Great truths are simple and self evident, known but not realised. Humanity's capacity to understand storage is such a truth. It has huge social significance. It seeded humanity's distinctness. It formed the foundation of civilisation. It provided the impetus for modern society. It offers post modern society a way to consciously re-integrate with the “Way” of a universe we never left.
The Universe's “Way” concentrates on process not form. Processes are eternal. Form is a temporary manifestations of a process. Processes are experienced not seen. Humans re-discover this regularly. The impact of these re-discoveries are profound. Lao Tse's 2500 year ago wrote the “Tao Te Ching”. This encapsulates “the World the Universe and Everything” as a process. In this work the inquiring mind finds everything from the big bang through agricultural and military technology to “modern” thought on geology and leadership. It may be short but it is inspiring.
Humanity is well constructed to know and understand . Modernist thinking discourages faith in what we envision, understand and feel. Instead we are encouraged to believe in what we see, know and touch. We suspend belief in the unobservable. We then fail to understand what we know yet we need to know what we understand.
From the right point of view this is achievable. We can be aware of the processes creating what we see and know. Seen forms are a fleeting manifestation of processes. Those on the Way are eternal. Observed forms are temporary but renewed. Forms are the fruits of processes as mushrooms are the fruits of fungi. The fruits can be seen. The processes creating them can not. A fungi may invest a field. We only see are a few scattered mushrooms as temporary derivatives of the fungi's process..
Humanity is such a fleeting form. Compared to dinosaurs we are as nothing in our planet's story. The dinosaurs as a form, form a tiny part of our planet's story. Our planet is a stripling compared to the age of the solar system. The solar system is of minor relevance on the periphery of a galaxy. This is one of billions scattered across the universe. The Way is the process creating all this: the universe, galactic clusters, our galaxy, our star, the sun, our planet, us.
This route was taken by Lao Tse, Newton, Einstein and others. On it the creation story in the bible is accurate. On it time has little meaning. The “Big Bang” theory of the universe's creation now holds sway. This suggests that the processes of creation came into being in a very short space of time. Seven days may be too long. The creation of men and women was from indeed from the earth, the physically observable matter of the universe . The sequences by which life, and mankind, came into being are as in Genesis.
Seeing creation as distinct from science is to deny the word of God. Science affirms the reality of that understanding. There is no contradiction. People who think they know contradict those who understand. Those who understand contradict those who know. Humanity both knows and understands. Humanity is right. Literal creationists and evolutionary evangelicals are both wrong.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
Storage Know How and the “Way” of the Universe: 存贮知道怎么和"方式" 宇宙 巨大真相是简单和不言而喻的
Storage Know How and the “Way” of the Universe
Great truths are simple and self evident. Often they are seen but not realised. In this category is our capacity to understand storage. The social significance of this is massive. It was the seed of humanities distinctness and the basis of our human civilisation. It was the basis for modern society. It provides the means for our post modern reintegration into the “Way” of a universe we never left.
Until 10000 years ago we were hunter gatherers. Closely integrated with our environment. We lived on the same time frame as what we used to exist. We ate what we found. Our planet's plenty was available free dependent on our place of being and the seasons. We ate meat, fruit and vegetables. Our bodies do not store these as fat . They cannot be stored externally. They putrefy and go bad. A small amount of our food was storable, carbohydrates, grains, sugar etc. These do not putrefy. Our bodies can convert them to fat . They can be stored.
Such foods are not naturally produced in usable form in quantity suitable to sustain human survival. They have to be cultivated. Left to nature they exist in sufficient quantity to store only a small amount as body fat. This can sustain us when other food is scarce. As hunter gatherers if lucky we might find sufficient to store a little directly. The Garden of Eden provided us with a sufficiency that included a means of storing usable sustenance when other sources were sparse.
In this world property was without meaning. Everything was free from nature. In the Garden of Eden nothing self evidently existed in a particular form except fleetingly. Each form was a short term by-product of the process of being. All that found sufficient to exist did so for an allotted time and passed away. On human time scales the universe, nature and humanity may appeared to have then been in perfect balance. This is an unhelpfully false perception.
It ignores nature, the “Way”, of the Universe, a process not a form. Human insight comes from gaining perspectives enabling one to see its flows apart from the forms it momentarily creates.
On the “Way” a moment must be seen in cosmic proportions. On these our planet' existence is a fleeting event. The form we call life on it is of even less significance and within that a distinct human life form is barely noticeable and within humanity's ambience modern civilization is a trivially short experience hardly worthy of comment
This is written by a Britain from Reading, a city 40 miles West of London who now lives in Suzhou a Chinese city, 40 miles West of Shanghai. London could just claim a visible history of 2000 years Reading perhaps 1000. In holistic human terms these two cities have only been of any great socio-economic significance for 500 and 200 years respectively. Suzhou is frequently referred to by Confucius 2500 years ago as the capital of the Kingdom of Wu. It remains socially and economically significant to this day.
Americans are overwhelmed by European historical perspective. They will be shocked when China bursts into global perception during the 2008 Olympiad. This event has origin in a European civilisation with roots as old as those of China's but unlike China's the civilisation they supported no longer exists physically except as ruins but its stored unseen ideas permeate our lives to this day.
Like Reading Suzhou is close to a great modern metropolis, Shanghai. This was a fishing village 200 years ago when the British created it. It is now a significant global city. From a Chinese perspective it is a very recent Western intrusion of short term significance to their way of being..
In planetary terms these historical perspectives distort reality. Global warming could drown three of these cities this century. In cosmic terms this is hardly worthy of comment. To see things from these three points of view, human, planetary and cosmic, matters. Understanding the significance to humanity of our capacity to learn how to store actively can be seen in its truth depth only when viewed simultaneously from all three. Our capacity to consciously store the surpluses created on the “Way” can then be perceived as highly relevant to our species perceived integration with it.
Humans noted that seeds carelessly scattered when gathering a natural crop gave a renewed resource a year on. From this we learned, to nurture such occurrences, cultivation. Cultivating, farming storable carbohydrates, freed us from a day to day perspective based on seasonal local availability. Crops grow on an annual, solar, cycle. Our perspective became, solar and celestial rather not merely lunar and seasonal.
Crops can be grown in quantity and stored. Long, now extinct civilisations, depended on this. Moses demonstrated its truths to the Egyptians. The Assyrian's accounting tablets and the Incas knot records testify to the social significance of such know how. Recording and accounting were required not just expression. Only one civilisation based on this form of being lasted intact to the present day, China.
This approach to being requires sustainable propriety in land. This demands new social institution to protect it and its produce. Wealth invested in farming, irrigation, seed grain, fertilizer, and storing its products grain silos etc. need protecting from nature and people
The wealth created and stored does violence to natural order. It exclude people and nature from its bounty. Plants other than those cultivated become weeds and creatures that wish to feed on them become pests and people who seek to acquire them outside the rules of the society that creates them become criminals and enemies to be suppressed or eliminated along with the weeds and pests.
A state with access to significant lethal force is required to protect such wealth's accumulation and subsequent storage. Access to it other than by those granted the privilege has to be prevented. Plants, animals and people standing in the way of that or seeking to challenge need to be ruthlessly neutered or eliminated for the system to be successful. Plants become weeds, animals vermin and people other than your own enemies all to be ruthlessly eliminated in the interest of survival.
Without storable property protective communal investment is unnecessary. No incentive exists to acquire an unknown foraging area from a hunter gatherer. Once acquired it is of little use unless you know how to exploit it. Without modern technology could any of us, other than Eskimos and Bushmen, live in the Arctic or the Kalahari Desert? The “know how” required to survive as a hunter gatherer is in the communal experience of the people who occupy a place. Unique local “know how”, accumulated, learned and stored communally is the intellectual property required to exploit a place. This is not immediately available to any aspiring usurper.
Internal policing of a hunter gather groups intellectual and other property was not necessary. While all those with strength within such groups could take things by force from others but those others could also easily exclude them from the nurture and security the group offered. In the hostile day to day environment they lived in without such support and protection death was certain. To be injured or ill and be on your own meant death. To this day when symbolic excluded from their group by having a bone pointed at them Australian aboriginal simply lie down and die. In such a social context exclusion from a group is to be feared as much as physical violence.
It is to be noted that such a system puts men and women on an equal footing of power. In such a context brutish violent behaviour to obtain an end, including procreation, was not a viable strategy. Those using it were easily excluded from support and succour and so consigned to death.
Societies based on cultivation are different. They are based on propriety and the power it provides. Those with it use exclusion as the means to their ends. They have to practice violence to sustain it. Propriety excludes some from access. Violent acquisition leaves a usurper in possession of immediately usable wealth. Knowledge (intellectual property) on farming is publicly available. The written or recorded language such societies acquire for accounting purposes ensures this knowledge is stored. Such knowledge is not exclusive to those with particular local knowledge. An agricultural usurper acquires a resource that can be exploited quickly and immediately usable stored sustenance.
In this new social system socially organised violence was necessary to protect what one had. For similar reasons violence is a viable means of obtaining sustenance and procreating new societies based upon your own. The basic social entities had changed from globally diverse locally cohesive communally run groups to societies, states, based on the use of violent ruthless exclusion as means to protect what they had from the understandable self righteous violence of others.
In such a world war is the natural tool societies use to penetrate others to procreate their way of being. By these means the Way develops new sustainable approach to wealth creation and accumulation. In such a world women move from being equal partners in power to being property.
To be sustainable such societies needed to be larger than other similar ones. They need to afford to overwhelm any potential usurpers by force of arms. To be large requires an exceedingly stable and effective system of administration sustained over time.
The West never discovered such a system. It was plagued by wars, rape and pillage China found the Confucian and Taoist “Way” of stably achieving the required result and so being effective in agricultural. This extolled family stability and obedience echoed in, and modelled in the impartial behaviour of state officials appointed on the basis of merit not influence. It worked. China became, and remained for centuries, the sole continuing success story of the agricultural system. Family stability and the administrative system described dissipated disruptive social behaviour and provided an unchallengeable foundation for wealth and power creation.
To escape from the constraints required to achieve the stability necessary to sustain a successful agriculturally based system mankind had to discover ways to store and use sustenance not dependent on agriculture's annual solar cycle. It did so.
Over the billions of years of our planet's existence natural forces, on the Way, had created a short term means to break out of this suppressive annual solar cycle. Our planet of itself, in response to the energy extracted from and sent to it, electromagnetically and gravitationally, from the solar system, had fossilized some putrefying biological material and created concentrated useful stores of many minerals. Gravitation and plate tectonics built mountains, deep oceans and river systems. These provided sources of continuously renewable energy from the wind and the gravitational descent of water. This initially powered the ships and mills required to kick start the modern industrial age..
However these are especially fickle sources of power. Fossil fuels, the steam and then the petrol/diesel, engine were necessary before humanity could break out of the constraints set by the annual solar cycle. The capitalist system required to achieve all of this is truly modern being born a mere 200 years ago in the UK. Its leadership moved to the USA in the 20th Century. There people from all over the planet transplanted themselves. From this melting pot emerged an accumulation of scientific and technological know how on planetary exploitation and storage unprecedented in human history. This produced sustenance sufficient to human welfare unconstrained by the bounds set by our planet and the solar systems capacity to make sustenance naturally available to us.
In the 200 years since we discovered how to exploit and temporarily store the accumulated energy of our planet we have learned ho to use up resources accumulated over the whole of its existence. To achieve this required us to acquire entirely new ways of thinking, learning, accumulating, storing and communicating knowledge and know how. So to give birth to the modern, machine, age we simultaneously sowed the seeds necessary for the birth of what we call the post modern era..
The modern, machine based, age is reliant on new ways of acquiring, storing and distributing knowledge. #however to make that knowledge usefully it has to be physically embodied in machines that exploit our planets stored resources. This is unsustainable. It has been at a rate out of proportion to our planet and our solar system capacity to replace it in currently accessible form.
To work this system requires, respectively, considerable knowledge accumulation then population growth. This is necessary to provide the understanding then the means to first identify then exploit planetary resources. In this modern era the UK, then Europe then the USA and later North East Asia have been able to grow at unprecedented rates despite a consequent series of destructive wars. These wars should be seen as distinct from those typical in the day of agriculturally based empires.
They were not about the exclusiveness required for the agricultural system to work but about inclusiveness. The volumes of knowledge and people required to achieve such modernity requires wealth created by capital invested in machines. This process is only economically viable with stable access to large supplies of food, diverse mineral resources and large numbers of consumers for the resulting goods all dispersed haphazardly across the planet in a manner unrelated to political boundaries defined for the convenience of agriculturally based states. The variety and volume of resources required were not available within the ambience of any existing agricultural state.
The initial solution to this conundrum was imperialism.. This quickly proved uneconomic as first described by Adam Smith in “the Wealth of Nations (1776). As a result we had what was called the Pax Brittanica in the 19th Century. And a Pax Americana in the 20th Century. Paradoxically these both led to many wars. These wars were not politically imperialistic. They were about free trade, keeping sea routes and access to trade with all states open to everyone. Any attempts at exclusivity was fiercely resisted by those interested in free competitive trade, the UK and the USA. Some states tried to copy the earlier abandoned imperialistic approach. These states, Germany and Japan, found themselves in conflict with the emerging consensus.
Other states such as China found themselves after 2000 years of unchallenged power rudely awakened from their approach to security. They were forced by those with technological superiority to accept, “free trade” In relation to the UK this meant China accepting the right of British companies first to buy and sell through the ports they established at Shanghai and Hong Kong and later being forced to allow British companies to sell opium to their citizens. This trade by today's standards is morally indefensibly and even by 19th Century standards difficult to justify.
To exploit the planets stored resources effectively considerable violence needed to be deployed those who practised the indefensible policy of armed exclusion of humanity and nature from their territory. The new system sought to open up their borders not through violent insertion of foreign politically imperialistic rule but by soliciting acceptance of the advantages of mutually beneficial trade. In the end this system of trade has outwardly benefited all who have indulged in it.
By the mid 1990s the Japanese had succeeded beyond their wildest imperialistic dreams of penetrating and owning huge business in Korea, China, Taiwan, Hawaii, the US West Coast and Australia. They had previously tried to acquire such access unsuccessfully using force force. through trade and business they gained all they intended by force and more.
System derived from communal and personal security which drove individuals and societies to continuously seek out new ways of being. However all this activity was based on acquiring knowledge about how to exploit the resources created by our planet. These are essentially finite.
In the late twentieth century all this changed. We discovered the nature of the processes driving the universe at both the nuclear and cosmic levels. We now know how to use and exploit the former. As yet we only know about the latter in principal. We have not yet managed to a find a way to tap into its infinity sustenance. In seeking both these in local national and international interests we have began to reach beyond our planet. To do so we needed to invent new technologies for computation and communication. For the first time these gave us a means to store and distribute know how instantly in huge volumes and so the present knowledge based age was born.
Knowledge is infinite in its capacity to sustain. It's production has in essence to be communal. Knowledge can only be of value if shared. Exclusivity of the type prevalent in the agricultural and machine ages cannot sustain its creation. It is not reliant on the seasonal cycle of availability, hunter gathers relied on, nor the annual solar cycle the agriculturalist used nor the accumulated capacity of our planet capitalists utilised. It can and does tap into the unbounded sustenance provided by the Way of the Universe.
The signs are that the lead in this new age could come from China. China knows how to operate communally from a socio-politically point of view. However it has a people with a penchant for finding individualistic opportunities to do business and make money by exploiting new ideas and new opportunities. They can do so in a manner that underpins the common good rather than undermining as does such behaviour in the USA.
存贮知道怎么和"方式" 宇宙 巨大真相是简单和不言而喻的
存贮知道怎么和"方式" 宇宙巨大真相是简单和不言而喻的。经常他们被看见但没体会。在这个类别是我们的容量了解存贮。这的社会意义是巨型的。这是人文学科不同和我们人的文明的依 据种子。这是为现代社会的依据。它为我们的岗位现代重新结合提供手段入"方式" 宇宙我们从未左。 直到10000 年前我们是猎人收集者。严密集成以我们的环境。我们居住在和一样的时间表什么我们曾经存在。我们吃了什么我们发现了。我们的行星的丰足依靠可利用的自由是 和季节我们的地方。我们吃了肉、水果和蔬菜。我们的身体不存放这些作为油脂。他们无法外在地被存放。他们腐化和去坏。小量我们的食物是可仓储, 碳水化合物、五谷, 糖等。这些不腐化。我们的身体可能转换他们成油脂。他们可能被存放。 这样食物自然地不被生产以能用的形式在数量适当承受人的生存。他们必须耕种。左边对自然他们存在在充足的数量存放唯一少量当体脂肪。这可能承受我们当其它 食物是缺乏的。当猎人收集者如果幸运我们也许发现充足少许直接地存放。伊甸园提供我们以包括存放能用的生计手段的充分当其它来源是稀稀落落的。 在这个世界里物产是没有意思。一切是从自然解脱。在伊甸园里没什么自已显然地存在了以特殊形式除了暂短。各个形式是过程的一个短期副产物的是。所有发现充 足存在做因此被定量的时间和通过了。在人的时间表宇宙、自然和人类可以看来然后是在完善的平衡。这是无用假的悟性。 它忽略自然, "方式", 宇宙, 过程不是形式。人的洞察来自具有观点实现一个人看它的流程除形式之外它短暂地创造。 在"途中" 片刻必须看在宇宙比例。在这些我们的行星' 存在是一次暂短事件。我们叫生活对此的形式是不太意义并且在那之内一个分明人生形式是几乎没有引人注目的并且在人类的气氛之内现代文明是琐细地短的经验几 乎不值得评论 这由不列颠从读书, 城市写40 英哩在现在住在Suzhou 中国城市的伦敦西边, 40 英哩在上海西边。伦敦能要求2000 年的可看见的历史读或许1000 年。用全部人术语这两个城市只是任一了不起的社会经济的意义500 和200 年各自。Suzhou 由Confucius 频繁地指2500 年前吴王国的资本。它保留社会上和经济上重大对这天。 美国人由European 历史眼光淹没。他们将被冲击当中国破裂入全球性悟性在2008 年期间奥林匹克运动会。这次事件象那些有起源在欧洲文明以根一样老中国的但不同于中国的文明他们支持完全不再存在除了作为废墟但它的被存放的未看见的想法 渗入我们的生活对这天。 象读书Suzhou 是紧挨一个伟大的现代大都会, 上海。这是一个渔村200 年前当英国创造了它。这现在是一个重大全球性城市。从中国透视这是非常最近西部闯入短期意义对他们的方式是。 用星球术语这些历史眼光变形现实。全球性变暖能淹没三这些城市本世纪。用宇宙术语这是几乎不值得的评论。看事物从这些三个问题的看法, 人, 星球和宇宙, 事态。了解意义对我们的容量人类学会怎么活跃地存放能被看见它的真相深度只当同时观看从所有三。我们的容量神志清楚地存放节余被创造在"途中" 可能然后被察觉象高度相关与我们的种类被察觉的综合化以它。 人注意到, 种子粗心大意地驱散了当会集一片自然庄稼给了一种更新的资源每年。从这我们学会, 哺育这样发生, 耕种。耕种, 种田可仓储的碳水化合物, 解救了我们从每日透视根据季节性地方可及性。庄稼增长在每年, 太阳, 周期。我们的透视宁可成为了, 太阳和神圣不仅仅月球和季节性。 庄稼可能种植在数量和被存放。长期, 现在绝种文明, 依靠这。Moses 给埃及人展示了它的真相。亚述人的会计片剂和印加人纪录作证对这样的社会意义的结知道怎么。录音和会计是必需的不仅表示。只一文明根据这个现在持续的形式 原封, 中国。 对是的这种方法要求能承受的适当在土地。这要求新社会制度保护它和它的产物。财富被投资在种田, 灌溉、种子五谷, 肥料, 和存放它的产品谷粮仓等需要保护免受自然和人 财富被创造和被存放做暴力对自然命令。它从它的富饶排除人和自然。植物不同于那些耕种了成为的杂草并且希望喂养在他们的生物成为寻求获取他们在社会规则之 外创造他们的虫和人们成为罪犯和敌人被压制或被消灭与杂草和虫一起。 一个状态以对重大致死的力量的通入必需保护这样的财富的储积和随后存贮。对它的通入除由那些之外授予了特权必须防止。植物、动物和人们妨碍那或寻求质询需 要被阉割或冷酷地被消灭使系统是成功的。植物适合杂草、动物寄生虫和人们不同于您自己的敌人全部冷酷地被消灭在生存的兴趣。 没有可仓储的物产防护共同投资是多余的。刺激不存在获取一个未知的搜寻区域从猎人收集者。一旦获取它有微不足道的作用除非您会利用它。没有现代技术能任何 我们, 除爱斯基摩人和丛林居民之外, 居住在Arctic 或Kalahari 沙漠吗? "知道怎么" 要求生存如同猎人收集者在占领地方人民的共同经验。独特的本机"知道怎么", 积累, 学会和共同地存放是知识产权必需利用地方。这立刻不供给任何令人想往的篡位者。 内部维持治安猎人聚集小组智力和其它物产不是必要的。当所有那些以力量在这样小组心头能采取事由力量从其他人但那些其他人能从哺育容易地并且排除他们并且 小组提供的安全。在敌对每日环境里他们居住没有这样的支持并且保护死亡肯定。被伤害或不适和是在您自己意味的死亡。对这天当象征性从他们的小组被排除由有 骨头指向他们澳大利亚原史简单地躺下和死。在这样的社会环境排除从小组将恐惧尽量人身侵犯。 它将注意到, 这样系统把人和妇女放在力量上一个同等立足处。在这样上下文粗野的猛烈行为获得一个末端, 包括生育, 不是一个可实行的战略。那些使用它从支持和succour 容易地被排除了和因此被寄售了对死亡。 社会根据耕种是不同的。他们根据它提供的适当和力量。那些与它用途排除作为手段对他们的末端。他们必须实践暴力承受它。适当从通入排除一些。猛烈承购留下 篡位者拥有立刻能用的财富。知识(知识产权) 在种田公开地是可利用的。这样社会获取为会计目的书面或记录的语言保证这知识被存放。这样的知识不是专属的对那些以特殊地方知识。一个农业篡位者获取可能 被利用迅速和立刻能用的被存放的生计的一种资源。 在这个新社会系统社会上组织的暴力是必要保护什么你有。为相似的原因暴力是获得生计和生育新社会可实行的手段根据您自己。基本的社会个体作为手段当地变成 了从全球性地不同的言词一致的共同地奔跑小组社会, 状态, 根据对猛烈冷酷的排除的用途保护什么他们有从其他人的可理解的自已公正的暴力。 在这样世界大战中是自然工具社会用途击穿其他人生育他们的方式是。通过这些手段方式开发新能承受的方法对财富创建和储积。这样世界妇女从是搬走相等的伙伴 在力量向是物产。 是能承受的这样社会需要大的比其它相似部分。他们需要能淹没所有潜在的篡位者由胳膊力量。是大的要求管理被承受的随时间一个极为稳定和有效的系统。 西方从未发现了这样一个系统。它被战争困扰了, 强奸和拆抢中国找到Confucian 和Taoist "方式" 稳定地达到必需的结果和如此是有效的在农业。这被赞颂的家庭稳定和守纪echoed, 和塑造了在官方陈述公平的行为被任命根据优点不是影响。这有效。中国成为了, 和几个世纪保留了, 农业系统的单一继续的成功故事。家庭稳定和行政系统描述了被驱散的破裂社会行为和假设一个unchallengeable 基础为财富和力量创作。 从限制逃脱必需达到稳定必要承受成功的农业上基于的系统人类必须发现方式存放和使用生计不依赖于农业的每年太阳周期。它如此。 在亿万几年我们的行星的存在自然力量, 在途中, 创造了一短期手段发生这个抑压每年太阳周期。我们的行星本身, 以回应能量被提取从和寄发到它, 电磁式和重心, 从太阳系, 僵化了一些化脓的生物材料和创造了许多矿物被集中的有用的商店。万有引力和板块构造建立了山、深海和河系。这些提供了源泉的连续可再造能源从风和水重心下 降。这最初地供给船动力并且磨房要求对反撞力开始现代工业年龄。 但是这些是特别是善变的源泉的力量。矿物燃料、蒸汽和然后petrol/diesel, 引擎是必要的在人类能发生限制由每年太阳周期设置之前。资本家系统必需达到所有这真实地是现代的被负担一仅仅200 年前在英国。它的领导行动了向美国在20 世纪。人们从到处行星那里移植了自己。从这个熔炉涌现了储积科学并且技术知道怎么在星球开发和存贮史无前例在人类历史上。这个导致的生计充足对人的福利无 了拘束由区域由我们的行星和太阳系容量设置使生计自然地可利用对我们。 在200 年自从我们发现了怎么利用和临时地存放我们的行星积累能量我们学会ho 用尽资源被积累在整体它的存在。达到这要求我们获取整个地新思维方式, 学会, 积累, 存放和通信知识和知道怎么。如此诞生现代, 机器, 年龄我们同时播种了种子必要为什么的诞生我们称岗位现代时代。 现代, 机器根据, 年龄是倚赖于获取, 存放和分布知识新方式# 然而做, 知识它必须完全有用地被实现在利用我们的行星被存放的资源的机器里。这是不能坚持的。它是以率在比例外面对我们的行星和我们的太阳系容量替换它以当前容易 接近的形式。 工作这个系统要求, 各自, 可观的知识储积然后人口增长。这是必要提供理解手段对首先然后辨认然后盘剥星球资源。在这个现代时代英国, 然后欧洲然后美国和最新北部东亚能增长以史无前例的率尽管破坏性的战争结果系列。这些战争应该看与那些相区别典型在天农业上基于的帝国。 他们是没有关于排他性必需为农业系统工作而是关于包括。知识和人的容量被要求达到这样的现代性要求财富由资本创造被投资在机器里。这个过程是只经济上可实 行的以对食物、不同的矿物资源和很大数量的消费者大供应的稳定的通入为收效的物品随便所有被分散横跨行星有些无关对政治界限被定义为农业上基于的状态方便 起见。资源的品种和容量必需不是可利用的在任何现有的农业状态之内气氛。 最初的对这道难题的解决办法是帝国主义。这依照由亚当・史密斯首先描述迅速证明了不经济在"财富国家(1776) 。结果我们有什么称Pax Brittanica 在19 世纪。并且Pax 美国在20 世纪。这些两个似是而非地导致了许多战争。这些战争政治上不是帝国主义的。他们是关于自由贸易, 保留海路并且对贸易的通入以所有状态对大家打开。所有企图在排他性由那些剧烈地抵抗了感兴趣对自由竞争贸易、英国和美国。一些状态设法复制及早被摒弃的帝 国主义的方法。这些状态, 德国和日本, 被发现自己在冲突以涌现的公众舆论。 其它状态譬如中国发现了自己在2000 年未受挑战的力量以后粗鲁被唤醒从他们的方法对安全。他们由那些被迫以技术优势接受, "自由贸易" 在联系到英国这意味中国首先接受他们建立在上海和洪・Kong 和以后被迫允许英国的公司卖鸦片对他们的公民英国的公司的权利买和卖通过口岸。这贸易由今天标准道德上无法防御是和由19 世纪标准难辩解。 剥削行星有效地存放了资源可观的暴力必要部署那些实践人类和自然武装的排除无法防御的政策从他们的疆土。新系统寻求政治上开放他们的疆界不是通过外国帝国 主义的规则的猛烈插入但由请求相互有利贸易好处的采纳。在最后这个贸易系统向外有益于所有沉溺于它。 在中间90 年代以前日本人成功在击穿和拥有之外巨大的事务他们最狂放的帝国主义的梦想在韩国, 中国, 台湾, 夏威夷, 美国西海岸和澳洲。他们早先设法不成功地获取这样的通入使用力量力量通过贸易并且事务他们获取了所有他们意欲由力量和更。 系统从驾驶个体和社会连续寻找新方式是的共同和个人安全获得了。但是所有这活动根据获取知识关于怎样利用资源由我们的行星创造。这些根本上有限。 在20 世纪晚期所有这改变了。我们发现了过程的本质驾驶宇宙在核和宇宙水平。我们现在会使用和剥削前。我们只知道关于后者在校长。我们未处理对发现一个方式轻拍 入它的无限生计。在寻找两这些在我们有的地方全国和国际兴趣开始到达在我们的行星之外。做如此我们需要发明新技术为计算和通信。这些第一次给了我们手段存 放并且分布知道多么立即在巨大的容量和当前知识基于的年龄如此出生。 知识是无限的在它的容量承受。这是生产实质上有是共同的。知识可能只有价值如果分享。型的排他性流行在农业和机器年龄无法承受它的创作。它不是倚赖于可及 性的季节性周期, 猎人聚集依靠了, 亦不每年太阳周期农业学家被使用亦不我们的行星资本家积累容量运用了。它能和轻拍入无边际的生计被提供顺便说一句宇宙。 标志是, 主角在这新年龄能来自中国。中国会共同地经营从一个社会政治观点。但是它有人以一个爱好为发现个人主义的机会做生意和挣金钱由利用新想法和新机会。他们能 做那么有些, 象这样的行为在美国加固大众的利益而不是破坏。
Sunday, December 31, 2006
A Global New Year on the Way in China: 一个全球性新年在途中在中国
A New Year has dawned here in China. I just awoke. We are seven and a half hours into it here. It is just half an hour before the New year rings out in my homeland Scotland. I feel so comfortable here in China. I almost said my former homeland. I now feel China is my home. I live in a very comfortable apartment in Suzhou tastefully furnished by my wonderful landlady and partner Gong Hui Hua.
I love the kids I and my colleagues teach at the IFY college in Number One School (Yi Zhong). We had a parents day the on Saturday. I told them that their children were not only smart but had good hearts and a capacity for work that truly astounds me. I felt that our future global commonwealth will be in good hands. A significant proportion of it will depend on their children am their fellow countryman's commitment to sustaining its effectiveness. I am sure they will be so committed.
We are staying in Shanghai at the truly beautiful Anting Villa Hotel 700 Yuan a night (£45 GBP) with a decor and setting to die for. The American and French Hotel chains have nothing to rival this in quality and or price. It is in the middle of the old French concession in Shanghai a great European cultural contribution to this great city. The concession is full of lovely broad boulevards and mansions similar in quality to this one.
Gong Hui Hua and I saw in the New Year in the company of our friend's in Shanghai Swing at the equally beautiful Chartres restaurant. We danced the night away till at least 4am. the setting was superb overlooking a magnificent garden and the floor was marble and to die for for dancing. We mainly danced to recording of the great bands of the swing era, Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Glen Millar and Bennie Goodman but two musician friends showed up and about 12.30 and played the night out for us with some great very very fast clarinet jazz. courtesy of the wonderful Mrt Pops.
She is a wonderful "follow". We have only danced a little together. She has only had one lesson in Lindy Hop but she learned the side by side Charleston and the Swing Out last night and performed both almost as well as she can move to her partners lead in ballroom and regular jive dancing. Wow! She is a knock out as a dancer, friend and in reality my wife.
She cooked a most wonderful 14 course dinner for my and my work colleagues celebration of Christmas last week and I set out to enjoy work every day catered for by her to a truly wonderful standard in every department of life that a husband could expect of his wife and more. She is never angry. She is always happy. She smiles all the time and manages to keep me the same way nearly continuously.
I say nearly because while I am well on top of defeating my own internal tensions and the deep rooted sources of anger that have haunted me, and those close to me, for most of my life. I have still not quite made it. I know with her I will. The Way through her has given me the opportunity to root them out for ever and truly enjoy the remainder of my life in a happy positive way radiating her and my happiness outwards for others in the way her smiling joy does for all who touch her. I know for certain I can now get to the same place. I can and am learning how to to keep her and all those around me as happy as I now feel most of the time.
My Chinese improves by leaps and bounds. She and I now regularly have enjoyable very simple happy amusing conversations. Soon I know our electronic dictionary will become a support to our verbal communication as opposed to its main channel and by them I am certain our verbal capacity for relating will reach and surpass our currently highly effective parallel physical, emotional and spiritual channels.
I have truly found my home here in China with her and look forward to participating in building it strong safe and satisfying in the way I feel my small efforts with my kids will do for the future of this great and exciting country in which I now live and work. As each day dawns I have higher and higher hopes for our joint human future.
I will not try and phone my great brother in Scotland. A New Year, hopefully as good, has just dawned there to as I hope it has and will for my lovely ex wife Susan and my lovely big hearted daughter Heather.
一个新年破晓了这里在我醒七和一半几小时入它这里的中国。这以前是正义半小时在圆环里在我的家园苏格兰。我感到很舒适这里在中国。我几乎说我的前家园为我现在感觉中国是我的家。我居住在一栋非常舒适的公寓在Suzhou 由我美妙的女主人雅致地装备。我爱孩子I 并且我的同事教。我星期六有一父母天。我告诉了他们, 他们的孩子不仅聪明但有好心脏和一真实地震惊我的工作能力。我感到我们的未来全球性联邦将是在好手里假设一个重要比例它将取决于他们并且他们我肯定是相似的同乡的承诺对承受它的有效率。我是肯定的他们将是因此做了。我停留在上海在真实地美丽的Anting 别墅旅馆700 元每夜(.45 GBP) 与装饰和设置死为。美国和法国连锁旅馆有没什么抵抗这在质量和或价格。这是在老法国让步中间在上海对这个伟大的城市的巨大欧洲文化贡献。让步是充分的可爱的宽广的大道和豪宅相似在质量到那个我现在居住。I 和我的女主人和伙伴锣惠・华锯在新年在我们的朋友陪同下的在上海摇摆在相等地美丽的Chartres 餐馆。我们跳舞夜直到至少设置是雄伟的俯视一个壮观的庭院的4.am. 并且地板是大理石和死为为跳舞。我们主要跳舞对伟大的带摇摆时代, 小鸡Webb, Ellington, 计数Basie, 托米・Dorsey, Artie Shaw 的公爵录音, 幽谷Millar 和Bennie Goodman 但二个音乐家朋友出现了和大约12.30 和演奏了夜为我们以一些伟大的非常非常快速的clarinet 爵士乐。她是美妙的"随后而来" 。我们少许一起只跳舞。她只有一个教训在Lindy 蛇麻草但是她以及她能搬走向她的伙伴带领在舞厅和规则jive 跳舞肩并肩学会了查尔斯顿和摇摆在昨晚之外和几乎执行了两个。哇! 她是敲作为舞蹈家, 朋友和实际上我的妻子。她烹调了一顿最美妙的14 条路线晚餐为我并且我的工作同事庆祝圣诞节和上星期我下决心享用工作每天由她顾及对一个真实地美妙的标准在丈夫能期待他的妻子和更多生活的每个部门。她从未恼怒。她总愉快。她一直微笑和设法几乎连续保留我同样方式。我几乎说因为当我很好在击败我自己的内部紧张和困扰了我的深刻的根源的源泉的愤怒, 并且那些顶部紧挨我, 为大多数我的生活。我不相当仍然做了它。我知道与她我将。方式通过她提供了我机会根源他们为曾经并且真实地享受我的生活剩下的时间用一个愉快的正面方式放热她和我的幸福向外对其他人就象她微笑的喜悦做为所有接触她的。我知道为确定我能现在去对原处。我罐头和上午学会怎么对保留她和所有那些在我附近一样愉快象我现在感觉多半时间。我的中国人改善由飞跃和区域。她和我通常现在有令人愉快的非常简单的愉快的可笑的交谈。很快我知道我们的电子字典将成为支持对我们的口头通信与它的主水道相对并且由他们我肯定我们的口头容量为关系将到达和将超过我们当前高度有效的平行的物理, 情感和精神渠道。我发现了我的家这里在中国与她和真实地盼望参加大厦它强安全并且满意就象我感觉我的小努力与我的孩子将做在我现在居住的未来这个伟大和扣人心弦的国家并且工作。如同□天破晓我有对我们的联合人的未来的越来越高希望。我不会审判和不会给我了不起的兄弟打电话在苏格兰。一个新年, 有希望地象好, 破晓了那里 对如同我希望它有为我可爱的前妻子苏珊和我可爱的大hearted 女儿石南属植物。
I love the kids I and my colleagues teach at the IFY college in Number One School (Yi Zhong). We had a parents day the on Saturday. I told them that their children were not only smart but had good hearts and a capacity for work that truly astounds me. I felt that our future global commonwealth will be in good hands. A significant proportion of it will depend on their children am their fellow countryman's commitment to sustaining its effectiveness. I am sure they will be so committed.
We are staying in Shanghai at the truly beautiful Anting Villa Hotel 700 Yuan a night (£45 GBP) with a decor and setting to die for. The American and French Hotel chains have nothing to rival this in quality and or price. It is in the middle of the old French concession in Shanghai a great European cultural contribution to this great city. The concession is full of lovely broad boulevards and mansions similar in quality to this one.
Gong Hui Hua and I saw in the New Year in the company of our friend's in Shanghai Swing at the equally beautiful Chartres restaurant. We danced the night away till at least 4am. the setting was superb overlooking a magnificent garden and the floor was marble and to die for for dancing. We mainly danced to recording of the great bands of the swing era, Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Glen Millar and Bennie Goodman but two musician friends showed up and about 12.30 and played the night out for us with some great very very fast clarinet jazz. courtesy of the wonderful Mrt Pops.
She is a wonderful "follow". We have only danced a little together. She has only had one lesson in Lindy Hop but she learned the side by side Charleston and the Swing Out last night and performed both almost as well as she can move to her partners lead in ballroom and regular jive dancing. Wow! She is a knock out as a dancer, friend and in reality my wife.
She cooked a most wonderful 14 course dinner for my and my work colleagues celebration of Christmas last week and I set out to enjoy work every day catered for by her to a truly wonderful standard in every department of life that a husband could expect of his wife and more. She is never angry. She is always happy. She smiles all the time and manages to keep me the same way nearly continuously.
I say nearly because while I am well on top of defeating my own internal tensions and the deep rooted sources of anger that have haunted me, and those close to me, for most of my life. I have still not quite made it. I know with her I will. The Way through her has given me the opportunity to root them out for ever and truly enjoy the remainder of my life in a happy positive way radiating her and my happiness outwards for others in the way her smiling joy does for all who touch her. I know for certain I can now get to the same place. I can and am learning how to to keep her and all those around me as happy as I now feel most of the time.
My Chinese improves by leaps and bounds. She and I now regularly have enjoyable very simple happy amusing conversations. Soon I know our electronic dictionary will become a support to our verbal communication as opposed to its main channel and by them I am certain our verbal capacity for relating will reach and surpass our currently highly effective parallel physical, emotional and spiritual channels.
I have truly found my home here in China with her and look forward to participating in building it strong safe and satisfying in the way I feel my small efforts with my kids will do for the future of this great and exciting country in which I now live and work. As each day dawns I have higher and higher hopes for our joint human future.
I will not try and phone my great brother in Scotland. A New Year, hopefully as good, has just dawned there to as I hope it has and will for my lovely ex wife Susan and my lovely big hearted daughter Heather.
一个新年破晓了这里在我醒七和一半几小时入它这里的中国。这以前是正义半小时在圆环里在我的家园苏格兰。我感到很舒适这里在中国。我几乎说我的前家园为我现在感觉中国是我的家。我居住在一栋非常舒适的公寓在Suzhou 由我美妙的女主人雅致地装备。我爱孩子I 并且我的同事教。我星期六有一父母天。我告诉了他们, 他们的孩子不仅聪明但有好心脏和一真实地震惊我的工作能力。我感到我们的未来全球性联邦将是在好手里假设一个重要比例它将取决于他们并且他们我肯定是相似的同乡的承诺对承受它的有效率。我是肯定的他们将是因此做了。我停留在上海在真实地美丽的Anting 别墅旅馆700 元每夜(.45 GBP) 与装饰和设置死为。美国和法国连锁旅馆有没什么抵抗这在质量和或价格。这是在老法国让步中间在上海对这个伟大的城市的巨大欧洲文化贡献。让步是充分的可爱的宽广的大道和豪宅相似在质量到那个我现在居住。I 和我的女主人和伙伴锣惠・华锯在新年在我们的朋友陪同下的在上海摇摆在相等地美丽的Chartres 餐馆。我们跳舞夜直到至少设置是雄伟的俯视一个壮观的庭院的4.am. 并且地板是大理石和死为为跳舞。我们主要跳舞对伟大的带摇摆时代, 小鸡Webb, Ellington, 计数Basie, 托米・Dorsey, Artie Shaw 的公爵录音, 幽谷Millar 和Bennie Goodman 但二个音乐家朋友出现了和大约12.30 和演奏了夜为我们以一些伟大的非常非常快速的clarinet 爵士乐。她是美妙的"随后而来" 。我们少许一起只跳舞。她只有一个教训在Lindy 蛇麻草但是她以及她能搬走向她的伙伴带领在舞厅和规则jive 跳舞肩并肩学会了查尔斯顿和摇摆在昨晚之外和几乎执行了两个。哇! 她是敲作为舞蹈家, 朋友和实际上我的妻子。她烹调了一顿最美妙的14 条路线晚餐为我并且我的工作同事庆祝圣诞节和上星期我下决心享用工作每天由她顾及对一个真实地美妙的标准在丈夫能期待他的妻子和更多生活的每个部门。她从未恼怒。她总愉快。她一直微笑和设法几乎连续保留我同样方式。我几乎说因为当我很好在击败我自己的内部紧张和困扰了我的深刻的根源的源泉的愤怒, 并且那些顶部紧挨我, 为大多数我的生活。我不相当仍然做了它。我知道与她我将。方式通过她提供了我机会根源他们为曾经并且真实地享受我的生活剩下的时间用一个愉快的正面方式放热她和我的幸福向外对其他人就象她微笑的喜悦做为所有接触她的。我知道为确定我能现在去对原处。我罐头和上午学会怎么对保留她和所有那些在我附近一样愉快象我现在感觉多半时间。我的中国人改善由飞跃和区域。她和我通常现在有令人愉快的非常简单的愉快的可笑的交谈。很快我知道我们的电子字典将成为支持对我们的口头通信与它的主水道相对并且由他们我肯定我们的口头容量为关系将到达和将超过我们当前高度有效的平行的物理, 情感和精神渠道。我发现了我的家这里在中国与她和真实地盼望参加大厦它强安全并且满意就象我感觉我的小努力与我的孩子将做在我现在居住的未来这个伟大和扣人心弦的国家并且工作。如同□天破晓我有对我们的联合人的未来的越来越高希望。我不会审判和不会给我了不起的兄弟打电话在苏格兰。一个新年, 有希望地象好, 破晓了那里 对如同我希望它有为我可爱的前妻子苏珊和我可爱的大hearted 女儿石南属植物。
Sunday, November 05, 2006
China, My Past and Future: 中国,我的过去与未来
I awoke this morning at Kellian, my Bostonian dancing friends flat in Shanghai. We had spent the previous evening dancing Lindy Hop at Shanghai Swing's Halloween Party. This was held in a pretty little pub in the rather nice Shanghai district just of Huai Hai Road next to the expensive Dong Zhu Hotel. Some of the dancing was awesome. I had slept soundly to awake to the beautiful view over Shanghai stretching out from Kellian's flat.
No one else stirred in the house and I lay on the bed enjoying th eview and thinking about how lucky I was and how good life had been to me.
I was really enjoying China, my students, my colleagues, my social friends and beautiful Suzhou my new city. The first week of the new academic year of the International Foundation Year at our college sited on the premises of Number 1 Middle School on Guan Yuang Lu (Public Park Road) had been a really lovely experience for me. Our students are young fresh and shyly confident about themselves and their future. They had been great fun and a pleasure to teach. My colleagues were all trully wonderful in supporting me personally and in my task as their boss. I am finding the whole business of management, largely because of them, a joy. Together they have made a significant contribution to running the school economically while maintaining our existing high standards. The adminstrative staff have been brilliant in support. Misunderstandings have indeed occurred we are a cultural diverse bunch the expatriates, me a Scot, an Englishman an Australian and a Phillipino and 11 Chinese staff.
Not only is the cultural divide wide so are the wage levels. Our company pays the market price for the best of each group and the expatriates thus earn ten times more than their Chinese colleagues and get free accomodation into the bargain. However every one has played a great part in our work and the storms of emotional upset and even some anger that have flared up did just that that and died away. I am increasingly confident that we have all learnt lessons that will ensure future misunderstaning does not lead to personal hurt.
All this went through my mind with gratitude to my ex wife Susan for divorcing me and letting me in consequence deal with dimensions of life that would otherwise have passed me by. This was to be underlined later in the day when I was on the express train back to Suzhou as I listened to a married couple complaining about the trivia of life to but invariably passing by the other. They were clearly retired and well off touring China at their leisure with a guide but they were missing, oh so much about life and what China has to offer all our futures.
My blessings are legion - true reconciliation with my mother just three weeks before she died two weeks ago, an oportunity to discover myself and make my self whole in my own and other's interest particularly my daughter, a better understanding of human beings generally and women in particular gained at some expense to those who have befriended me and from whom I have experiences motivating hurt and no doubt imposed hurt upon them.
I have a vison of a reconciled world on the "Way" (Dao) by means and in the context set out by Lao Tzu in the "Tai Te Ching". I have written and published twice about this now and have an as yet unpublished manuscript on the way. However to write further on the matters that are of concern to us all. I feel I must understand the key player in all our futures better. So I must learn to speak, read and write Chinese and I am beginning to do all three at a rate that amazes me.
I am also so so lucky in being given a bunch of the brightest and best kids in China to help develop. When my age they will have awesome economic and social power and I can already see their is every chance that they can and will weild it in the caring non-judgemental manner Lao Tzu envisages as appropriate for the most effective social leadership.
今天早上我醒来时kellian,我国波士顿上海楼朋友共舞.我们已经花了前一晚在上海跳摇摆舞交椅的万圣节晚会.这是一个漂亮的小酒吧举行,而在上海地区刚刚尼斯淮海路旁边的朱冬昂贵酒店.有些舞蹈是撼人.我醒来睡稳妥地伸展到美丽,从上海出kellian单位.没有人在家里和我搅躺在床上吃次分类号并思考如何如何好,我是幸运的生命已经给我.我是真的享受中,我的学生,我的同事,我美丽的苏州我的新朋友和社会的城市.第一周新学年的国际基金会于去年在我们学院校址位于一号路中学管渊(公园路)一直很可爱的经验.新鲜和畏缩是青年学生对自己和未来充满信心.他们被教导大乐趣和高兴.真正精彩的同事都在支持我个人和我的任务当作自己的老板.我发现整个业务管理,主要是因为其中一名喜悦.他们一起作出了重大贡献,在保持经济运行学校现有高标准.灿烂的行政人员一直在支持.误会既然已经发生,我们的文化多样一群外籍我一个苏格兰人,英国人和一名澳大利亚人和11phillipino中国员工.不仅如此广泛的文化鸿沟是工资水平.我们公司对市场价格的最好自付每一组和外籍从而赚取十倍以上,并得到中国同行免费住宿的呢.但是每个人都发挥了很大的部分,在我们的工作和暴风雨的愤怒情绪,甚至有些懊恼,却也发作而死亡,只是离开.我越来越有信心,我们都学到教训,确保将来不会导致人身伤害误区.这一切经历我心中当然感激我的妻子苏珊和我离婚让我在生活层面处理后果,否则我过去了.这是当天晚些时候将着重就当我回到苏州快车夫妇听到抱怨生活剪影及格但总是被对方.他们显然和离退休富裕的中国旅游休闲指南>却不翼而飞了,哦太多生命中有什么可提供所有期货.我的祝福是军团--真正的和解与三个星期前,她母亲刚刚去世两周前,一个主调,使我国自主地发现自己整自己和其他的兴趣尤其女儿了解人类特别是妇女普遍得到一些牺牲者,从我和我所结交的经验和激励无疑伤害他们施加伤害.我有一个弥透视世界的"路"(道)的手段,在<老子>中列出的"大清德".我已编写出版了一倍左右,但现在这种未曾手稿的做法.不过写就进一步关心的事情是我们所有人.我觉得我必须了解我们所有期货主将更好.所以我必须学会说话,写中文和我开始做的一切,我惊讶的速度3.所以我也这么幸运得到一束魁首帮助孩子在中国发展.当我年纪便撼人经济和社会的力量,我已经可以看到他们的各种机会,并会在仁爱weild非审判方式酌情老子设想的最有效的社会领导.
No one else stirred in the house and I lay on the bed enjoying th eview and thinking about how lucky I was and how good life had been to me.
I was really enjoying China, my students, my colleagues, my social friends and beautiful Suzhou my new city. The first week of the new academic year of the International Foundation Year at our college sited on the premises of Number 1 Middle School on Guan Yuang Lu (Public Park Road) had been a really lovely experience for me. Our students are young fresh and shyly confident about themselves and their future. They had been great fun and a pleasure to teach. My colleagues were all trully wonderful in supporting me personally and in my task as their boss. I am finding the whole business of management, largely because of them, a joy. Together they have made a significant contribution to running the school economically while maintaining our existing high standards. The adminstrative staff have been brilliant in support. Misunderstandings have indeed occurred we are a cultural diverse bunch the expatriates, me a Scot, an Englishman an Australian and a Phillipino and 11 Chinese staff.
Not only is the cultural divide wide so are the wage levels. Our company pays the market price for the best of each group and the expatriates thus earn ten times more than their Chinese colleagues and get free accomodation into the bargain. However every one has played a great part in our work and the storms of emotional upset and even some anger that have flared up did just that that and died away. I am increasingly confident that we have all learnt lessons that will ensure future misunderstaning does not lead to personal hurt.
All this went through my mind with gratitude to my ex wife Susan for divorcing me and letting me in consequence deal with dimensions of life that would otherwise have passed me by. This was to be underlined later in the day when I was on the express train back to Suzhou as I listened to a married couple complaining about the trivia of life to but invariably passing by the other. They were clearly retired and well off touring China at their leisure with a guide but they were missing, oh so much about life and what China has to offer all our futures.
My blessings are legion - true reconciliation with my mother just three weeks before she died two weeks ago, an oportunity to discover myself and make my self whole in my own and other's interest particularly my daughter, a better understanding of human beings generally and women in particular gained at some expense to those who have befriended me and from whom I have experiences motivating hurt and no doubt imposed hurt upon them.
I have a vison of a reconciled world on the "Way" (Dao) by means and in the context set out by Lao Tzu in the "Tai Te Ching". I have written and published twice about this now and have an as yet unpublished manuscript on the way. However to write further on the matters that are of concern to us all. I feel I must understand the key player in all our futures better. So I must learn to speak, read and write Chinese and I am beginning to do all three at a rate that amazes me.
I am also so so lucky in being given a bunch of the brightest and best kids in China to help develop. When my age they will have awesome economic and social power and I can already see their is every chance that they can and will weild it in the caring non-judgemental manner Lao Tzu envisages as appropriate for the most effective social leadership.
今天早上我醒来时kellian,我国波士顿上海楼朋友共舞.我们已经花了前一晚在上海跳摇摆舞交椅的万圣节晚会.这是一个漂亮的小酒吧举行,而在上海地区刚刚尼斯淮海路旁边的朱冬昂贵酒店.有些舞蹈是撼人.我醒来睡稳妥地伸展到美丽,从上海出kellian单位.没有人在家里和我搅躺在床上吃次分类号并思考如何如何好,我是幸运的生命已经给我.我是真的享受中,我的学生,我的同事,我美丽的苏州我的新朋友和社会的城市.第一周新学年的国际基金会于去年在我们学院校址位于一号路中学管渊(公园路)一直很可爱的经验.新鲜和畏缩是青年学生对自己和未来充满信心.他们被教导大乐趣和高兴.真正精彩的同事都在支持我个人和我的任务当作自己的老板.我发现整个业务管理,主要是因为其中一名喜悦.他们一起作出了重大贡献,在保持经济运行学校现有高标准.灿烂的行政人员一直在支持.误会既然已经发生,我们的文化多样一群外籍我一个苏格兰人,英国人和一名澳大利亚人和11phillipino中国员工.不仅如此广泛的文化鸿沟是工资水平.我们公司对市场价格的最好自付每一组和外籍从而赚取十倍以上,并得到中国同行免费住宿的呢.但是每个人都发挥了很大的部分,在我们的工作和暴风雨的愤怒情绪,甚至有些懊恼,却也发作而死亡,只是离开.我越来越有信心,我们都学到教训,确保将来不会导致人身伤害误区.这一切经历我心中当然感激我的妻子苏珊和我离婚让我在生活层面处理后果,否则我过去了.这是当天晚些时候将着重就当我回到苏州快车夫妇听到抱怨生活剪影及格但总是被对方.他们显然和离退休富裕的中国旅游休闲指南>却不翼而飞了,哦太多生命中有什么可提供所有期货.我的祝福是军团--真正的和解与三个星期前,她母亲刚刚去世两周前,一个主调,使我国自主地发现自己整自己和其他的兴趣尤其女儿了解人类特别是妇女普遍得到一些牺牲者,从我和我所结交的经验和激励无疑伤害他们施加伤害.我有一个弥透视世界的"路"(道)的手段,在<老子>中列出的"大清德".我已编写出版了一倍左右,但现在这种未曾手稿的做法.不过写就进一步关心的事情是我们所有人.我觉得我必须了解我们所有期货主将更好.所以我必须学会说话,写中文和我开始做的一切,我惊讶的速度3.所以我也这么幸运得到一束魁首帮助孩子在中国发展.当我年纪便撼人经济和社会的力量,我已经可以看到他们的各种机会,并会在仁爱weild非审判方式酌情老子设想的最有效的社会领导.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Terrorism and Corporate Responsibility
For their own and our mutual security we believe corporate bodies need to recognize that they are thee basic social entities in the emerging global community. It is then reasonable that businesses, including those that are not for profit, should seek a bigger role in creating mutual institutions capable of addressing global security.
The UK government’s assessment of the imminent risk of terrorist attack rose to critical today. The British police acted to pre-empt, and hopefully foil, an imminent attack on global air transport routed through the UK. These events effected corporate business, commercial and other, across the planet. Those transiting through London had their business continuity disrupted. Much of this business would have been unrelated to direct British interest. Crucial meetings were missed, deals failed to close, aid and succour was not delivered. These events were thus a matter of global not just British security.
This global perspective is crucial. Nations are designed to protect the value their citizens and enterprises generate. Modern telecoms, the Internet, global finance and the fast easy international movement of goods and people has created a new global space. This has to be seen as more than the sum of national business activity. Who is, or should be, accountable for the security of enterprise in this new space?
The actors in the global community are corporate bodies: not individuals, not citizens not states. They are Shell, Greenpeace, Unilever, Oxfam, Sony-Ericsson, Amnesty International, Nokia, Medecins Sans Frontiere, Cisco Systems, the Red Cross, Microsoft, etc, etc. These may be incorporated in a nation de jure but de facto their incorporation is global.
A few weeks ago the bombs in Mumbai made clear that the local social infrastructure of an outsourced supplier in India can be as crucial to a US or British corporation’s continuity as is its local infrastructure in Manhattan or the City. The UK air security clampdown occurred at a key hub in the global communications infrastructure.
In such a context corporate responsibility for the security interests of shareholders, customers, staff and suppliers must surely be seen as global not national. On this view corporations need to find ways to act mutually to protect their security. States by definition while corporate are local actors. Clearly international co-operation has a huge role to play in our security. However global society is a corporate creation. Corporate responsibility in such a society surely dictates a need for the social engagement of corporations with each other across industries and the planet.
For their own and our mutual security we believe corporate bodies need to recognize that they are thee basic social entities in the emerging global community. It is then reasonable that businesses, including those that are not for profit, should seek a bigger role in creating mutual institutions capable of addressing global security.
The UK government’s assessment of the imminent risk of terrorist attack rose to critical today. The British police acted to pre-empt, and hopefully foil, an imminent attack on global air transport routed through the UK. These events effected corporate business, commercial and other, across the planet. Those transiting through London had their business continuity disrupted. Much of this business would have been unrelated to direct British interest. Crucial meetings were missed, deals failed to close, aid and succour was not delivered. These events were thus a matter of global not just British security.
This global perspective is crucial. Nations are designed to protect the value their citizens and enterprises generate. Modern telecoms, the Internet, global finance and the fast easy international movement of goods and people has created a new global space. This has to be seen as more than the sum of national business activity. Who is, or should be, accountable for the security of enterprise in this new space?
The actors in the global community are corporate bodies: not individuals, not citizens not states. They are Shell, Greenpeace, Unilever, Oxfam, Sony-Ericsson, Amnesty International, Nokia, Medecins Sans Frontiere, Cisco Systems, the Red Cross, Microsoft, etc, etc. These may be incorporated in a nation de jure but de facto their incorporation is global.
A few weeks ago the bombs in Mumbai made clear that the local social infrastructure of an outsourced supplier in India can be as crucial to a US or British corporation’s continuity as is its local infrastructure in Manhattan or the City. The UK air security clampdown occurred at a key hub in the global communications infrastructure.
In such a context corporate responsibility for the security interests of shareholders, customers, staff and suppliers must surely be seen as global not national. On this view corporations need to find ways to act mutually to protect their security. States by definition while corporate are local actors. Clearly international co-operation has a huge role to play in our security. However global society is a corporate creation. Corporate responsibility in such a society surely dictates a need for the social engagement of corporations with each other across industries and the planet.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Wellbeing in WuHU
I was recently in Wuhu on the Yangtse River in Anhui Province in China中国 as a guest of Dr Hu. Dr Hu is a traditional Chinese physician of some considerable current reputation. He has had significant success in improving the wellbeing of patients recovering from the ravages of the successful but aggressive approach of Western medicine to cancer treatment. I was in WuHu to mark the opening of his new clinic for the post operative care of oncology patients. This clinic seeks to look systemically at the post operative support peoples bodies need to get back into the healthy balance their body needs if they are to sustain the benefits the remission of their cancer proffers
Dr Hu’s grandfather had been a court physician to the Chinese Emperor and Dr Hu is sought out today by people from all over China to assist them in recovering from the ravages of moern Western cancer treatment. His daughter was my student at ANU. She herself is a successful Chinese physician in Sydney. She has been and is passionate about setting and developing high standards for the practice of Chinese Medicine Chinese medicine in Australia and the West.
Through her and because of my general interest in human wellbeing I have become more and more interested in the relationships that seem to exist between physical, intellectual and spiritual wellbeing.
The Chinese approach to health seems to me to be entirely sensible. It is to maintain people in a healthy way of being. This approach is increasingly seen as of interest in the West although healing the sick is still the dominant medical philosophy not the Chinese one of healthy being. The Chinese approach seeks to sustain the continuing health of a specific person in a specific environment. It is of keeping a person well in their real world not curing their illness when they get it.
The approach is systemic. It is always designed for a specific individual in a specific context. It is this systemic vision I love. I see it is indicative of what we need in an age when the wellbeing of our planet is evidently increasingly dependent on our collective attitudes and actions as human beings. For our planet to be healthy and to continue to nurture us we as individuals and collectivities need to work at our own total wellbeing, physical, intellectual and spiritual. Attempts to cure what has become bad are often too much too late for many cancer patients. Dr Hu’s systemic approach to post operative recovery it seems is the beginnings of a start to a better way as is the nutritional and life style approach increasingly being adopted by some in the West
Getting Enjoying and Maintaining (GEM) is what I find myself increasingly advocating and the Hu’s father and daughter offer no less backed up by a long family tradition, professionally honed skills and a balanced approach to the most effective interface they can effect with the kill or cure approach taken by some modern Western curative medicine especially in the treatment of cancer.
Welcoming WuHu: Anhui Province安徽, China中国
Welcoming WuHu
WuHu has given its energy, endeavour and enterprise to China中国 for centuries. In ancient China it was a major distributional centre for foodstuff, particularly rice and tea. In pre modern China its role became international. From all this it has attracted appropriate abundance.
Coming down the Yangtse River it has the first port for seagoing vessels. This port provides direct access from China’s heartland to the world. Wuhu is also a key hub on the Chinese road and rail network. It has excellent links to the North to Heifei, Jihan and Beijing, East to Nanjing and Shanghai South to Fouzhou, Guangzhou and Hong Kong and West to Wuhan, Chongging and Chengdu,
Wu Hu is one of those comfortable quietly powerful, cities that unnoticed power the economic development of great nations. Like Montreal, Detroit, Cologne and Manchester it provides water access from an interior heartland to the sea and so global trade.
This city hums like the turbine hall in a modern power station. Each dynamo sits on solid foundations in perfect balance with itself. Each works quietly but hard to produce with little fuss of bother. Almost, but not quite, silent, each of Wuhu’s industrial turbines, in cars, building materials and air conditioning works quietly, and reliably to take goods, people and ideas forward for 21st Century China.
Wu Hu is pretty but not picturesque, clean but not pristine and hard working but not frantic. In these things it should be contrasted with the two larger cities downstream of it on the Yangtse, Nanjing and Shanghai. Nanjing as a former capital of China is picturesque and authoritative. Shanghai asserts itself with frantic commerce sustaining a pedigree for commercial leadership on China’s Pacific shore. These three Yangtse cities are in the vanguard of the New China’s industrial development.
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Wu Hu’s is less evidently distinct than the others. It has a lower political and commercial profiles but it is more central. It has been commercially embedded for centuries in the interior network of agrarian trade that made China, till the 18th Century, the richest country on the planet. For this reason in the late 19th Century it, like Shanghai and Nanjing became a Treaty Port where foreigners were allowed to trade. This gave it international credentials recognised again today by the Chinese government helping it set up the Wuhu Economic and Technological Development Area (WEDA) .This special status give Wu Hu significant advantages when setting out to attract inward investment.
As a port directly accessible by sea going vessels Wu Hu can bring imported materials to the city without transhipment and export its products directly.
Its commercial past, present and certainty of a great future is reflected in the city’s present. Firstly it still has a number of impressive late 19th Century European style buildings: its impressive Catholic Church, the Garden Hotel once Wu Hu’s first departmental store and the building housing the F. Y. Old Tree Cafe.
These turn of the 20th Century buildings border the lake that is the focus of Jui Zi Garden Park. This is the centre piece of the city. It is separated from downtown and the local university college by a lovely long confidently curved, covered, colonnade leading into an attractive paved marble Plaza. This is dominated by a baroque bronze column festooned with statues of the Jui Zi bird. These mythical birds are symbolic of fruitful endeavour and resilience. Here they stand assertively on a large globe the topmost lifting an other globe up into the unknown but hopeful future. This Chinese Phoenix is entirely symbolic of this city’s passion for rebirth over the centuries based on past substance, demonstrable current successes and belief in its role in its country’s future.
Leading of from this Plaza and the Lake is a modern pedestrian shopping precinct similar to that in modern Central Vienna. This is a wide comfortable curved area flanked by shops, restaurants and cafes catering to the widest of modern Chinese taste rooted as it is in the exuberant flamboyance of a generation who unlike their parents and grandparents have experienced nothing but rapid improvement.
This modernity is reflected in the industrial development estates that are dotted around the city. These are not the dark satanic mills that heralded England’s short sojourn as the “First Industrial Nation” but pristine shiningly clean well organised modern plants with the latest in technology.
The three principle industries here are all at the leading edge of the current boom: Automobiles, Chery; building materials and fitments, Conch; air conditioning, Media and Hitachi. Associated with these are supporting suppliers of substance: Siemens, automotive parts; AMICI automotive components; Conch, cement.
Chery has a big strategic vision. In the domestic market it already competes well on price with VW, Toyota, Hyundai and GM. Its plans to face off to Lexus, Mercedes and BMW on quality. If it succeeds in this it will be the first home grown Chinese car company to hit the high spots of the global automobile industry. Its assault on the US market is to be led by that indominitable and influential American automobile salesman Malcom Brickland. His company, Visionary Vehicles, plan to use low prices underwritten by unsurpassable quality per dollar to take the US market by storm in 2007..
Conch is a traditional and a post modern supplier to the booming Chinese building industry. It manufactures cement and polyurethane products, conduits, double glazed windows, door panels etc. Its ultra modern factory has few workers and expensive state of the art German machinery. It is clear that in an open Chinese market opens its wage advantage will be limited and so it has and is competing directly n quality.
Media is the Chinese air conditioner supplier. There is no doubt it has a fine well designed product but only time can tell if it will be a successful one. The Japanese have set standards of reliability for air conditioners that is hard to beat. Year in year out reliability of the kind they demonstrably offer takes years to establish. Serviceability with little maintenance or repair are the watchwords here.
The Hotels dotted around the city are all clean comfortable. They are all welcoming and inviting but for those who wish to escape from the city in the city the Tie Shan has no competitors. It is in a delightful setting that puts it in the country not 300 metres from the city centre’s bustle. It is set in its own gated secure grounds adjacent to Cuiming Park. This tree covered park rises attractively up from it and the city skyline. The hotel is scattered comfortably around a small secluded lily padded lake surrounded by mature lush bamboo. It is a delight. It is not plush and ultra modern but it is clean, comfortable and charming with everything one needs including free broadband internet, a pool, sauna and gym.
If one were to seek reason to complain as a foreigner one would note that the only television stations available are CCTV and local Chinese ones, no CNN, BBC, CBC, Fox, RAI, RFF, DTV or SKY.
The CCTV’s English language broadcasts remind one of the BBC fifty years ago with its stilted over respectful interviews and constrained, accurate factual unemotional view of news. Even the excitement, and Chinese pride, in the opening of the Tibet high plateau railroad to Lhasa came over as contrived conviviality not politely constrained passionate national pride.
However, one is thankful for small mercies, one is spared the stifling US centric television of the New World. Even on CCTV4 in Chinese the News comes across with a global outlook not just a Chinese one. The rest of the world is evident. US television contrives that the planet outside the USA, with no US lives at risk, does not exist. Chinese television has far more global consciousness.
However the broad minded editorial policy of CCTV does not necessarily reflect Chinese society’s knowledge of the needs of Westerners. I found it difficult to find what I would consider a bar. It was even harder to buy a gin and tonic. This is a small thing. However it is symptomatic of something of wider significance for those wishing to facilitate Chinese contact with the rest of the world.
Wuhu, Anhui and China wish to attract and impress million of visitors over the next few years to the Olympic Games and The Shanghai Expo. This is without considering the real investors in automotive and other services Wuhu itself seeks to attract. Such investors want to send their personnel to communities in which they and their family’s can feel at home. From a Western perspective Wuhu lacks an approach to service such people will seek to find.
Open public social congress by choice is the meat and drink of Western society and business. Westerners like a choice between being ostentatiously seen and seeing and discretion and intimacy. Wu Hu is a delight for intimacy. It is replete with restaurants, cafes and bars full of extremely comfortable alcoves and private dining areas all serving the exquisitely fresh delicious Chinese food the city’s rural hinterland makes available. My hospitable hosts entertained me beautifully in a number of such places. They allow one to indulge in the intimacy with business associates, colleagues, lovers and friends that Westerners normally choose to enjoy privately in their homes or a “pied a terre”.
In private I particularly enjoyed the French restoration charm created in the Y.F. Old Tree Café. It overlooks the city lake in one of the turn of the 19th century buildings described earlier. Its dim lighting, really comfortable sofas, pleasant service and the quite tinkle of the discretely screened off piano all added to an atmosphere in which one would want to entertain a lover.
However virtually nowhere in Wuhu seemed to exist where one could take ones new trophy wife or girlfriend for display or sit down at a bar and engage in the impromptu “badinage” with strangers Westerners like. I thought I had found this in the Royal Crown Café next to the central hospital but found that what I thought were bar stools were not. They were an expensive decoration along the front of the main bar. They were not for sitting on at the bar.
Not to be able to sit at, or in, a comfortable bar, was a major disappointment to me. It is a facility sought and looked for by Western visitors. Those parts of the opening up to Western business have found such places essential. They provide an ambience Westerners feel comfortable with.
Places for public congress do exist in Wuhu. As in French, Italian and Spanish cities on find them in public parks, squares and promenades. There the old, young and unemployed stroll or sit engaged in love, play or conversation. It was a delight in Wu Hu to see them do precisely this in the public parks. However France, Italy and Spain are also replete with bars and cafes providing this commercially. Until I came to China, even in ethno-phobic Japan, I never failed to find commercial ventures supportive of convivial congress.
In Wu Hu the only place close to this bill of fare was the International Student’s Centre. This easily served me a gin and tonic and made social congress easy with stools along a bar at which if one chose one could strike up acquaintance. This I did. With my promptly served gin tonic and ice, but no slice, in seconds I struck up a casual acquaintance with a Vietnamese, Phillipino and German.
It is not that the Chinese are not outgoing and friendly because they are. Smiles interest and engagement are all around one. Contact is easier than any where else on Earth but a social milieu, café or bar allowing one choice in engagement with strangers is simply not there in the manner most Westerners expect.
Westerners need an environment where they feel they feel they engage with others or not. In Wuhu finding this was close to impossible. Even in Beijing it is not easy in non-Western Hotels. For example I did not find it in my comfortable well run Chinese hotel in Beijing, the Continental Grand at the International Conference Centre. I did find it at the US run Crowne Plaza next door.
However on all occasions when an opportunity arose contact with Chinese people easy but often unsought. If anything Chinese social behaviour might be seen as intrusive by Westerners. Questions and attention are directed at one in a outgoing direct manner. To a Scot this is oft ways the norm. So I find this endearingly familiar and not difficult to respond to. However I am certain many Americans and English people would see it as rude and difficult to deal with.
They are wrong to find it so in my opinion but they do. Illustrative of the joy one can find in Chinese intimacy and interest were seen in two delightful excursions I made from Wu Hu. Both are amazingly easy to embark using public transport. My first excursion, given the city’s central situation in China’s agrarian heartland, was to the agricultural community at Jinghu Lake. My second was to the beautiful Huanchong mountain range some 100 kilometres South of Wu Hu.
On the first I spent a delightful morning exploring traditional Chinese agriculture at Jinghu Lake followed by a lovely Chinese meal with local officials. This lake is about 30 kilometres out of Wuhu. Its system of canals, locks and levies are reminiscent of the polder in Holland but were constructed a thousand years ago, not a few hundred, to cultivate among other things, lotus flowers. I ate the sweetly delightful lotus seeds, marvelled and the botanical complexity of the plants and saw the operation of farming them and Chinese style agriculture in general. I was ably guided in this by the colourful leader of the local tourist operation Mr Da. He himself is a farmer and lotus plant horticulturalist and breeder.
On my other excursion I unfortunately did not have enough time to explore the full beauty of the Huanchong range so my attention was focused on a two day trip to Jiuhua Shan. This is one of China’s four centres of mountain based Buddhist contemplation prayer and spiritual rebirth. They are a top mountains as only there is their nothing above one but the sky ad heavens and everything locally on the planet is spread out beneath and around the full 360 degrees of the compass, WOW! what a feeling of uplift this engenders. One can understand why many great Buddhists found there way to such places. Jiuhua and particularly the Monastry atop Heng Feng were palpably spiritual places..
We stayed overnight in a delightful, beautifully clean, bed and breakfast adjacent to the Phoenix Pine, a pine tree shaped like a bird. The food the landlady served was delicious especially the burn trout. I had not tasted such since as a boy I “guddled” for brown burn trout by hand when I was eight years old in the Scottish Highlands. The trout we get in the UK nowadays is nearly all rainbow trout and farmed at that. These Chinese mountain trout were delectable.
In walking around the mountain village on my own in the evening and very early the next morning I had easy enjoyable but uninvited congress with the locals. They invariably accosted me in whatever English they had access to.
On my morning walk I had a prolonged conversation with two shy but engaging teenage girls. They were avidly reading English out loud as I approached. They clearly wished to talk. They wanted a chance to speak with a native English speaker. From this encounter arises a good tip for the foreign visitor to China. If you get stuck for communication ask a teenager.
All modern Chinese school kids are taught compulsory English from kindergarten on. Teenagers are still learning and being tested so are keen to practice their English skills. If you ask them you will have access to all the help you need. The Chinese, unlike the Japanese, are unabashed, in fact keen, in making contact.
Previous to this I had another communication experience worth relating. My landlady’s husband had a computer wirelessly connected to broadband internet via his mobile phone. Our B&B was in a canyon 1/3 of the way up a mountain in the wilds of China yet there were mobile phones and computers everywhere. I never found a mobile phone deadspot anywhere in China. This is in sharp contrast to my experiences in the UK, Australia, the Canadian West and the USA
I therefore quickly found myself accessing my emails. I was almost immediately surrounded by almost everyone in the locale. They looked unabashed over my shoulder at what I was doing. In the end I gave in to their curiosity, and logged into my own website to their delight with its picture of me and wonderful views from space of the Planet and China and the Silk Road in particular.
They clearly wanted to know everything there was to know about my business. As an unabashed self publicist I had no hesitation in satisfying their interest some Westerner’s I know would have found their intrusiveness difficult to deal with.
But so what for me my whole trip was crowned by our party’s intrusion into someone else’s life. A meeting was set up for me with Mr Chau a respected historian. At 70 he has forsaken the comfort of the city for a peasants life as a tea grower in the foothills of the mountains at Jiahua.
He still writes. Over two delectable country meals he shared with us his glowing personality and views on the world the universe and everything. This was to our common and mutual delight. His latest book, translates as “The Child Hood We (Humanity) Have Forgotten”. It is based, as much traditional Chinese scholarship is, on the analysis of ancient texts in this case the “I Ching”. This of course has origins going back to the dawn of Chinese civilisation and is not attributable. It has never not been of record and can be attributed to no single individual. Its origins like all creative knowledge is communal with no copyright dues to pay.
His textual analysis suggests that the distinctions we modern humans choose to make between male and female, individual and communal and ourselves and our environment were invisible to the mind of the ancients. In his opinion technology only appears to have changed this and other features of our lives. Fundamentally nothing has changed. This being so he then argues that all humanity needs to survive effectively is to remember the childhood we have chosen to forget.
I am sure the Buddhist monks who created the communities he lives close to further into the mountains would not disagree as I myself do not. I was greatly moved by his personality, togetherness and confident unassuming satisfaction with his chosen lot. He exuded the quite industrious endeavour that I found epitomised my experience of Wu Hu, its people and commerce.
In this Wu Hu reflects China’s past, and certain future as a powerful state. If his sentiments underpin Wu Hu’s and China’s endeavours, and the rhetoric of the modern Chinese leadership says it does, then there is real hope for a peaceful and effective future for our global community of people, enterprises and states.
In this light one must see the roar of J11 fighters over Wu Hu from the local PLA airbase as like the stone lions outside a Buddhist Temple and the fierce sculpted warriors inside as indicative symbols of peace hard sought. Such symbols like the martial skills of Shaolin monks are their so they need never be used. This reflects the Scottish Presbyterian view that you should walk with bible in hand but carry a big stick
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Sunday, July 23, 2006
Journeys
Recently my journeys intertwined. There was joy, pain and hope in this confluence of my physical, intellectual and spiritual being with that of others.
I moved from Canberra, through China to the US then the UK for my daughter Heather’s graduation and then onto to Scotland to my perception of my sanguine soul’s perceived source. In this journey I moved through Chinese, US, European and Multicultural ways of analyzing, feeling, thinking and choosing. I moved from ancient eternal ways to constructed felt ways of being.
Our journeys matter. The relationship between them is often obscurely buried in our subconscious. Even if we think not, they may still be obscured. However, Lao Tzu has given us confidence, born out by experience, that on “The Way” thesis and anti-thesis are a whole born of human and universal at-one-ment, not conflict.
On my journey this seemed challenged.
My journey paralleled that of fellow Europeans, Americans, Jews and Muslims into or out of the current bloodiness of the Middle East in Iraq and Lebanon. There “The People of the Book” whom the Prophet, and God in the Koran, set out to unite under God’s merciful ordinance slay each other every day in a manner inconsistent with their stated shared beliefs in the same God. In their shared vision of God: Muslims should not seek conflict, Jews should not judge when judgement is the Lords and Christians should always forgive. Yet each sees the other seeking conflict, judges the other wrong and shows little capacity for forgiveness. Where is their room in this for their shared vision of God?
In the more ancient tradition of the East, China’s new, legitimate and awe inspiring industrial aspirations must impact heavily on us all. Particularly in this New Age I noted China’s vision of security seems to encompass not only its geopolitical integrity but its wish for a distinct integrity in cyberspace. This blog is unavailable in China. China it seems now leads in marking out political boundaries in cyberspace. This despite the fact that the latter has emerged as an evolved potentially bountiful new truly free range. Through its emergence we are on the verge of finally replacing the free range we abandoned in the Garden of Eden. To do so we require to pay attention to what my new friend, Mr Chou, from Juihua Shan in Anhui, calls, “Valuable Lessons for the Present We (Humanity) Have Forgotten from our Childhood”. We forgot these to farm within defended, eventually national, borders. In the now ending industrial age the latter did evolve to become permeable. First through the hegemony of a few Western nations then as a result of the gains evident to all in industrialisation underwritten by the scale and scope made possible by truly free trade.
In the US I attended the International Society for the Systems Sciences Annual Conference in Sonoma there some feared, as does Lovelock in the "Revenge of Gaia", that the consequence of current human activity and change would either be our planets rejection of us as foreign bodies or its own death. To me this is strange human egocentricity. Evolution has taken 4.5billion years to get Gaia here. Seen as special and distinct from that we may indeed be destructive. But as a small integral part of the universe’s investment in Gaia it is surely a more tenable hypothesis that we are part of Gaia’s constructive means of becoming. With the evolutionary evidence to date I would like to ask if it is likely that we will be eliminated or Gaia die. We can be seen easily as part of Gaia’s nervous system. Through our Internet intra-connectivity we maybe evolving into a key component of an embryonic brain for Gaia. Finally we seem to be the planet’s only currently evident hope for procreation (through our demonstrated wish and capacity to spawn out into the universe). What evolving creature excises its nervous system, eliminates its brain or gives up its potential for procreation. Clearly pathologies exist where this occurs but in general any of these is inconsistent with the broad thrust of observed evolution.
On arrival in the UK I found my loved ones had serious misgivings about my own and others way of wishing to be. Their perceptions, of the above events and our mutually constructed visions of our own present, as a result of past journeys together were painful.
The harmful consequences of our tendency to see ourselves as distinct vulnerable beings only capable of hearing, seeing feeling and sensing each other indirectly with our minds was evident and I fear mutually painful.. The dire consequences of our need for our own strong identity and from that our willingness to judge others quickly without immediate room for forgiveness seems to lead to the attacks we feel are necessary to defend our identities and their views of their own integrity.
However on arrival at Heathrow I met a cherished Internet friend whose journey had taken her coincidentally to Colombia, the Sierra Nevada and the Kogi Indians. She discovered them and their views in her own journey to seek meaning from the childhood destruction of her being. The Kogi feel their duty is to protect the planet from the rest of us. They believe they can. She carried into her journey with them a great unresolved hurt that requires unforthcoming and unlikely atonement within her own and familial being. How can the Kogi succeed if we cannot find the means to produce healing closure from those near and dear to us?
What end can there be to our journeys? Acceptance of our at-one-ment as manifest in the Gaia hypothesis is perhaps a start? In knowing that, and that we may only see through the glass darkly, we would seem well advised to hold back in our judgement of what others are doing, forgive the hurt we feel we know others intend and in doing so avoid conflicts that may stem from our perception not reality. Such cannot be resolved by attacking a perceived source we cannot control.
Following this path does not absolve any of us from accountable responsibility for our actions as they effect others. However empowered thus we can find what we need to heal ourselves without demanding anything from others. In achieving this we can become fit and well to assist the Kogi in enabling our planet become. This will hopefully be into the emergent Serene Dawn of a New Golden Age of sustainable planetary and human wellbeing.
I moved from Canberra, through China to the US then the UK for my daughter Heather’s graduation and then onto to Scotland to my perception of my sanguine soul’s perceived source. In this journey I moved through Chinese, US, European and Multicultural ways of analyzing, feeling, thinking and choosing. I moved from ancient eternal ways to constructed felt ways of being.
Our journeys matter. The relationship between them is often obscurely buried in our subconscious. Even if we think not, they may still be obscured. However, Lao Tzu has given us confidence, born out by experience, that on “The Way” thesis and anti-thesis are a whole born of human and universal at-one-ment, not conflict.
On my journey this seemed challenged.
My journey paralleled that of fellow Europeans, Americans, Jews and Muslims into or out of the current bloodiness of the Middle East in Iraq and Lebanon. There “The People of the Book” whom the Prophet, and God in the Koran, set out to unite under God’s merciful ordinance slay each other every day in a manner inconsistent with their stated shared beliefs in the same God. In their shared vision of God: Muslims should not seek conflict, Jews should not judge when judgement is the Lords and Christians should always forgive. Yet each sees the other seeking conflict, judges the other wrong and shows little capacity for forgiveness. Where is their room in this for their shared vision of God?
In the more ancient tradition of the East, China’s new, legitimate and awe inspiring industrial aspirations must impact heavily on us all. Particularly in this New Age I noted China’s vision of security seems to encompass not only its geopolitical integrity but its wish for a distinct integrity in cyberspace. This blog is unavailable in China. China it seems now leads in marking out political boundaries in cyberspace. This despite the fact that the latter has emerged as an evolved potentially bountiful new truly free range. Through its emergence we are on the verge of finally replacing the free range we abandoned in the Garden of Eden. To do so we require to pay attention to what my new friend, Mr Chou, from Juihua Shan in Anhui, calls, “Valuable Lessons for the Present We (Humanity) Have Forgotten from our Childhood”. We forgot these to farm within defended, eventually national, borders. In the now ending industrial age the latter did evolve to become permeable. First through the hegemony of a few Western nations then as a result of the gains evident to all in industrialisation underwritten by the scale and scope made possible by truly free trade.
In the US I attended the International Society for the Systems Sciences Annual Conference in Sonoma there some feared, as does Lovelock in the "Revenge of Gaia", that the consequence of current human activity and change would either be our planets rejection of us as foreign bodies or its own death. To me this is strange human egocentricity. Evolution has taken 4.5billion years to get Gaia here. Seen as special and distinct from that we may indeed be destructive. But as a small integral part of the universe’s investment in Gaia it is surely a more tenable hypothesis that we are part of Gaia’s constructive means of becoming. With the evolutionary evidence to date I would like to ask if it is likely that we will be eliminated or Gaia die. We can be seen easily as part of Gaia’s nervous system. Through our Internet intra-connectivity we maybe evolving into a key component of an embryonic brain for Gaia. Finally we seem to be the planet’s only currently evident hope for procreation (through our demonstrated wish and capacity to spawn out into the universe). What evolving creature excises its nervous system, eliminates its brain or gives up its potential for procreation. Clearly pathologies exist where this occurs but in general any of these is inconsistent with the broad thrust of observed evolution.
On arrival in the UK I found my loved ones had serious misgivings about my own and others way of wishing to be. Their perceptions, of the above events and our mutually constructed visions of our own present, as a result of past journeys together were painful.
The harmful consequences of our tendency to see ourselves as distinct vulnerable beings only capable of hearing, seeing feeling and sensing each other indirectly with our minds was evident and I fear mutually painful.. The dire consequences of our need for our own strong identity and from that our willingness to judge others quickly without immediate room for forgiveness seems to lead to the attacks we feel are necessary to defend our identities and their views of their own integrity.
However on arrival at Heathrow I met a cherished Internet friend whose journey had taken her coincidentally to Colombia, the Sierra Nevada and the Kogi Indians. She discovered them and their views in her own journey to seek meaning from the childhood destruction of her being. The Kogi feel their duty is to protect the planet from the rest of us. They believe they can. She carried into her journey with them a great unresolved hurt that requires unforthcoming and unlikely atonement within her own and familial being. How can the Kogi succeed if we cannot find the means to produce healing closure from those near and dear to us?
What end can there be to our journeys? Acceptance of our at-one-ment as manifest in the Gaia hypothesis is perhaps a start? In knowing that, and that we may only see through the glass darkly, we would seem well advised to hold back in our judgement of what others are doing, forgive the hurt we feel we know others intend and in doing so avoid conflicts that may stem from our perception not reality. Such cannot be resolved by attacking a perceived source we cannot control.
Following this path does not absolve any of us from accountable responsibility for our actions as they effect others. However empowered thus we can find what we need to heal ourselves without demanding anything from others. In achieving this we can become fit and well to assist the Kogi in enabling our planet become. This will hopefully be into the emergent Serene Dawn of a New Golden Age of sustainable planetary and human wellbeing.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Islam and the Global Brain
We have described a role for the West and North East Asia in the planet’s brain but there is no place for the 1.5billion people in Islam. Islam or the 1billion who live in and about the Chinese . Indian sub-continent nor those in Africa. Africa, South America and the Pacific. Our work has to encompass these if what is developing is to be seen as truly global.
In ancient times Islam provided the data bus needed to connect the principle parts of the medieval planetary mind. It contributed by translating each major part of the evolving planetary mind to the other and in the process, up to the 15th Century, added hugely to human understanding of art, science and commerce.
The Indian sub-continent is the home to the greatest number of Muslims on the planet and in addition is the origin of three of the world great religious perspectives, Hinduism, B, and Sihkism. India thus has the potential to make a huge contribution to the soul of the planet. However more evidently, having been ruled by the English for three centuries, it has become imbued by English culture to the extent that its higher education system uses English as a language more effectively than other part of the planet. Now that English is the language of international commerce and business India now has a significant advantage as a place for doing any business that requires communication and analysis based on the use of the English language.
For a global brain to be in a way meaningful to our current purpose we need a truly dynamic process. As the need arises new thoughts have to be created on a planet wide basis to be let go or intensified as they prove useful or not. It is this on a global scale the Internet and modern Information and Communication Technology (ICT) makes possible.
The educated skills of India together with their development using what is now th universal language of business English give India a huge advantages in the modern world. Arguably at one time Islam had a similar advantage with its shared understanding of Arabic.
If those within the Umah could revert to the attitudes with which Islam was imbued up to the closing of the Gates of Ishtehad Islam could have considerable influence in the modern world. It then evolved massive insight into how best to interrelate the stable communal cultures of Asia with the more chaotic free enterprise of the West.. In doing this it made a huge constructive contribution to the global development of the arts, scholarship and science.
As of now it is difficult to see the global contribution that will be made by the Spanish and Portuguese speakers. In the past they yielded huge wealth up to Spain and Portugal. There is no doubt whatsoever that due to current rates of Spanish speaking immigration into North America they are to have a huge impact on the future of what is now the richest country on the planet the US. This migration is perhaps the means by which the Spanish speaking world will become truly integral to Gaia’s brain.
In ancient times Islam provided the data bus needed to connect the principle parts of the medieval planetary mind. It contributed by translating each major part of the evolving planetary mind to the other and in the process, up to the 15th Century, added hugely to human understanding of art, science and commerce.
The Indian sub-continent is the home to the greatest number of Muslims on the planet and in addition is the origin of three of the world great religious perspectives, Hinduism, B, and Sihkism. India thus has the potential to make a huge contribution to the soul of the planet. However more evidently, having been ruled by the English for three centuries, it has become imbued by English culture to the extent that its higher education system uses English as a language more effectively than other part of the planet. Now that English is the language of international commerce and business India now has a significant advantage as a place for doing any business that requires communication and analysis based on the use of the English language.
For a global brain to be in a way meaningful to our current purpose we need a truly dynamic process. As the need arises new thoughts have to be created on a planet wide basis to be let go or intensified as they prove useful or not. It is this on a global scale the Internet and modern Information and Communication Technology (ICT) makes possible.
The educated skills of India together with their development using what is now th universal language of business English give India a huge advantages in the modern world. Arguably at one time Islam had a similar advantage with its shared understanding of Arabic.
If those within the Umah could revert to the attitudes with which Islam was imbued up to the closing of the Gates of Ishtehad Islam could have considerable influence in the modern world. It then evolved massive insight into how best to interrelate the stable communal cultures of Asia with the more chaotic free enterprise of the West.. In doing this it made a huge constructive contribution to the global development of the arts, scholarship and science.
As of now it is difficult to see the global contribution that will be made by the Spanish and Portuguese speakers. In the past they yielded huge wealth up to Spain and Portugal. There is no doubt whatsoever that due to current rates of Spanish speaking immigration into North America they are to have a huge impact on the future of what is now the richest country on the planet the US. This migration is perhaps the means by which the Spanish speaking world will become truly integral to Gaia’s brain.
Friday, June 30, 2006
The Main Structures in Planetary Thought
With these expectations in mind it is relatively easy to identify the distinct parts of Gaia’s emergent brain. The most ancient continuing system of organised coherent thoughts are those of the Han Chinese. These are deeply rooted.
These thoughts are reflected in both major philosophies of the region Taoism and Confucianism. It is strongly conservative and communal. It accepts that the “Way” (Tao) of the universe simply is. It understands that stability comes from the acceptance of this, the suppression of self-interest and the acting out of ones duty, to siblings, parents, family, community and state.
In the West a more chaotic form has evolved. Its origins are equally ancient but not so coherent in form but equally so in process. They come from the free thinking analytically rationality that epitomised ancient Greece. These thoughts are fragmented and incoherent in the sense that they are not based on a persistent vision of proper form but a continuing dialogue between thesis and antithesis from which emerges a view dominant for a time but never forming a final truth.
In the Western system such diverse thoughts are maintained by groups which are often international and intercultural. The most ancient holder of these still evident being the Catholic Church. Of course in modern times maintained alongside its worldview are those of the protestant reformation.
There are also great commercial enterprises that span the planet or parts of it and sustain a system of thought, culture, pertinent to their purpose, Unilever or Shell.. More recently there has arisen a number of viable organisations with moralistic purposes such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the World Wild Life Fund.
These respectively project a view of proper human behaviour, the acceptability of an imprisonment and the treatment of prisoners, the care of the environment and the protection of species. Such organisations could be viewed as the developing embryonic conscience for the planet.
Nation states in the interests of their citizens, or their own power, project a particular worldview and win others over to it by propaganda, diplomatic missions etc. Free Trade is one such idea. This has been heavily advocated by such means and led to states acting together to set up the World Trade Organisation to advocate and effect it.
All the above can be seen as thought patterns in the evolving mind of the planet. To qualify they just have to interconnect human beings together to a common purpose and generate the resources to support them in pursuing it. However disparate fragments of thought do not constitute a brain.
These thoughts are reflected in both major philosophies of the region Taoism and Confucianism. It is strongly conservative and communal. It accepts that the “Way” (Tao) of the universe simply is. It understands that stability comes from the acceptance of this, the suppression of self-interest and the acting out of ones duty, to siblings, parents, family, community and state.
In the West a more chaotic form has evolved. Its origins are equally ancient but not so coherent in form but equally so in process. They come from the free thinking analytically rationality that epitomised ancient Greece. These thoughts are fragmented and incoherent in the sense that they are not based on a persistent vision of proper form but a continuing dialogue between thesis and antithesis from which emerges a view dominant for a time but never forming a final truth.
In the Western system such diverse thoughts are maintained by groups which are often international and intercultural. The most ancient holder of these still evident being the Catholic Church. Of course in modern times maintained alongside its worldview are those of the protestant reformation.
There are also great commercial enterprises that span the planet or parts of it and sustain a system of thought, culture, pertinent to their purpose, Unilever or Shell.. More recently there has arisen a number of viable organisations with moralistic purposes such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the World Wild Life Fund.
These respectively project a view of proper human behaviour, the acceptability of an imprisonment and the treatment of prisoners, the care of the environment and the protection of species. Such organisations could be viewed as the developing embryonic conscience for the planet.
Nation states in the interests of their citizens, or their own power, project a particular worldview and win others over to it by propaganda, diplomatic missions etc. Free Trade is one such idea. This has been heavily advocated by such means and led to states acting together to set up the World Trade Organisation to advocate and effect it.
All the above can be seen as thought patterns in the evolving mind of the planet. To qualify they just have to interconnect human beings together to a common purpose and generate the resources to support them in pursuing it. However disparate fragments of thought do not constitute a brain.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Swing Dancing and Global Connection: Dance Movement and Life Long Learning
I have written before about the power and significance of dance.
Last weekend I went to the Merimbula Jazz Festival
http://merimbulajazz.asitis.net.au/
Merimbula is a pretty town on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. I had a ball.
Half the music I heard and danced to was Traditional Jazz the balance was Swing. The attendees were mainly in their late 60s or early 70s. They belonged to the generation that led the Traditional Jazz Revival. They were in their late teens after Rock and Roll and before the Rhythm and Blues of the Beatles and Stones.
Few in that generation of Australian’s dance to that music as many do in the UK using Skip Jive or Collegiate Shag in the USA. Virtually none dance in the styles appropriate to Swing, i. e. Jitterbug, Lindy Hop, West Coast Swing and Balboa. Nevertheless I managed to dance to my heart’s content from 11am till midnight five days in a row.
There were about half a dozen swing dancers at the festival. This was a pity given the volume and quality of the Swing music at the 5 available dance venues.
Swing was made new and big in the 30s and 40s by my father’s generation who are now in their 90s. Chick Webb, Benny Goodman, Glenn Millar, Artie Shaw, the Dorsey Brothers, etc played the music service men danced to in the last war. My dad a merchant seaman on the North Atlantic delighted in visiting New York and dancing to their music in the midst of war.
Some of this generation are still dancing. Frankie Manning now 91 was teaching in Sydney this year. Frankie first danced in the 20s in the Alhambra then the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem New York. Frankie with his partner Freda Washington are credited with the first air-step that forms the basis of modern jump jive.
Swing dancing is in the midst of a global revival. In Melbourne the average age is probably about 25. In the USA and the UK they tend to be a little older but not in Europe, Japan, China and Korea where they are nearly all very young.
This Swing dancing revival is truly Global. Dax one of the best US dancers lives and works in Osake, Japan’s great jazz city. Two great British dancers, Ryan Francois and his partner Jenny Thomas live dance and teach in the USA.
This represents a huge "meme" that stretches across the planet especially among the young. This generates connectivity and communication between humanity and the universe it occupies. This occurs at the deep subconscious level. This is not driven by the electromagentic forces that drive the sights, sounds, smells tastes and touch we more consciously respond to. Instead it is driven by the other major force in the universe of which we have awareness gravity.
75% of our brain’s activity is occupied with handling the balance and movement we need to survive. In this we are effectively interacting with the mass of our planet through the force of gravity. As children our brain grew fastest when we did this when learning to walk and move. As adults if we want to engage in life long learning new and unusual ways of moving are a most powerful stimulant. Dance can perform this function
When we dance we learn to communicate with each other using the force of gravity, the interaction between masses. This is not least that between our own bodies mass and that of the planet we live on. This is echoed by higher order interactions between the Earth and our Sun and between that and the stars in our Galaxy. It is good for one’s soul to dwell on this thought for through it in a real sense when we dance we truly do “Dance with the Stars”
Last weekend I went to the Merimbula Jazz Festival
http://merimbulajazz.asitis.net.au/
Merimbula is a pretty town on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. I had a ball.
Half the music I heard and danced to was Traditional Jazz the balance was Swing. The attendees were mainly in their late 60s or early 70s. They belonged to the generation that led the Traditional Jazz Revival. They were in their late teens after Rock and Roll and before the Rhythm and Blues of the Beatles and Stones.
Few in that generation of Australian’s dance to that music as many do in the UK using Skip Jive or Collegiate Shag in the USA. Virtually none dance in the styles appropriate to Swing, i. e. Jitterbug, Lindy Hop, West Coast Swing and Balboa. Nevertheless I managed to dance to my heart’s content from 11am till midnight five days in a row.
There were about half a dozen swing dancers at the festival. This was a pity given the volume and quality of the Swing music at the 5 available dance venues.
Swing was made new and big in the 30s and 40s by my father’s generation who are now in their 90s. Chick Webb, Benny Goodman, Glenn Millar, Artie Shaw, the Dorsey Brothers, etc played the music service men danced to in the last war. My dad a merchant seaman on the North Atlantic delighted in visiting New York and dancing to their music in the midst of war.
Some of this generation are still dancing. Frankie Manning now 91 was teaching in Sydney this year. Frankie first danced in the 20s in the Alhambra then the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem New York. Frankie with his partner Freda Washington are credited with the first air-step that forms the basis of modern jump jive.
Swing dancing is in the midst of a global revival. In Melbourne the average age is probably about 25. In the USA and the UK they tend to be a little older but not in Europe, Japan, China and Korea where they are nearly all very young.
This Swing dancing revival is truly Global. Dax one of the best US dancers lives and works in Osake, Japan’s great jazz city. Two great British dancers, Ryan Francois and his partner Jenny Thomas live dance and teach in the USA.
This represents a huge "meme" that stretches across the planet especially among the young. This generates connectivity and communication between humanity and the universe it occupies. This occurs at the deep subconscious level. This is not driven by the electromagentic forces that drive the sights, sounds, smells tastes and touch we more consciously respond to. Instead it is driven by the other major force in the universe of which we have awareness gravity.
75% of our brain’s activity is occupied with handling the balance and movement we need to survive. In this we are effectively interacting with the mass of our planet through the force of gravity. As children our brain grew fastest when we did this when learning to walk and move. As adults if we want to engage in life long learning new and unusual ways of moving are a most powerful stimulant. Dance can perform this function
When we dance we learn to communicate with each other using the force of gravity, the interaction between masses. This is not least that between our own bodies mass and that of the planet we live on. This is echoed by higher order interactions between the Earth and our Sun and between that and the stars in our Galaxy. It is good for one’s soul to dwell on this thought for through it in a real sense when we dance we truly do “Dance with the Stars”
The Purposes of Brains and Thoughts
Most of the activity our brains engage in modulate processes that enable us to exist and survive i.e. acquiring, transforming and excreting the substances we use to generate the energy that sustains us as living beings. We need to acquire and distribute oxygen around our bodies. The cardiovascular system does this breathing in air, separating out the oxygen that is then passed into the blood and pumped round our bodies by the heart. The brain keeps this process functioning throughout our lives ending by breathing out, carbon dioxide and the unused nitrogen remnant. The carbon dioxide being then inspired by plants and converted into the oxygen we breath to complete the cycle from Gaia’s perspective
Similarly our brain acts out a process that enables us to acquire food. We ingest this and the brain helps the body to automatically convert it into materials that we can use together with oxygen to create the energy needed for muscle to function. The unused ingested material is excreted out into the environment where it is re-cycled as water and nitrogenous material to be used as food for plants.
Without the cardiovascular and digestive systems we could not survive at all. Much of our spinal cord and lower brain is engaged in supporting the processes required to keep these in being and co-ordinated. However humans have additional capacities. We have the ability to move in co-ordination with others to acquire the food needed to survive and without the speech memory and planning we use to be very effective at this we would not be human.
Different parts of our brain have distinct roles in each of these activities. They represent successive needs in the evolution of living beings and to an extent exist in all animals. In reptiles the last two are little developed while in mammals one finds the sensing and co-ordination function developed though not necessarily the planning and thinking parts. The latter are only really well developed in man though apes and some whales have similar large areas of brain.
Our brain with that of other living things has evolved over eons and as evolution adapts to what exists the old is not destroyed or replaced but accommodated. In consequence the human nervous system has features shared with the nervous systems of all other animals. One might then expect the planet’s brain to evolve similarly with ancient parts driving basic functions, eating procreating, moving; later parts evolved to improve sensing and co-ordination; modern parts evolved to think and plan.
Similarly our brain acts out a process that enables us to acquire food. We ingest this and the brain helps the body to automatically convert it into materials that we can use together with oxygen to create the energy needed for muscle to function. The unused ingested material is excreted out into the environment where it is re-cycled as water and nitrogenous material to be used as food for plants.
Without the cardiovascular and digestive systems we could not survive at all. Much of our spinal cord and lower brain is engaged in supporting the processes required to keep these in being and co-ordinated. However humans have additional capacities. We have the ability to move in co-ordination with others to acquire the food needed to survive and without the speech memory and planning we use to be very effective at this we would not be human.
Different parts of our brain have distinct roles in each of these activities. They represent successive needs in the evolution of living beings and to an extent exist in all animals. In reptiles the last two are little developed while in mammals one finds the sensing and co-ordination function developed though not necessarily the planning and thinking parts. The latter are only really well developed in man though apes and some whales have similar large areas of brain.
Our brain with that of other living things has evolved over eons and as evolution adapts to what exists the old is not destroyed or replaced but accommodated. In consequence the human nervous system has features shared with the nervous systems of all other animals. One might then expect the planet’s brain to evolve similarly with ancient parts driving basic functions, eating procreating, moving; later parts evolved to improve sensing and co-ordination; modern parts evolved to think and plan.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Interview with Brian Hilton on the book he co-authored: "The Global Silk Road"
Interview
Dr Brian Hilton
The Global Silk Road:
Globalisation, Islam and the Creation and Distribution of Knowledge Using the INTERNET.
Dr Brian Hilton
The Global Silk Road:
Globalisation, Islam and the Creation and Distribution of Knowledge Using the INTERNET.
Interviewer: So what would you say your book is about
Brian: You could say our future but as I do not know that I write about the processes leading to it. This shift in perspective is vital. It empowers one to see, our thoughts and the world they create, in what, I believe, is their true intended light.
Interviewer: But surely your book deals with the impact of the Internet on the relationship between the East and the West. You even suggest Islam is a model reflecting how this can be effected.
Brian: Yes. I cover that. However this is only a current manifestation of the process I truly wish to draw attention to, “evolution” or more correctly “social evolution”, seen as an adaptive process. The East West Global Connection is not new. It is perennial. What is new is the means we have now to effect it.
The INTERNET only makes the process more evident. It does not create it. Globalization or adventurously “Universalization” just is. It is so. It is the truth. One can choose to see that or not. That is our right.
Those that choose to see, for example Lao Tzu 2500 years ago in the Tao Te Ching, provide us with means to see the significance of “The Way” for action. We all see what is sculpted. Some of us see the sculpting. We never see the sculptor. Lao Tzu called it “The Way”, Christ called it “The Way the Truth and the Light”, Mohammed, Buddha et al deal with such realities. We do not.
Instead we take the sculpted form such teachers start from and see that as indicative of the end we believe they wish for us. This is never on “The Way”. We should treat them, and what we see of their revelation, as temporary manifestation of the truth of the process. We never do yet it is only this that never changes. What it manifests always changes. This is what is constant. The form it creates is not. This is true also of the philosophies trying to help us see, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc. These provide pointers to The Way. They are signposts to and on “The Way” but not “The Way”. Fundamentalism thus denies the Universe and so God. Fundamentalism is the ultimate apostasy.
Interviewer: That is strong stuff. Why does the book dwell on business, or should I say enterprise, and networking?
Brian: As I said none of this is new . The only new thing is the speed and pace at which it occurs. This is significant. However “New Age People” and religious philosophers and environmentalists go on as to what we have to, should or ought to, do to save ourselves and our planet. This I believe is presumptive of the universe’s, or if you like God’s, purpose. We can only choose how to respond.
This is enterprise. This is not driven by imperatives, only interests, individual and collective. What currently motivates us determines the end never our perception of the end itself. Our purpose is to adapt to what the universe presented us with. This determines the future not ideals. The enterprising see this others do not.
The patterns of thought on the INTERNET that are significant are those that others support. These unsurprisingly are relationships, collective and personal, pleasure, survival, sex and the technology of the systems itself.
I checked before we started and the things that mattered to people on this planet with access to the Internet as tracked by “Technorati” in the hour we speak are:
Bush China ChristianityEducationFeedpath Firefox Haditha Dan Brown Da Vinci Codes Movies Religion Robert Langdon Tom Hanks Iran Iraq Microsoft MP3 Sex Soccer Web2 Wordpress World Cup Youtube………………………………………….
It is this that fascinates me. It is this we need to pay attention to if we wish to understand ourselves and our futures if we have one. The connections between blogsites and so people these tags represent are like patterns of connectivity in a huge brain that spans the planet
Interviewer: And that is all
Brian: Yes, if our interest is our common future, and that is never determined by what clever people feel we ought to bother about but what people actually choose to bother about that is what really matters. The former may influence the latter but not with any certainty.
This book is about what effects our collective thinking and so planetary consciousness. It is this that determines our future and if you look at the above it is our collective, spiritual reproductive, and recuperative interests that drive collective consciousness. This to me seems neither good or bad. It merely reflects what we are which is what the universe not other human beings expect. One religion is mentioned here but at an other hour it could be Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism and if I had searched in Arabic, Hindi or Chinese then it would probably have been one of these others.
Brian: You could say our future but as I do not know that I write about the processes leading to it. This shift in perspective is vital. It empowers one to see, our thoughts and the world they create, in what, I believe, is their true intended light.
Interviewer: But surely your book deals with the impact of the Internet on the relationship between the East and the West. You even suggest Islam is a model reflecting how this can be effected.
Brian: Yes. I cover that. However this is only a current manifestation of the process I truly wish to draw attention to, “evolution” or more correctly “social evolution”, seen as an adaptive process. The East West Global Connection is not new. It is perennial. What is new is the means we have now to effect it.
The INTERNET only makes the process more evident. It does not create it. Globalization or adventurously “Universalization” just is. It is so. It is the truth. One can choose to see that or not. That is our right.
Those that choose to see, for example Lao Tzu 2500 years ago in the Tao Te Ching, provide us with means to see the significance of “The Way” for action. We all see what is sculpted. Some of us see the sculpting. We never see the sculptor. Lao Tzu called it “The Way”, Christ called it “The Way the Truth and the Light”, Mohammed, Buddha et al deal with such realities. We do not.
Instead we take the sculpted form such teachers start from and see that as indicative of the end we believe they wish for us. This is never on “The Way”. We should treat them, and what we see of their revelation, as temporary manifestation of the truth of the process. We never do yet it is only this that never changes. What it manifests always changes. This is what is constant. The form it creates is not. This is true also of the philosophies trying to help us see, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc. These provide pointers to The Way. They are signposts to and on “The Way” but not “The Way”. Fundamentalism thus denies the Universe and so God. Fundamentalism is the ultimate apostasy.
Interviewer: That is strong stuff. Why does the book dwell on business, or should I say enterprise, and networking?
Brian: As I said none of this is new . The only new thing is the speed and pace at which it occurs. This is significant. However “New Age People” and religious philosophers and environmentalists go on as to what we have to, should or ought to, do to save ourselves and our planet. This I believe is presumptive of the universe’s, or if you like God’s, purpose. We can only choose how to respond.
This is enterprise. This is not driven by imperatives, only interests, individual and collective. What currently motivates us determines the end never our perception of the end itself. Our purpose is to adapt to what the universe presented us with. This determines the future not ideals. The enterprising see this others do not.
The patterns of thought on the INTERNET that are significant are those that others support. These unsurprisingly are relationships, collective and personal, pleasure, survival, sex and the technology of the systems itself.
I checked before we started and the things that mattered to people on this planet with access to the Internet as tracked by “Technorati” in the hour we speak are:
Bush China ChristianityEducationFeedpath Firefox Haditha Dan Brown Da Vinci Codes Movies Religion Robert Langdon Tom Hanks Iran Iraq Microsoft MP3 Sex Soccer Web2 Wordpress World Cup Youtube………………………………………….
It is this that fascinates me. It is this we need to pay attention to if we wish to understand ourselves and our futures if we have one. The connections between blogsites and so people these tags represent are like patterns of connectivity in a huge brain that spans the planet
Interviewer: And that is all
Brian: Yes, if our interest is our common future, and that is never determined by what clever people feel we ought to bother about but what people actually choose to bother about that is what really matters. The former may influence the latter but not with any certainty.
This book is about what effects our collective thinking and so planetary consciousness. It is this that determines our future and if you look at the above it is our collective, spiritual reproductive, and recuperative interests that drive collective consciousness. This to me seems neither good or bad. It merely reflects what we are which is what the universe not other human beings expect. One religion is mentioned here but at an other hour it could be Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism and if I had searched in Arabic, Hindi or Chinese then it would probably have been one of these others.
Our books point is that we should focus on the processes driving our connectivity to understand what will occur not the specific subject matter at any point. Connectivity is good as is diversity reproduction and joy and if these exist the universe is happy with us so why would we want anything else?
{Permission is given for this interview to be used as anyone taking it wishes}
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