, choreographer and academic.
Japanese citizen; UK resident. Brief Biography Contact
Musician, choreographer and academic.
Studied with Jan Kott, whose radical approach to the theatre has been influential.
Research fields: Sophocles and Samuel Beckett.
Expert on Kabuki and Noh theatres.
Pioneered experimental work interpreting the Noh dramaturgy and aesthetics in modern theatrical terms. Japanese citizen; UK resident. Brief Biography Contact
RAF Red Arrow
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/aug/15/pordenone-montanari-artist-recluse-discovered/print Many of the paintings show pictures within pictures and figures reflected in mirrors
18 August 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
Pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest is one of the most striking features of AS.
Individuals with AS may collect volumes of detailed information on a relatively narrow topic...without necessarily having genuine understanding of the broader topic.
Although these special interests may change from time to time, they typically become more unusual and narrowly focused, and often dominate social interaction so much that the entire family may become immersed.
Although individuals with Asperger syndrome acquire language skills without significant general delay and their speech typically lacks significant abnormalities, language acquisition and use is often atypical. Abnormalities include verbosity, abrupt transitions, literal interpretations and miscomprehension of nuance, use of metaphor meaningful only to the speaker, auditory perception deficits, unusually pedantic, formal or idiosyncratic speech, and oddities in loudness, pitch, intonation, prosody, and rhythm.
Three aspects of communication patterns are of clinical interest: poor prosody, tangential and circumstantial speech, and marked verbosity. Although inflection and intonation may be less rigid or monotonic than in autism, people with AS often have a limited range of intonation: speech may be unusually fast, jerky or loud. Speech may convey a sense of incoherence; the conversational style often includes monologues about topics that bore the listener, fails to provide context for comments, or fails to suppress internal thoughts. Individuals with AS may fail to monitor whether the listener is interested or engaged in the conversation. The speaker's conclusion or point may never be made, and attempts by the listener to elaborate on the speech's content or logic, or to shift to related topics, are often unsuccessful.
Children with AS may have an unusually sophisticated vocabulary at a young age and have been colloquially called "little professors", but have difficulty understanding figurative language and tend to use language literally. Children with AS appear to have particular weaknesses in areas of nonliteral language that include humor, irony, and teasing. Although individuals with AS usually understand the cognitive basis of humor they seem to lack understanding of the intent of humor to share enjoyment with others. Despite strong evidence of impaired humor appreciation, anecdotal reports of humor in individuals with AS seem to challenge some psychological theories of AS and autism.
AS is also associated with high levels of alexithymia, which is difficulty in identifying and describing one's emotions.
...people with AS are not usually withdrawn around others; they approach others, even if awkwardly. For example, a person with AS may engage in a one-sided, long-winded speech about a favorite topic, while misunderstanding or not recognizing the listener's feelings or reactions, such as a need for privacy or haste to leave.
Some of them may even display selective mutism, speaking not at all to most people and excessively to specific people. Some may choose to talk only to people they like.
Asperger passionately defended the value of autistic individuals, writing "We are convinced, then, that autistic people have their place in the organism of the social community. They fullfil their role well, perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their care-givers." Asperger also called his young patients "little professors", and believed some would be capable of exceptional achievement and original thought later in life.
Autistic people have advocated a shift in perception of autism spectrum disorders as complex syndromes rather than diseases that must be cured. Proponents of this view reject the notion that there is an "ideal" brain configuration and that any deviation from the norm is pathological; they promote tolerance for what they call neurodiversity.
Some researchers have argued that AS can be viewed as a different cognitive style, not a disorder or a disability... In a 2002 paper, Simon Baron-Cohen wrote of those with AS, "In the social world there is no great benefit to a precise eye for detail, but in the worlds of maths, computing, cataloguing, music, linguistics, engineering, and science, such an eye for detail can lead to success rather than failure." Baron-Cohen cited two reasons why it might still be useful to consider AS to be a disability: to ensure provision for legally required special support, and to recognize emotional difficulties from reduced empathy. It has been argued that the genes for Asperger's combination of abilities have operated throughout recent human evolution and have made remarkable contributions to human history.
The exact cause is unknown, although research supports the likelihood of a genetic basis
The underconnectivity theory hypothesizes underfunctioning high-level neural connections and synchronization, along with an excess of low-level processes. It maps well to general-processing theories such as weak central coherence theory, which hypothesizes that a limited ability to see...
Water container used on SJ trains before the glass carafes used with paper mugs were introduced.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11011118?print=true
Magnetars are a special type of neutron star with a powerful magnetic field.
They are formed by gravitational collapse after the original, or progenitor star, dies and forms a catastrophic supernova.
The new magnetar was found in an extraordinary star cluster known as Westerlund 1, located 16,000 light years away in the southern constellation of Ara (the Altar). This region contains numerous massive stars.
Stars that are more than 25 times more massive than our Sun normally collapse to form black holes.
Dr Negueruela of the University of Alicante in Spain, a co-author on the study, said that the mystery of the missing black hole might be explained if the progenitor star got rid "of nine tenths of its mass before exploding as a supernova".
Dr Ritchie remarked that if the Earth was "located at the heart of this remarkable cluster, our night sky would be full of hundreds of stars as bright as the full Moon".
Professor Mike Cruise, an astrophysicist at the UK's University of Birmingham, who was not involved in the study, told BBC News that the new research was "a brilliant piece of detective work".
Pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest is one of the most striking features of AS.
Individuals with AS may collect volumes of detailed information on a relatively narrow topic...without necessarily having genuine understanding of the broader topic.
Although these special interests may change from time to time, they typically become more unusual and narrowly focused, and often dominate social interaction so much that the entire family may become immersed.
Although individuals with Asperger syndrome acquire language skills without significant general delay and their speech typically lacks significant abnormalities, language acquisition and use is often atypical. Abnormalities include verbosity, abrupt transitions, literal interpretations and miscomprehension of nuance, use of metaphor meaningful only to the speaker, auditory perception deficits, unusually pedantic, formal or idiosyncratic speech, and oddities in loudness, pitch, intonation, prosody, and rhythm.
Three aspects of communication patterns are of clinical interest: poor prosody, tangential and circumstantial speech, and marked verbosity. Although inflection and intonation may be less rigid or monotonic than in autism, people with AS often have a limited range of intonation: speech may be unusually fast, jerky or loud. Speech may convey a sense of incoherence; the conversational style often includes monologues about topics that bore the listener, fails to provide context for comments, or fails to suppress internal thoughts. Individuals with AS may fail to monitor whether the listener is interested or engaged in the conversation. The speaker's conclusion or point may never be made, and attempts by the listener to elaborate on the speech's content or logic, or to shift to related topics, are often unsuccessful.
Children with AS may have an unusually sophisticated vocabulary at a young age and have been colloquially called "little professors", but have difficulty understanding figurative language and tend to use language literally. Children with AS appear to have particular weaknesses in areas of nonliteral language that include humor, irony, and teasing. Although individuals with AS usually understand the cognitive basis of humor they seem to lack understanding of the intent of humor to share enjoyment with others. Despite strong evidence of impaired humor appreciation, anecdotal reports of humor in individuals with AS seem to challenge some psychological theories of AS and autism.
AS is also associated with high levels of alexithymia, which is difficulty in identifying and describing one's emotions.
...people with AS are not usually withdrawn around others; they approach others, even if awkwardly. For example, a person with AS may engage in a one-sided, long-winded speech about a favorite topic, while misunderstanding or not recognizing the listener's feelings or reactions, such as a need for privacy or haste to leave.
Some of them may even display selective mutism, speaking not at all to most people and excessively to specific people. Some may choose to talk only to people they like.
Asperger passionately defended the value of autistic individuals, writing "We are convinced, then, that autistic people have their place in the organism of the social community. They fullfil their role well, perhaps better than anyone else could, and we are talking of people who as children had the greatest difficulties and caused untold worries to their care-givers." Asperger also called his young patients "little professors", and believed some would be capable of exceptional achievement and original thought later in life.
Autistic people have advocated a shift in perception of autism spectrum disorders as complex syndromes rather than diseases that must be cured. Proponents of this view reject the notion that there is an "ideal" brain configuration and that any deviation from the norm is pathological; they promote tolerance for what they call neurodiversity.
Some researchers have argued that AS can be viewed as a different cognitive style, not a disorder or a disability... In a 2002 paper, Simon Baron-Cohen wrote of those with AS, "In the social world there is no great benefit to a precise eye for detail, but in the worlds of maths, computing, cataloguing, music, linguistics, engineering, and science, such an eye for detail can lead to success rather than failure." Baron-Cohen cited two reasons why it might still be useful to consider AS to be a disability: to ensure provision for legally required special support, and to recognize emotional difficulties from reduced empathy. It has been argued that the genes for Asperger's combination of abilities have operated throughout recent human evolution and have made remarkable contributions to human history.
The exact cause is unknown, although research supports the likelihood of a genetic basis
The underconnectivity theory hypothesizes underfunctioning high-level neural connections and synchronization, along with an excess of low-level processes. It maps well to general-processing theories such as weak central coherence theory, which hypothesizes that a limited ability to see...
Water container used on SJ trains before the glass carafes used with paper mugs were introduced.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11011118?print=true
Magnetars are a special type of neutron star with a powerful magnetic field.
They are formed by gravitational collapse after the original, or progenitor star, dies and forms a catastrophic supernova.
The new magnetar was found in an extraordinary star cluster known as Westerlund 1, located 16,000 light years away in the southern constellation of Ara (the Altar). This region contains numerous massive stars.
Stars that are more than 25 times more massive than our Sun normally collapse to form black holes.
Dr Negueruela of the University of Alicante in Spain, a co-author on the study, said that the mystery of the missing black hole might be explained if the progenitor star got rid "of nine tenths of its mass before exploding as a supernova".
Dr Ritchie remarked that if the Earth was "located at the heart of this remarkable cluster, our night sky would be full of hundreds of stars as bright as the full Moon".
Professor Mike Cruise, an astrophysicist at the UK's University of Birmingham, who was not involved in the study, told BBC News that the new research was "a brilliant piece of detective work".
17 August 2010
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/18/beyond_good_and_evil?mode=PF
GRAY: If you think of yourself as a good-doer, you come to possess increased agency and decreased experience. Same with an evil-doer. So what we have people do is randomly assign them to either do something good for others or receive something themselves, and then measure their physical endurance by holding a weight. And what we find is that those who are given the opportunity to help others actually become physically stronger, possess more endurance....And what we find is that those who are given the chance to do evil increase in agency in kind, but also a little bit more than those who do good.
IDEAS: Why a little bit more, do you think?
GRAY: I think it’s because for the average person with a conscience, it’s a little harder to do evil....I really need to overcome my qualms to do it, and once I do it, I feel like I must be even more powerful.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-willpower-paradox&print=true
It is the difference between “Will I do this?” and “I will do this.”
The results were provocative. People with wondering minds completed significantly more anagrams than did those with willful minds. In other words, the people who kept their minds open were more goal-directed and more motivated than those who declared their objective to themselves.
These findings are counterintuitive. Think about it. Why would asserting one’s intentions undermine rather than advance a stated goal? Perhaps, Senay hypothesized, it is because questions by their nature speak to possibility and freedom of choice.
...It indicates that those with questioning minds were more intrinsically motivated to change. They were looking for a positive inspiration from within, rather than attempting to hold themselves to a rigid standard.
...those who were asserting their willpower were in effect closing their minds and narrowing their view of their future.
GRAY: If you think of yourself as a good-doer, you come to possess increased agency and decreased experience. Same with an evil-doer. So what we have people do is randomly assign them to either do something good for others or receive something themselves, and then measure their physical endurance by holding a weight. And what we find is that those who are given the opportunity to help others actually become physically stronger, possess more endurance....And what we find is that those who are given the chance to do evil increase in agency in kind, but also a little bit more than those who do good.
IDEAS: Why a little bit more, do you think?
GRAY: I think it’s because for the average person with a conscience, it’s a little harder to do evil....I really need to overcome my qualms to do it, and once I do it, I feel like I must be even more powerful.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-willpower-paradox&print=true
It is the difference between “Will I do this?” and “I will do this.”
The results were provocative. People with wondering minds completed significantly more anagrams than did those with willful minds. In other words, the people who kept their minds open were more goal-directed and more motivated than those who declared their objective to themselves.
These findings are counterintuitive. Think about it. Why would asserting one’s intentions undermine rather than advance a stated goal? Perhaps, Senay hypothesized, it is because questions by their nature speak to possibility and freedom of choice.
...It indicates that those with questioning minds were more intrinsically motivated to change. They were looking for a positive inspiration from within, rather than attempting to hold themselves to a rigid standard.
...those who were asserting their willpower were in effect closing their minds and narrowing their view of their future.
16 August 2010
12 August 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/29/william-blake-philip-pullman/print
He loves to sit and hear me sing,
Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
Then stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
He loves to sit and hear me sing,
Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
Then stretches out my golden wing,
And mocks my loss of liberty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
01 August 2010
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-willpower-paradox
The difference is subtle, but the former were basically putting their mind into wondering mode, while the latter were asserting themselves and their will. It is the difference between “Will I do this?” and “I will do this.”
09 July 2010
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.gravois.html Rather than produce one definitive map of the world, Google offers multiple interpretations of the earth’s geography. Sometimes, this takes the form of customized maps that cater to the beliefs of one nation or another. More often, though, Google is simply an agnostic cartographer—a peddler of “place browsers” that contain a multitude of views instead of univocal, authoritative, traditional maps. “We work to provide as much discoverable information as possible so that users can make their own judgments...
02 July 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8593780.stm Tuesday's milestone marks the beginning of work that could lead to the discovery of fundamental new physics.
There was cheering and applause in the LHC control room as the first collisions were confirmed.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/66894/sec_id/66894 defines a snob as ‘Someone who tends to patronize or avoid those regarded as social inferiors; someone who blatantly attempts to cultivate or imitate those admired as social superiors; someone who has an air of smug superiority in matters of knowledge or taste.’ The same dictionary defines ‘inverted snob’ as one ‘who sneers indiscriminately at people and things associated with wealth and high society.’ One possible derivation of the word snob is from the Latin sine nobilitate, without nobility.
There was cheering and applause in the LHC control room as the first collisions were confirmed.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/66894/sec_id/66894 defines a snob as ‘Someone who tends to patronize or avoid those regarded as social inferiors; someone who blatantly attempts to cultivate or imitate those admired as social superiors; someone who has an air of smug superiority in matters of knowledge or taste.’ The same dictionary defines ‘inverted snob’ as one ‘who sneers indiscriminately at people and things associated with wealth and high society.’ One possible derivation of the word snob is from the Latin sine nobilitate, without nobility.
01 July 2010
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/08/architecture-survey-201008 ‘Overall, the kind of language I’ve developed, which culminated in Bilbao, comes from a reaction to Postmodernism. I was desperate not to go there,” Gehry explains, in his refreshingly plainspoken style. “I was looking for a way to deal with the humanizing qualities of decoration without doing it. I got angry with it—all the historical stuff, the pastiche. I said to myself, If you have to go backward, why not go back 300 million years before man, to fish?
Frank Gehry: Weisman Art Center, U. of MN, Mpls, MN, 1993
http://newhumanist.org.uk/2320/variety “feeling is the deeper source of religion, and philosophic and theological formulas are secondary products, like translations of a text into another tongue.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James A belief was not a mental entity which somehow mysteriously corresponded to an external reality if the belief were true. Beliefs were ways of acting with reference to a precarious environment, and to say they were true was to say they guided us satisfactorily in this environment.
As his first act of freedom, he said, he chose to believe his will was free.
He proposed that the obvious answer, that we run because we are afraid, was wrong, and instead argued that we are afraid because we run... The mental aspect of emotion, the feeling, is a slave to its physiology, not vice versa: we do not tremble because we are afraid or cry because we feel sad; we are afraid because we tremble and are sad because we cry.
For James, the great men of history manipulate the thoughts of society. "Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives." He continues, "The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."
James states that, although it does appear that humans use associations to move from one event to the next, this cannot be done without this soul tying everything together... James therefore chose to combine the views of ... and... to create his own way of thinking that he believed to make the most sense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all Humans can comfortably keep track of three different mental states at a time, Ms. Zunshine said. For example, the proposition “Peter said that Paul believed that Mary liked chocolate” is not too hard to follow. Add a fourth level, though, and it’s suddenly more difficult... Whatever the root cause, Ms. Zunshine argues, people find the interaction of three minds compelling. “If I have some ideological agenda,” she said, “I would try to construct a narrative that involved a triangularization of minds, because that is something we find particularly satisfying.”
Frank Gehry: Weisman Art Center, U. of MN, Mpls, MN, 1993
http://newhumanist.org.uk/2320/variety “feeling is the deeper source of religion, and philosophic and theological formulas are secondary products, like translations of a text into another tongue.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James A belief was not a mental entity which somehow mysteriously corresponded to an external reality if the belief were true. Beliefs were ways of acting with reference to a precarious environment, and to say they were true was to say they guided us satisfactorily in this environment.
As his first act of freedom, he said, he chose to believe his will was free.
He proposed that the obvious answer, that we run because we are afraid, was wrong, and instead argued that we are afraid because we run... The mental aspect of emotion, the feeling, is a slave to its physiology, not vice versa: we do not tremble because we are afraid or cry because we feel sad; we are afraid because we tremble and are sad because we cry.
For James, the great men of history manipulate the thoughts of society. "Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives." He continues, "The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."
James states that, although it does appear that humans use associations to move from one event to the next, this cannot be done without this soul tying everything together... James therefore chose to combine the views of ... and... to create his own way of thinking that he believed to make the most sense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/books/01lit.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all Humans can comfortably keep track of three different mental states at a time, Ms. Zunshine said. For example, the proposition “Peter said that Paul believed that Mary liked chocolate” is not too hard to follow. Add a fourth level, though, and it’s suddenly more difficult... Whatever the root cause, Ms. Zunshine argues, people find the interaction of three minds compelling. “If I have some ideological agenda,” she said, “I would try to construct a narrative that involved a triangularization of minds, because that is something we find particularly satisfying.”
30 June 2010
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236?RS_show_page=3
He didn't care when his teenage son came home with blue hair and a mohawk. He speaks his mind with a candor rare for a high-ranking official. He asks for opinions, and seems genuinely interested in the response.
The ISAF command has even discussed ways to make not killing into something you can win an award for: There's talk of creating a new medal for "courageous restraint,"...
His commanders had repeatedly requested permission to tear down the house where ... was killed, noting that it was often used as a combat position by the Taliban. But due to McChrystal's new restrictions to avoid upsetting civilians, the request had been denied.
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Flaubert-s-simple-heart-5320
Un coeur simple. In it, he managed the difficult technical feat of making someone interesting who was good but ordinary and not particularly intelligent, and he also managed the far more difficult emotional and ethical feat of entering the world of someone with whose outlook he did not agree, and portraying it with sympathy, understanding, and admiration, recognizing in it the beauty that it possessed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/opinion/25brooks.html
Most people in government, I find, are there because they sincerely want to do good. But they’re also exhausted and frustrated much of the time... These people often spend 16 hours a day together, and they bond by moaning and about the idiots on the outside.
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=23542
There was a time when appeasement was an inoffensive, even a rather positive term. The French word “l’apaisement,” from which it probably derives (or the earlier medieval-French apeser), meant the satisfying of an appetite or thirst, the bringing of comfort, the cooling of tensions. Even today, Webster’s dictionary’s first definition of “appease” is “to bring peace, calm; to soothe,” with the later negative meaning being, well, much later in the entry.
He didn't care when his teenage son came home with blue hair and a mohawk. He speaks his mind with a candor rare for a high-ranking official. He asks for opinions, and seems genuinely interested in the response.
The ISAF command has even discussed ways to make not killing into something you can win an award for: There's talk of creating a new medal for "courageous restraint,"...
His commanders had repeatedly requested permission to tear down the house where ... was killed, noting that it was often used as a combat position by the Taliban. But due to McChrystal's new restrictions to avoid upsetting civilians, the request had been denied.
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Flaubert-s-simple-heart-5320
Un coeur simple. In it, he managed the difficult technical feat of making someone interesting who was good but ordinary and not particularly intelligent, and he also managed the far more difficult emotional and ethical feat of entering the world of someone with whose outlook he did not agree, and portraying it with sympathy, understanding, and admiration, recognizing in it the beauty that it possessed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/opinion/25brooks.html
Most people in government, I find, are there because they sincerely want to do good. But they’re also exhausted and frustrated much of the time... These people often spend 16 hours a day together, and they bond by moaning and about the idiots on the outside.
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=23542
There was a time when appeasement was an inoffensive, even a rather positive term. The French word “l’apaisement,” from which it probably derives (or the earlier medieval-French apeser), meant the satisfying of an appetite or thirst, the bringing of comfort, the cooling of tensions. Even today, Webster’s dictionary’s first definition of “appease” is “to bring peace, calm; to soothe,” with the later negative meaning being, well, much later in the entry.
29 June 2010
A seldom told story is the one of the sprawling pop scene in Ostersund, a rather isolated town in the north of Sweden. No, we kid you not. The city by the lake has spawned lots of great groups, it's just that no one has ever noticed. Originally playing in different punk, rock or indie-groups the six soon-to-be creators of the most beautiful northern pop music imaginable met each other in their mid-teens. It was on strangers balconies and in blistering snowstorms on their way to parties they really learned to know one another.
27 June 2010
http://incharacter.org/review/stoicism-is-just-so-yesterday/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575309610811148630.htmlWhat's interesting is the way both "The Rational Optimist" and "Wrong" converge on the idea of openness as fundamental to progress. For Mr. Ridley, the market for ideas needs to be as open as possible in order to breed ingenuity from collaboration; for Mr. Freedman, this market needs to be doggedly open about its errors as a positive step toward reliability.
http://www.hallahus.se/stilhistoria/takpapp.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8682515?dopt=Abstract if you’re impulsive, bored easily or ever suspected you might have ADHD or BPD, you most likely have the DRD4 7R gene (or one that does roughly the same thing)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575309610811148630.htmlWhat's interesting is the way both "The Rational Optimist" and "Wrong" converge on the idea of openness as fundamental to progress. For Mr. Ridley, the market for ideas needs to be as open as possible in order to breed ingenuity from collaboration; for Mr. Freedman, this market needs to be doggedly open about its errors as a positive step toward reliability.
http://www.hallahus.se/stilhistoria/takpapp.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8682515?dopt=Abstract if you’re impulsive, bored easily or ever suspected you might have ADHD or BPD, you most likely have the DRD4 7R gene (or one that does roughly the same thing)
26 June 2010
24 June 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platanus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platanus_orientalis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platanus_%C3%97_hispanica
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles11/trees-22.shtml
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankthans
Peder Severin Krøyer
.jpg)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31277456@N04/3693841386/
Populus petrowskiana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platanus_orientalis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platanus_%C3%97_hispanica
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles11/trees-22.shtml
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankthans
Peder Severin Krøyer
.jpg)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31277456@N04/3693841386/
Populus petrowskiana
15 June 2010
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/06/13/the_bright_side_of_wrong?mode=PF What’s called for is a new way of thinking about wrongness, one that recognizes that our fallibility is part and parcel of our brilliance. If we can achieve that, we will be better able to avoid our costliest mistakes, own up to those we make, and reduce the conflict in our lives by dealing more openly and generously with both other people’s errors and our own...
Psychologists and neuroscientists increasingly think that inductive reasoning undergirds virtually all of human cognition — the decisions you make every day, as well as how you learned almost everything you know about the world. To take just the most sweeping examples, you used inductive reasoning to learn language, organize the world into meaningful categories, and grasp the relationship between cause and effect in the physical, biological, and psychological realms.
But this intelligence comes at a cost: Our entire cognitive operating system is fundamentally, unavoidably fallible. The distinctive thing about inductive reasoning is that it generates conclusions that aren’t necessarily true. They are, instead, probabilistically true — which means they are possibly false. Because we reason inductively, we will sometimes get things wrong... And here we arrive at the paradox of error: If we want to prevent it, we must understand that it is an inevitable part of us, an intrinsic side effect of a fundamentally sound system. Put differently, understanding the origins of our mistakes is the only way we can learn to deal with them, as both a practical and emotional matter... Recognizing that error is an inevitable part of our lives frees us from despising ourselves — and forbids us from looking down on others — for getting things wrong. Once we recognize that we do not err out of laziness, stupidity, or evil intent, we can liberate ourselves from the impossible burden of trying to be permanently right. We can take seriously the proposition that we could be in error, without deeming ourselves idiotic or unworthy. We can respond to the mistakes (or putative mistakes) of those around us with empathy and generosity. We can demand that our business and political leaders acknowledge and redress their errors rather than ignoring or denying them. In short, a better relationship with wrongness can lead to better relationships in general — whether between family members, colleagues, neighbors, or nations.
Psychologists and neuroscientists increasingly think that inductive reasoning undergirds virtually all of human cognition — the decisions you make every day, as well as how you learned almost everything you know about the world. To take just the most sweeping examples, you used inductive reasoning to learn language, organize the world into meaningful categories, and grasp the relationship between cause and effect in the physical, biological, and psychological realms.
But this intelligence comes at a cost: Our entire cognitive operating system is fundamentally, unavoidably fallible. The distinctive thing about inductive reasoning is that it generates conclusions that aren’t necessarily true. They are, instead, probabilistically true — which means they are possibly false. Because we reason inductively, we will sometimes get things wrong... And here we arrive at the paradox of error: If we want to prevent it, we must understand that it is an inevitable part of us, an intrinsic side effect of a fundamentally sound system. Put differently, understanding the origins of our mistakes is the only way we can learn to deal with them, as both a practical and emotional matter... Recognizing that error is an inevitable part of our lives frees us from despising ourselves — and forbids us from looking down on others — for getting things wrong. Once we recognize that we do not err out of laziness, stupidity, or evil intent, we can liberate ourselves from the impossible burden of trying to be permanently right. We can take seriously the proposition that we could be in error, without deeming ourselves idiotic or unworthy. We can respond to the mistakes (or putative mistakes) of those around us with empathy and generosity. We can demand that our business and political leaders acknowledge and redress their errors rather than ignoring or denying them. In short, a better relationship with wrongness can lead to better relationships in general — whether between family members, colleagues, neighbors, or nations.
13 June 2010
05 June 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_locust Korstörne
http://www.nice.fr/Culture/Musees-et-expositions/Musee-d-Art-Naif
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10154775.stm Creativity is akin to insanity, say scientists who have been studying how the mind works. Brain scans reveal striking similarities in the thought pathways of highly creative people and those with schizophrenia. Both groups lack important receptors used to filter and direct thought.
http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/Zapffe.html Zapffe's main argument and world-view was, roughly, this: Like all living species, humans are endowed with a certain number of physiological and social needs; the need for food, rest, security and so on. These needs are quite easily satisfied. However, we humans have an additional need, lacking in all other species, for an overarching meaning of life. This need, according to Zapffe, can never be satisfied unless we deceive ourselves. We can thus either delude ourselves into belief in a false meaning of life, or we can remain honest and realise that life is meaningless... His great survey of tragedy in literature, politics and the arts indicated that all human endeavour was ultimately futile... his view on the human destiny was simply that we ought to stop procreation immediately.
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Evil-Norwegian-Literature/dp/1564785718 Despite the overuse of the word in movies, political speeches, and news reports, “evil” is generally seen as either flagrant rhetoric or else an outdated concept: a medieval holdover with no bearing on our complex everyday reality. In A Philosophy of Evil, however, acclaimed writer/philosopher Lars Svendsen argues that evil remains a concrete moral problem: that we’re all its victims, and all guilty of committing evil acts. “It’s normal to be evil,” he writes—the problem is, we’ve lost the vocabulary to talk about it. Taking up this problem—how do we speak about evil?—A Philosophy of Evil treats evil as an ordinary aspect of contemporary life, with implications that are moral, practical, and above all, political. Because, as Svendsen says, “Evil should neither be justified nor explained away—evil must be fought.”
http://www.nice.fr/Culture/Musees-et-expositions/Musee-d-Art-Naif
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10154775.stm Creativity is akin to insanity, say scientists who have been studying how the mind works. Brain scans reveal striking similarities in the thought pathways of highly creative people and those with schizophrenia. Both groups lack important receptors used to filter and direct thought.
http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/Zapffe.html Zapffe's main argument and world-view was, roughly, this: Like all living species, humans are endowed with a certain number of physiological and social needs; the need for food, rest, security and so on. These needs are quite easily satisfied. However, we humans have an additional need, lacking in all other species, for an overarching meaning of life. This need, according to Zapffe, can never be satisfied unless we deceive ourselves. We can thus either delude ourselves into belief in a false meaning of life, or we can remain honest and realise that life is meaningless... His great survey of tragedy in literature, politics and the arts indicated that all human endeavour was ultimately futile... his view on the human destiny was simply that we ought to stop procreation immediately.
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Evil-Norwegian-Literature/dp/1564785718 Despite the overuse of the word in movies, political speeches, and news reports, “evil” is generally seen as either flagrant rhetoric or else an outdated concept: a medieval holdover with no bearing on our complex everyday reality. In A Philosophy of Evil, however, acclaimed writer/philosopher Lars Svendsen argues that evil remains a concrete moral problem: that we’re all its victims, and all guilty of committing evil acts. “It’s normal to be evil,” he writes—the problem is, we’ve lost the vocabulary to talk about it. Taking up this problem—how do we speak about evil?—A Philosophy of Evil treats evil as an ordinary aspect of contemporary life, with implications that are moral, practical, and above all, political. Because, as Svendsen says, “Evil should neither be justified nor explained away—evil must be fought.”
03 June 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?pagewanted=all When the target of the action was itself a good guy, babies preferred the puppet who was nice to it. This alone wasn’t very surprising, given that the other studies found an overall preference among babies for those who act nicely. What was more interesting was what happened when they watched the bad guy being rewarded or punished. Here they chose the punisher. Despite their overall preference for good actors over bad, then, babies are drawn to bad actors when those actors are punishing bad behavior.
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrogardisme
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrogardisme
02 June 2010
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,695301,00.html But that alone would not suffice to divide the roles so neatly into good and evil. Most climate researchers were somewhere between the two extremes. They often had difficulty drawing clear conclusions from their findings. After all, scientific facts are often ambiguous... Weingart notes that public debate is mostly "only superficially about enlightenment." Rather, it is more about "deciding on and resolving conflicts through general social agreement." That's why it helps to present unambiguous findings... Scientific philosopher Silvio Funtovicz foresaw this dilemma as early as 1990. He described climate research as a "postnormal science." On account of its high complexity, he said it was subject to great uncertainty while, at the same time, harboring huge risks.
http://chronicle.com/article/Soul-Talk/65278/
http://chronicle.com/article/Soul-Talk/65278/
01 June 2010
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Pleasures-of-Imagination/65678 Our main leisure activity is, by a long shot, participating in experiences that we know are not real. When we are free to do whatever we want, we retreat to the imagination—to worlds created by others, as with books, movies, video games, and television..., or to worlds we ourselves create, as when daydreaming and fantasizing.
23 May 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Collins
Jerry Thomas' Tom Collins Gin (1876)
(Use large bar-glass.)
Take 5 or 6 dashes of gum syrup.
Juice of a small lemon.
1 large wine-glass of gin.
2 or 3 lumps of ice;
Shake up well and strain into a large bar-glass. Fill up the glass with plain soda water and drink while it is lively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gum_syrup#Gomme_syrup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_syrup The sap is reduced in the same way as maple sap, using reverse osmosis machines and evaporators in commercial production. While maple sap may be boiled down without the use of reverse osmosis, birch syrup is difficult to produce this way: the sap is more temperature sensitive than is maple sap because fructose burns at a lower temperature than sucrose, the primary sugar in maple sap. This means that boiling birch sap to produce syrup can much more easily result in a scorched taste.
Jerry Thomas' Tom Collins Gin (1876)
(Use large bar-glass.)
Take 5 or 6 dashes of gum syrup.
Juice of a small lemon.
1 large wine-glass of gin.
2 or 3 lumps of ice;
Shake up well and strain into a large bar-glass. Fill up the glass with plain soda water and drink while it is lively.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gum_syrup#Gomme_syrup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_syrup The sap is reduced in the same way as maple sap, using reverse osmosis machines and evaporators in commercial production. While maple sap may be boiled down without the use of reverse osmosis, birch syrup is difficult to produce this way: the sap is more temperature sensitive than is maple sap because fructose burns at a lower temperature than sucrose, the primary sugar in maple sap. This means that boiling birch sap to produce syrup can much more easily result in a scorched taste.
20 May 2010
http://www.boehmfilm.de/global_html_engl/habundgut.html Säg mig vad du äger...
http://martin.ingvar.com/
http://martin.ingvar.com/
19 May 2010
17 May 2010
Jag vill se ut som Gregory Peck http://svt.se/2.58360/1.319529/utskriftsvanligt_format?printerfriendly=true
Not Another Ski Movie
by Push Films (Norway) 2004 (16mm film)
10 May 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
Democracy was also seen to a certain extent in bands and tribes such as the Iroquois Confederacy... An interesting detail is that there should be consensus among the leaders, not majority support decided by voting, when making decisions.
Band societies, such as the Bushmen, which usually number 20-50 people in the band often do not have leaders and make decisions based on consensus among the majority. In Melanesia, farming village communities have traditionally been egalitarian and lacking in a rigid, authoritarian hierarchy. Although a "Big man" or "Big woman" could gain influence, that influence was conditional on a continued demonstration of leadership skills, and on the willingness of the community.
Currently, there are 123 countries that are democratic (up from 40 in 1972). As such, it has been speculated that this trend may continue in the future to the point where liberal democratic nation-states become the universal standard form of human society... These theories are criticized by those who fear an evolution of liberal democracies to post-democracy, and other who points out the high number of illiberal democracies.
Anarchists are split...depending on whether they believe that a majority-rule is tyrannic or not. The only form of democracy considered acceptable to many anarchists is direct democracy. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued that the only acceptable form of direct democracy is one in which it is recognized that majority decisions are not binding on the minority, even when unanimous.
Henry David Thoreau, who did not self-identify as an anarchist but argued for "a better government" and is cited as an inspiration by some anarchists, argued that people should not be in the position of ruling others or being ruled when there is no consent.
Consensus democracy requires varying degrees of consensus rather than just a mere democratic majority. It typically attempts to protect minority rights from domination by majority rule.
Democracy was also seen to a certain extent in bands and tribes such as the Iroquois Confederacy... An interesting detail is that there should be consensus among the leaders, not majority support decided by voting, when making decisions.
Band societies, such as the Bushmen, which usually number 20-50 people in the band often do not have leaders and make decisions based on consensus among the majority. In Melanesia, farming village communities have traditionally been egalitarian and lacking in a rigid, authoritarian hierarchy. Although a "Big man" or "Big woman" could gain influence, that influence was conditional on a continued demonstration of leadership skills, and on the willingness of the community.
Currently, there are 123 countries that are democratic (up from 40 in 1972). As such, it has been speculated that this trend may continue in the future to the point where liberal democratic nation-states become the universal standard form of human society... These theories are criticized by those who fear an evolution of liberal democracies to post-democracy, and other who points out the high number of illiberal democracies.
Anarchists are split...depending on whether they believe that a majority-rule is tyrannic or not. The only form of democracy considered acceptable to many anarchists is direct democracy. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued that the only acceptable form of direct democracy is one in which it is recognized that majority decisions are not binding on the minority, even when unanimous.
Henry David Thoreau, who did not self-identify as an anarchist but argued for "a better government" and is cited as an inspiration by some anarchists, argued that people should not be in the position of ruling others or being ruled when there is no consent.
Consensus democracy requires varying degrees of consensus rather than just a mere democratic majority. It typically attempts to protect minority rights from domination by majority rule.
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