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Currently the blog contains 113 entries.
Prosperity without growth
If there is one thing that is completely unarguable about how the future will need to pan out, IF we are going to a viable species in the long-term, it is that we will move beyond a paradigm for living that REQUIRES incessant growth. We KNOW that this change must come to pass because infinite growth on a finite planet, with finite resources, is impossible. It is arguably essential to maintain economic growth while the population is growing, but BOTH will have to stabilise, if we are to be sustainable.
Here is a publication that everyone should read:
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf
Everyone should read it because it is all very well saying that we need to move beyond a growth-based paradigm, but we must then spell out HOW this is going to work. The above document goes some way to answering that question. Here is a quote from the Foreword to the document:
"Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.
This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity has no historical precedent. It’s totally at odds with our scientific knowledge of the finite resource base and the fragile ecology on which we depend for survival. And it has already been accompanied by the degradation of an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems.
For the most part, we avoid the stark reality of these numbers. The default assumption is that– financial crises aside – growth will continue indefinitely. Not just for the poorest countries, where a better quality of life is undeniably needed, but even for the richest nations where the cornucopia of material wealth adds little to happiness and is beginning to threaten the foundations of our wellbeing.
The reasons for this collective blindness are easy enough to find. The modern economy is structurally reliant on economic growth for its stability. When growth falters – as it has done recently – politicians panic. Businesses struggle to survive. People lose their jobs and sometimes their homes. A spiral of recession looms. Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must. The myth of growth has failed us. It has failed the two billion people who still live on less than $2 a day. It has failed the fragile ecological systems on which we depend for survival. It has failed, spectacularly, in its own terms, to provide economic stability and secure people’s livelihoods."
Tim Jackson, Economics Commissioner, Sustainable Development Commission, March 2009
An interesting account of dowsing
The below account of an experience of dowsing helping retrieve a stolen object is fascinating. The speaker is Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, author of Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism and the Extraordinary Powers of the Human Mind. She is a psychoanalyst - writing the book seems to have been in large part a response to this anomalous experience.
An Investigation into Out-of-Body Experiences
What has always been fascinating to me are the books and texts about unimaginable spiritual things, written through experience, but without a well-defined source of where this information came from. If we look carefully, we can see that there have only really been a small number of these books throughout the history of mankind. On the other hand we have myriads of books that are discussions, ideas or studies about the things that these books have spoken of; some which contain brilliant theories and concepts. However, when you begin to read them, you can very easily see the difference between the first kind of books and the latter kind. The original ones touch you in a completely different way, I would say in a spiritual way, a deep touch in your heart, talking to your consciousness in a way that you cannot explain. The other ones touch your mind, creating complex ideas and processes that are intriguing and fascinating, but most of the times not truly profound. They can also touch your feelings, but this is a 'touch' in a more crude way not in a deep, elegant way. And I have seen how easy it is to get fascinated with the mind processes that this kind of touch creates, and how you can get trapped in a false reality created by you, a self-fascination which will even alter anything that you perceive through your senses.
Richard Dawkins and the birth of consciousness.
I thought I would post this correspondence with myself and “The Forum” on Richard Dawkins’ website, on the Scimednet forum and see whether I get more intelligent discussion.
Quantum coherence in living organisms at room temperature - Implications for quantum computing and quantum consciousness
A paper in the leading peer-reviewed journal 'Nature' refutes what has been the central tenet of the argument against quantum consciousness theories, to the effect that quantum coherence could not be sustained in living matter for long enough to play any role in its processing. It seems possible that this low-key paper could in time come to be seen as one of the decisive studies of the 21st century. This work shows that room-temperature quantum coherence can occur in biological matter, in contradiction of the previous dogma that this was impossible. In 2007, Engel et al had shown that coherence was possible in organic matter, but this was only demonstrated at very low temperatures, whereas the latest study by Elizabetta Collini et al demonstrates similar activity at ambient temperature.
Enlightened Prince
Prince Charles has now declared himself an enemy of the Enlightenment http :// www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7013764.ece . He doesn’t say which of its fruits he dislikes; whether it be free speech, modern science, liberal democracy, human rights (abolition of slavery), women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights or the constitution of the United States; and neither does he say with what he would replace reason as the guiding principle – except perhaps some vague concept of ‘holism’, too ill-defined to be capable of being judged rational or not. But he thinks that the time has come for Enlightenment ideas, now two hundred years old, to be re-examined (never mind that those of hereditary monarchy are even older).
What I doubt that he realizes though is that these ideas are being examined and developed by a lot of serious people. As one example, I would commend http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-enlightenment-2-0 This was an event that took place a couple of years ago, and involved over thirty world-class speakers. The introductory blurb says the following:
The aim of Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0 is to invite participants to undertake together an ongoing reconnaissance of Enlightenment ideas in the light of advances in primarily cognitive neurosciences, evolutionary biology, physics etc. though not by any means scanting history, philosophy, law. The word reconnaissance is used advisedly. The hope is to explore our current sense of Reason, Truth, Belief, Human Nature, Progress, Virtue and the Good Life in this light. It could be argued that the Enlightenment was not quite the disaster that some critics have suggested, and that version 2.0, and subsequent releases, could conceivably be a dynamic improvement if we set our minds to it, guided by that eudaemonic impulse.
It was a three day event, so will require stamina to watch it all, but just dipping in would be worthwhile.
Lecture for the Society For Psychical Research - Thursday 4th February 2010
Some of you may have read the review of my book "The Daemon - A Guide To Your Extraordinary Secret Self" in the latest edition of Network Review. If this has interested you in my "angle" on things you may be interested to know that the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) are also intrigued by the implications of my "Cheating The Ferryman" hypothesis and have invited to give a talk for them in the lecture room at Kensington Central Library. This will take place tomorrow (Thursday 4th February 2010) starting at 1835. I will be talking for about an hour and then there will be the opportunity for questions and a short mingling session over tea and biscuits. This will finish at 21:00. This is a fully "open" event so if you have nothing better to do why not pop along?
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