Psybertron Asks

I’m reminded by Dave Pollard’s latest post that this timeline (and the book it comes from), got a lot of airtime post-9/11, since it seemed to have predicted a 9/11-type intiated catastrophe by 2005, back in 1997.

Useful resource. It links the Geoffrey Moore Crossing The Chasm “early adopters”, etc view of technology uptakes and the Kondratiev 80 year (three human generations, in my view – one to learn, one to exploit, one to forget why and lose the plot) industrial cycles or shifts in prevailing “Techno-Economic Paradigm” (Freeman, Dosi et al.) – with the prevailing political and social situation at the times. Wholly US focussed – but useful none-the-less.

Dave’s been in a bit of a depressing “the end of the world is nigh, and there’s nothing we can do about it” mode recently – a release to make the best of the time left he says – a real driver for many astro-physicists and the like to get us surviving humans off the planet too, apparently. This question of the reality or illusion of human free-will, is thoroughly in focus. Consciousness and free will may be metaphorical, but they’re real enough. Read David Deutsch (you too Sue) for a more optimistic antidote.

I’m getting used to the new look and style – but I’ve had conflicting feedback about the “all lower case” script. Whaddya think ?

One of the reasons I like it, is that it took away any rhetorical intent behind using capitalisation conventions (or not) for theistic terms.

Jorn gets a mention in this review of 10 years of Yahoo, as blogging pioneer and originator of the term “blog”. [Via Anol’s SoulSoup.]

Interesting theist / atheist thread at Catalarchy.

WIE is redifining spirituality for an evolving world they say. Is there any other kind ? Via Sue Blackmore, who has a broadcast item link on this page.

(Sue, your link to the Grauniad review of your “Very Short Introduction” is broken.)

Actually WIE is an intriguing site, but is it worth $10 / month, even not-for-profit ? Several luminaries in print and voice – but watch those pop-ups.

From Berkeley University via Jorn at Robot Wisdom.

The repositioning of birds and the insignificance of mammals are noteworthy.

Did Timothy Leary really say that (as Dave Pollard quotes) ? You learn something every day. Pretty much every linguistic representation or explanation of anything is metaphor at root, dead or alive, (Lakoff et al) , so no argument with the sentiment.

Can I have some of what he’s having ? Maybe not, as Dave continues [LSD and other] psychedelic drugs work for some people, and have for thousands of years. And, nope, I don’t have any on me.

Typically thorough review from Dave of “twelve ways to think differently”. It’s not rocket science, and there’s nothing new under the sun for 6000 years or so (as one commenter already pointed out). Dave also has a review of ways to access blog content as knowledge bases – which oddly misses the fact that many blogs already have categorisation. Post Note – it’s not the categorisation or tagging that is Dave’s problem, it’s the presentation of the “topics” in browsable form – Matt Mower’s Blog and my comments on this.

Simplistic “quiz” at Quizfarm (thanks to Frizzy Logic) says I too scored as a Cultural Creative.

It says … Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. (Tends to shy away from !! Go on, don’t mince your words.)

Cultural Creative 94%
Existentialist 81%
Postmodernist 81%
Idealist 63%
Modernist 56%
Fundamentalist 44%
Materialist 38%
Romanticist 31%

Very Zen, that icon.

Richard Florida’s “Rise of the Creative Classes” looks interesting. Being plugged by Tom Peters’ blog – actually they’re plugging the sequel, but hey. Human creative drive is the main agent of change (social, cultural and technological) in recent decades (centuries ?). So if the memes are in the driving seat, who’s directing the traffic Sue (Blackmore) ? Baudelaire and Blake amongst the references, not to mention Dylan and Hendrix.

Thanks to Georganna‘s comment on the 21st Century Athesist post for this Washington Post article.

Packed with good stuff, though as Georganna points out, the conversion from sceptic to the faith is described but hardly explained. Harvard, Chicago, CS Lewis and a mysterious Cambridge “tavern” – all grist to my particular mill.

Interestingly despite his conversion to being an “intelligent designer” Johnson’s closing remark is pretty close to the truth – he states simply that he’s “content just to open science up to an intellectual world that’s been closed to it for two centuries.” Me too, it’s where I came in.