What, Why & How do we Know ?
Noticed these two recently …
Daniel Goleman author of Emotional Intelligence on the innate good Samaritan reflex on the significance of just noticing, paying attention, rather than being self-absorbed. Rang bells thanks to a recent MoQ.Discuss thread which asked moral questions about finding a “drunk” on the sidewalk.
Most impressive is this talk by Isabel Allende. Very explicit “feminist” agenda, but a passionate story – truer than truth.
[Post Note – This is the news item that sparked this debate.]
In all the debates about energy policy there has been a tendency to consider nuclear fuel as practically limitless for foreseeable needs – with all the downsides of the nuclear option concerned with the costs (capital and energy) in the investment and the safety / security therafter.
Sam pointed out a thread on “The Oil Drum” where the available resources of Uranium & Thorium fuel are being debated in much the same way as the peak-oil / end-of-oil. I commented on a number of the posts. My main missing piece is to understand where the “breeder reactor” idea fits into this energy accounting.
[Post Note : several good responses to my questions led me to re-read the original article – my summary so far is here. And finally my conclusion for now.]
Tom Hanks is not sure if Charlie Wilson’s War will be a success.
We saw it the night before last, and have to say it was excellent. The Aaron Sorkin / West Wing style works really well with Hanks and Seymour-Hoffman bouncing the Washington one-liners and press-statements off each other and the close-combat camera. And some great cinematography too – in scenes like the Peshawar refugee camps. The in-your-face “let’s kill some Russians” undercurrent (if that’s not an oxymoron) seems strange, but is already a sign of the pre-fall-of-Berlin-wall times.
Some tongue-in-cheek license with the characters and the plot detail I’m sure in the “based-on-a-true-story” style, but really well done.
Glorious …. but we fucked-up the end game.
Nuff said. It occurred to me whilst I was watching it that I was in Pakistan (Baluchistan province) near the Afghan border during the latter period of the film – early / mid 80’s – must check the dates. The Pashtun refugees and the local Bughtis at the tribal checkpoints were all proudly brandishing their Kalashnikovs, booty from the Soviet-Afhgan war, but it had never occurred to me that the Russian weapons had been supplied to the Afghans by the US via Israeli and Egyptian intermediaries. Believable.
Followed the link to this Dave Snowden post from Johnnie Moore … on the face of it because “we” (in the sense Dave puts it) are recognising that the fragmentory (but interconnected) nature of blog-like technologies is much closer to “real human knowledge” than more formally structured forms. Also that “we” also therefore have a responsibility to manage the wider social transition just as any one form of media replaces another (written over oral, say) because the new disruption can appear (quite unnecessarily) threatening to the old … following on the reaction to Doris Lessing earlier.
So far so good. Even better though, Dave concludes with
Balance and memory have to go with progress and we need to start to challenge the assumption that whatever is the most popular is necessarily right, or for that matter sustainable.
This is two of my ongoing agenda items in one.
The democracy-needs-elitism imperative … a strictly popular vote is not the best arbiter of (real) value – which is an unpopular opinion to hold, but inescapable. (I need to find a better word than “elite” if I am to avoid offending those of a nervous disposition.)
And
The best memes are often the least attractive. Some memes are popular simply because they are easy to like / share / understand, not because they are good / right / true / valuable.
[Post Note : on re-reading, I see Dave’s post also includes a quote on the human “generational” nature of technological evolution (of knowledge) – I added my comment concerning my 3-Generations view of Kondratiev Waves or (Kuhnian) Techno-Economic-Paradigms. Small convergent world. Actually, there is a fourth connection here too … the teleological one … Dave’s post is entitled “The illusion that where we are is where we were meant to be”. Anthropic principles here we come.]
Out west with Sylvia, Tom and Robbie … Vegas, Death Valley, Sierras, Tahoe, San Francisco, Sequoia, Flagstaff, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Vegas.
Highlight for me was Monument Valley (at 12F) and Sequoia for a white Christmas day – oh, and the pleasure of meeting Alice and Family. Surreal moment, eating dinner outdoors on the balcony at Olives with 6 hours to kill before our return red-eye from Vegas – recommended fountain-entertainment-and-food value even at The Bellagio prices.
More later when I’ve sorted the pictures, and dealt with the e-mail backlog.
Having noticed that the content of the “Taking Science on Faith” post below, provided to me by Gary Wegner, was also in the current edition of The Edge, I see that it is also covered in the comment thread to the Daily Kos post reviewing Paul Davies “Cosmic Jackpot” … The Edge and Paul Davies being the connection.
That’s the Anthropic Principle thread that wound Island up, though I have to say the piece reads as a reasonable if sceptical summary, despite the clamour of self-congratulatory closed minds in the ensuing thread. That post of mine was of course prompted by Marsha picking up the Daily Kos article on the Pirsig Metaphysics of Quality discussion forum … Pirsig being my connection with Gary in the first place
A “WiserEarth” presentation by Paul Hawken – on the power of ecodiversity to preserve humanity’s interests through naturally evolving collaboration. (via Mark Federman at McLuhan’s Next Message). Possibly overly optimistic, like Jeffery Sachs global economic message, but thought provoking and worthy of consideration.
A series of interviews by Matt Frei with journalists. bloggers and the YouTube team of under-21 Billionaires, and others across the US. The agenda is about the place of professional journalism in this media revolution … don’t worry Matt, there still is one.
One interesting discussion – a traditional journalist expressing the concern with blogging / social networking communities tending to be self-selecting amongst people who already agree / re-inforce their pre-conceived perspectives. Actually I don’t believe that is true. How to put this … I’m sure the “less intellectual” select their mainstream media channels to satisfy their prejudices too, and the media re-inforce that by pandering to their audience tastes. The more intellectually / experientially curious will always seek more channels of input – where different equals interesting. I’d suggest that’s true whatever the media, the difference is choice is simply easier with the bottom-up channels.
Again, third time today, 99% of blogging and social media content is crap, and 99% of mainstream media content is crap too because, repeat after me …. 99% of anything is crap. (If the idea of 99% crap offends, insert your own preferred interpretation of the 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle. Despite the odds, the point is to treat the 1% nuggets as a “cup half full” – something to work with and build on.)
(Interestingly, the YouTube video parodying the YouTube business success story to the tune of “We Didn’t Start The Fire” is off the air …
“This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by a third party.”
(Billy Joel’s music publisher presumably, not YouTube itself. Pity, it was an excellent piece of work.)
Interestingly ironic thread with Dave Snowden on Euan Semple’s Obvious about this Doris Lessing comment.
Referring a few posts ago, to Johnnie Moore commenting on the persistent inanity of most of what the evolving web technologies are used for.
Lest we forget, 99% of the internet is inane crap, because 99% of everything is crap. The important thing is knowing how to pan for the nuggets … peer-to-peer connections, context, etc …
Doubly ironic is Euan’s slightly later post on Gartner appearing to rubbish the investment value in Web2.0 … given Dave Pollard dubbing KM2.0 as KM0.0 (also reported by David Gurteen.) Interconnected enough for you ?
I’ve mentioned many times that “meta” is an important concept – the word itself seems to come and go with fashions. “Meta-X” equals “X concerning X”
In my agenda here it is a way, in this Subject / Object oriented world, of taking that one step back from the apparent objects and focusssing on the objects (processes) by which they arise and interact … less risk of “reifying” the objects themselves.
Ant drew our attention to this new “Meta-Q” blog by Caryl Johnston, in Philadelphia PA. Meta-Q signifying Meta-Quality, and very much looking at the place of Pirsigian Quality in an educational / academic context.
By (Pirsigian) defintion, Quality itself is undefinable, and attempts to do so of limited value and ultimately counter productive. Meta-Quality is a concept I like – definition through the processes and interactions through which Quality arises – rather than direct definition of Quality itself.
Less than a month in the blogosphere, but several interesting looking essays there already. Added to the blog roll so I can read at leisure and post some more specific comments in due course. Caryl describes the Pirsigian (Metaphysics of) Quality agenda as an attempt …
… to raid the encampment of philosophy, which has become entrenched in the subject-object dualism of modern rationalism and fortified by the spoils dispensed by universities, government, and economics, to capture its real prize: an orientation that makes sense of the world, makes a difference in how one lives, and does justice to all levels of human nature.
Addressing the problem of the “subject-object dualism of modern rationalism”. Absolutely. Sounds like my manifesto (in the header).
(Post note : been browsing around and Caryl has multiple blogs – all very interesting. She concludes another essay with …
We need to re-dynamize ourselves
” by remembering the paradoxy in orthodoxy.
Well said. And talking of the paradox in the orthodox, conflict with the static, I’m reminded of Pirsig’s own words in the Baggini nterview … )
Dynamic or static, both are absolutely essential, even when they are in conflict. As stated in LILA, without Dynamic Quality an organism cannot grow. But without static quality an organism cannot last. Dynamic liberals and radicals need conservatives to keep them from making a mess of the world through unneeded change. Conservatives also need liberals and radicals to keep them from making a mess of the world through unneeded stagnation. This also holds true for philosophy. My feeling is that subject-object way of interpreting the world is stagnant and inadequate for our time, but without that base of subject-object understanding to build from, the Metaphysics of Quality, by itself, has no value either.