Extending the Domain of Freedom, Or Why Gaia Is So Hard to Understand
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Where to Find 6 Million Minds
Research Fortnight, 11 February 2015 view 23 roger highfield Where to find 6 million minds Over the decades, a disturbing image has often entered 2012-13. The sexes were nearly equally represented. my mind as I have whiled away the hours in meetings Slightly more than half of the museum’s visitors come about PUS and PES, aka the public understanding of, or from family groups, 36 per cent come from adult groups engagement with, science. This reverie involves a group and 13 per cent come from educational groups. In 2013- of beggars briefly materialising around a campfire to 14, more than half of the schools in London visited the squabble about how to spend a million pounds. museum; our aim is to make that two-thirds by 2018. Of course, the question is: how are they going to make Public engagement is enshrined in the research coun- all that money in the first place? By the same token, why cils’ royal charters—as it should be, because science, are researchers assuming that they have oodles of ‘sci- through technology, is the greatest force shaping cul- ence capital’ to spend, rather than wondering how they ture today. Paul Nurse’s review of the councils will no are going to engage with the big audiences that yield doubt consider how well they are fulfilling this aspect of such capital in the first place? their mission and whether they can do even more to use Around the PES campfire, many issues burn bright- museums to showcase their work. ly. The idea of a single public has given way to a The good news is that research councils are starting to heterogeneous mishmash of audiences. -
The Cultural Ecology of Elisabeth Mann Borgese
NARRATIVES OF NATURE AND CULTURE: THE CULTURAL ECOLOGY OF ELISABETH MANN BORGESE by Julia Poertner Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia March 2020 © Copyright by Julia Poertner, 2020 TO MY PARENTS. MEINEN ELTERN. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………………... v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED ………………………………………………………….. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………………………………………………………………….. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………… 1 1.1 Thesis ………………………………………………………………... 1 1.2 Methodology and Outline ………………………………………….. 27 1.3 State of Research ……....…………………………………………... 32 1.4 Background ……………………………………………………….... 36 CHAPTER 2: NARRATIVES OF NATURE AND CULTURE …………………………………... 54 2.1 Between a Mythological Past and a Scientific Future ……………………. 54 2.1.1 Biographical Background ………………………………………... 54 2.1.2 “Culture is Part of Nature in Any Case”: Cultural Evolution ……. 63 2.1.3 Ascent of Woman ………………………………….……………… 81 2.1.4 The Language Barrier: Beasts and Men …….…………………… 97 2.2 Dark Fiction: Futuristic Pessimism …………………………………….. 111 2.2.1 “To Whom It May Concern” ………………….………………… 121 2.2.2 “The Immortal Fish” ………………………………………….…. 123 2.2.3 “Delphi Revisited” ……………………………………….……… 127 2.2.4 “Birdpeople” …………………………………………….………. 130 CHAPTER 3: UTOPIAN OPTIMISM: THE OCEAN AS A LABORATORY FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER ……………………………………………….…………….……… 135 3.1 Historical Background …………………………………………………. 135 3.1.1 Competing Narratives: The Common Heritage of Mankind and Sustainable Development ……………………………………….. 135 3.1.2 Ocean Frontiers and Chairworm & Supershark ………………... 175 3.1.3 Arvid Pardo’s Tale of the Deep Sea …………………………….. 184 3.2 Elisabeth Mann Borgese’s Cultural Ecology ………………………….. 207 iii 3.2.1 Law: From the Deep Seabed via Ocean Space towards World Communities ……………………………………………………. 207 3.2.2 Economics ………………………………………………………. 244 3.2.3 Science and Education: The Need for Interdisciplinarity ………. -
Holism in Deep Ecology and Gaia-Theory: a Contribution to Eco-Geological
M. Katičić Holism in Deep Ecology and Gaia-Theory: A Contribution to Eco-Geological... ISSN 1848-0071 UDC 171+179.3=111 Recieved: 2013-02-25 Accepted: 2013-03-25 Original scientific paper HOLISM IN DEEP ECOLOGY AND GAIA-THEORY: A CONTRIBUTION TO ECO-GEOLOGICAL SCIENCE, A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE OR A NEW AGE STREAM? MARINA KATINIĆ Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia e-mail: [email protected] In the second half of 20th century three approaches to phenomenon of life and environmental crisis relying to a holistic method arose: ecosophy that gave impetus to the deep ecology movement, Gaia-hypothesis that evolved into an acceptable scientific theory and gaianism as one of the New Age spiritual streams. All of this approaches have had different methodologies, but came to analogous conclusions on relation man-ecosystem. The goal of the paper is to introduce the three approaches' theoretical and practical outcomes, compare them and evaluate their potency to stranghten responsibility of man towards Earth ecosystem which is a self-regulating whole which humanity is part of. Key words: holism, ecosophy, deep ecology movement, gaia-theory, new age, responsibility. Holizam u dubinskoj ekologiji i teoriji Geje: doprinos ekogeološkoj znanosti, filozofija života ili struja New agea? U drugoj polovici 20. stoljeća pojavila su se tri pristupa fenomenu života i ekološkoj krizi s osloncem u holističkoj metodi: ekozofija koja je dala poticaj razvoju pokreta dubinske ekologije, hipoteza Geje koja se razvila u prihvatljivu znanstvenu teoriju i gajanizam kao jedna od New Age duhovnih struja. Ova su se tri pristupa služila različitim metodama, no došla su do analognih zaključaka o odnosu čovjek-ekosustav. -
Destined for Shamanic Inspiration. an Integrative Study of Buryat (Neo)Shamans
109 Destined for Shamanic Inspiration. An Integrative Study of Buryat (Neo)Shamans Valentina Kharitonova and Yulia Ukraintseva Introduction Altered states of consciousness (ASCs) experienced from time to time by people of creative professions, adepts of different religious and magical- mystical cults, people taking hallucinogenic, narcotic, alcoholic drugs, and individuals with mental issues or diseases, attract more and more interest of researchers in various scientific areas. In this respect the research field of ethnology and folklore studies allows to study (in collaboration with neurophysiologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc.) adepts of various religious and magical-mystical practices (including shamanism), performers of epic songs, storytellers - to number several of them. At present this field includes, first of all, neo-shamans1, folk healers and adepts of some neo religious movements (Kharitonova et al. 2008). All of them quite knowingly resort to ASCs, many of them do this not out of mere curiosity, but feeling a need to experience these states. Among above mentioned practitioners there are people who fall hostage to ASCs, because, on the one hand, their organisms can not function normally 1 In the context o f Russia the term neo-shaman is used in relation to representatives of those peoples who have had well-developed shamanism until quite recently. These people, as a rule, resorted to the shamanic practice of their ethnic tradition indirectly in the context of “rebirth of shamanism” by attending courses of healing, magic, bioenergotherapy, or learning from any of the “new shamans”. The term urban shaman is used to refer to representatives of non-shamanic ethnic groups practicing in big Russian cities (for details see: Kharitonova 2006). -
The Prophet of Climate Change James Lovelock Rolling Stone
The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock : Rolling Stone 4/14/10 6:53 AM Advertisement PRINTER FRIENDLY URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock Rollingstone.com Back to The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible — and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century JEFF GOODELL Posted Nov 01, 2007 2:20 PM ADVERTISEMENT At the age of eighty-eight, after four children and a long and respected career as one of the twentieth century's most influential scientists, James Lovelock has come to an unsettling conclusion: The human race is doomed. "I wish I could be more hopeful," he tells me one sunny morning as we walk through a park in Oslo, where he is giving a talk at a university. Lovelock is a small man, unfailingly polite, with white hair and round, owlish glasses. His step is jaunty, his mind lively, his manner anything but gloomy. In fact, the coming of the Four Horsemen -- war, famine, pestilence and death -- seems to perk him up. "It will be a dark time," Lovelock admits. "But for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting." In Lovelock's view, the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us will soon become obvious. By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. -
Liberation Ecology
August 2016 Liberation Ecology An Interview with Leonardo Boff Theology can play a central role in defining the moral fiber of a society, including its commitment to poverty alleviation and stewardship of Earth. Allen White, Senior Fellow at Tellus Institute, talks with Leonardo Boff, a founder of liberation theology, about the origins of the movement and the vital connections between ecology and social justice. Half a century ago, you were among a small group of theologians who were instrumental in conceptualizing liberation theology. What spurred this synthesis of thought and action that challenged the orthodoxy of both Church and State? Liberation theology is not a discipline. It is a different way of practicing theology. It does not start from existing theological traditions and then focus on the poor and excluded populations of society. Its core is the struggle of the poor to free themselves from the conditions of poverty. Liberation theology does not seek to act for the poor via welfarism or paternalism. Instead, it seeks to act with the poor to tap their wisdom in changing their life and livelihood. How, then, do we act with them? By seeing the poor and oppressed through their own eyes, not with those of an outsider. We must discover and understand their values, such as solidarity and the joy of living, which to some extent have been lost by society’s privileged. Some of those who subscribe to liberation theology choose to live like the poor, sharing life in the slums and participating in residents’ organizations and projects. This method can be described as “see, judge, act, and celebrate.” Seeing the reality of the poor firsthand awakens an outsider to the inadequacy of his perceptions and doctrines for judging it and how to change it. -
28/9 N+Vs Layoutmx
news and views mophilic Archaea? The explanation is three- transfer of smaller gene fragments between Daedalus fold and lies in the intense interest in the bio- species tends to be more common, raising chemistry of these unusual organisms, in the the question of why this seems not to have Talking to animals possibility that they represent the earliest happened for T. acidophilum. forms of life, and in the biotechnological One issue can be almost settled by the Last week Daedalus presented his mobile potential of their genes and gene products. details of this new genome sequence: whether ‘Ultraphone’ for silent speech. The user Thermoplasma acidophilum has one of T. acidophilum is an ancestor of eukaryotic whispers or mouths his message silently. the smallest of the archaeal genomes to have cells. Ruepp et al. compared T. acidophilum His voiced tone is replaced by an inaudible been sequenced so far. Even so, the speed at genes with those in bacterial and eukaryotic ultrasonic tone launched into his mouth. which Ruepp et al.1 sequenced the genome databases. The results show that, if anything, His tongue and palate modulate this into was remarkable. The full sequence of over the T. acidophilum genes are more similar to inaudible ultrasonic speech. A heterodyne 1.5 million base pairs was obtained from bacterial genes than to eukaryotic ones. Key circuit downshifts it back to an audio only 7,855 sequencing reactions — an effec- ‘marker’ genes found in eukaryotes (such as signal, which is transmitted. tive yield of 199 base pairs per reaction, genes encoding subunits of the nuclear pore Daedalus now has a biological use for compared with the 66 base pairs per reaction complex) are not found in the T.acidophilum the technique. -
Clairvoyance by C.W
Clairvoyance by C.W. Leadbeater Clairvoyance by C.W. Leadbeater Published in 1899 London: The Theosophical Publishing Society 26, Charing Cross, S.W. Chapter -1- WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS Chapter -2- SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL Chapter -3- SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: PARTIAL Chapter -4- CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL Chapter -5- CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: SEMI-INTENTIONAL Chapter -6- CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: UNINTENTIONAL Chapter -7- CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST Chapter -8- CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE Chapter -9- METHODS OF DEVELOPMENT Page 1 Clairvoyance by C.W. Leadbeater Chapter -1- WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS [Page 5] Clairvoyance means literally nothing more than "clear seeing", and it is a word which has been sorely misused, and even degraded so far as to be employed to describe the trickery of a mountebank in a variety show. Even in its more restricted sense it covers a wide range of phenomena, differing so greatly in character that it is not easy to give a definition of the word which shall be at once succinct and accurate. It has been called "spiritual vision", but no rendering could well be more misleading than that, for in the vast majority of cases there is no faculty connected with it which has the slightest claim to be honoured by so lofty a name. For the purpose of this treatise we may, perhaps, define it as the power to see what is hidden from ordinary physical sight. It will be as well to premise that it is very frequently ( though by no means always ) accompanied by what is called clairaudience, or the power to hear what would be inaudible to the ordinary physical [Page 6] ear; and we will for the nonce take our title as covering this faculty also, in order to avoid the clumsiness of perpetually using two long words where one will suffice. -
Leadership Intuition Meets the Future of Work
How Well Do Executives Trust Their Intuition? Leadership Intuition Meets the Future of Work 7 Leadership Intuition Meets the Future of Work Written by: David Dye Contributing Writers: Chiara Corso, Claradith Landry, Jennifer Rompre, Kyle Sandell, and William Tanner CONTENTS Shifting Society, Shifting Leadership Needs ................................................109 A Framework for Developing Informed Intuition .....................................112 Informed Intuition in Practice ......................................................................115 How to Develop Informed Intuition ............................................................119 Acknowledgments ..........................................................................................121 Notes ................................................................................................................121 “We’re gonna be in the Hudson,” the pilot said to air traffic control. The weather in New York on January 15, 2009 was pleasant, but the inside of the cockpit of US Airways Flight 1549 was anything but. As the plane plummeted toward the river, the automated proximity warning system chanted, Pull up! Pull up! Pull up! “Got flaps out,” said the co-pilot. “You want more?” Pull up! Pull up! Pull up! “No, let’s stay at two,” the pilot replied. Caution, terrain! Pull up! Pull up! Pull up! “This is the captain,” he announced over the intercom. “Brace for impact.” Terrain! Terrain! Pull up! Pull up! He turned to his co-pilot. “Got any ideas?” Pull up! Pull up! Pull up! -
The Natural Power of Intuition
THE NATURAL POWER OF INTUITION: EXPLORING THE FORMATIVE DIMENSIONS OF INTUITION IN THE PRACTICES OF THREE VISUAL ARTISTS AND THREE BUSINESS EXECUTIVES by Jessica Jagtiani Dissertation Committee: Professor Judith Burton, Sponsor Professor Mary Hafeli Approved by the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Education Date 16 May 2018 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education in Teachers College, Columbia University 2018 ABSTRACT THE NATURAL POWER OF INTUITION: EXPLORING THE FORMATIVE DIMENSIONS OF INTUITION IN THE PRACTICES OF THREE VISUAL ARTISTS AND THREE BUSINESS EXECUTIVES Jessica Jagtiani Both artists and business executives state the importance of intuition in their professional practice. Current research suggests that intuition plays a significant role in cognition, decision-making, and creativity. Intuitive perception is beneficial to management, entrepreneurship, learning, medical diagnosis, healing, spiritual growth, and overall well-being, and is furthermore, more accurate than deliberative thought under complex conditions. Accordingly, acquiring intuitive faculties seems indispensable amid present day’s fast-paced multifaceted society and growing complexity. Today, there is an overall rising interest in intuition and an existing pool of research on intuition in management, but interestingly an absence of research on intuition in the field of art. This qualitative-phenomenological study explores the experience of intuition in both professional practices in order to show comparability and extend the base of intuition, while at the same time revealing what is unique about its emergence in art practice. Data gathered from semi-structured interviews and online-journals provided the participants’ experience of intuition and are presented through individual portraits, including an introduction to their work, their worldview, and the experiences of intuition in their lives and professional practice. -
1. What Is Sustainability?
1. What Is Sustainability? Further Reading Articles, Chapters, and Papers Barnofsky, Anthony D. et al. “Approaching a State Shift in Earth’s Biosphere.” Nature (June 7, 2012): 52–58. A review of evidence that, as with individual ecosystems, the global ecosystem as a whole can shift abruptly and irreversibly into a new state once critical thresholds are crossed, and that it is approaching a critical threshold as a result of human influence, and that there is a need to improve the detecting of early warning signs of state shift. Boström, Magnus, ed. “Special Issue: A Missing Pillar? Challenges in Theorizing and Practicing Social Sustainability.” Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy, vol. 8 no. 12 (winter 2012). Brown, J. and M. Purcell. “There’s Nothing Inherent about Scale: Political Ecology, the Local Trap, and the Politics of Development in the Brazilian Amazon.” Geoforum, vol. 36 (2005): 607–24. Clark, William C. “Sustainability Science: A Room of Its Own.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104 no. 6 (February 6, 2007):1737–38. A report on the development of sustainability science as a maturing field with a core research agenda, methodologies, and universities teaching its methods and findings. Costanza, Robert et al. “The Value of the World’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital.” Nature, vol. 387 (1997): 253–60. Estimates the current economic value of 17 ecosystem services based on both published research and original calculations. Ehrlich, Paul R., Peter M. Kareiva, and Gretchen C. Daily. “Securing Natural Capital and Expanding Equity to Rescale Civilization.” Nature, vol. 486 (June 2012): 68–73. -
Coincidences, Intuition, and Spirituality
Coincidences, Intuition, and Spirituality Sheryl Attig, PhD, MTS; Gary E. Schwartz, PhD; Aurelio Jose Figueredo, PhD; W. Jake Jacobs, PhD; and K.C. Bryson, MSPH ntuition is an elusive phenomenon. There is still much to understand about Iit, such as what causes one person to be more intuitive than another. Is it something an individual is born with or something an individual must learn? What is known is that intuition is a way of perceiving the world that is fast, automatic, associative, and separate from reason. In its most ex- treme form, intuition is a psychic ability, a sixth sense. It occurs immediately, has an emotional aspect to it, and the individual experiencing it may not be conscious of it or be able to use language to describe the experience. Intuition is one means by which “weird” coincidences may be un- © iStockphoto.com derstood, yet little is understood about the relationship between them. Intuitive people report paranormal (telepathic experiences concerning other beliefs, experiences, and abilities1 — a people) of the WCS-2 and the faith in in- “…dissolution of the limits usually per- tuition factor on the Rational-Experiential Sheryl Attig, PhD, MTS, is Instructor of Psychol- ceived between the body and the exterior Inventory-R (RREI).6 They also report the ogy, TriCounty Technical College, Pendleton, SC. space”2 — and are more likely to endorse agentic factor (weird coincidences in work Gary E. Schwartz, PhD, is Professor of Psychology, a metaphysical worldview.3 In weird co- and education) positively correlated with Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry, and Surgery, incidences, a concept fi rst proposed by faith in intuition.6 Similarly, those having The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.