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 9 Dec 2003 @ 11:31, by mre. Technology
Following up on the comments of the previous article, I have just posted my conclusions to the Chandler Design list. See the December Archives of the Design list for previous postings under the heading "Thoughts on a Browser Parcel". If the Open Software Foundation people respond positively to the idea of including Mozilla in the Chandler distribution, then perhaps Mitch Kapor's idea of a Mozilla toolbar could be made to work. Otherwise, we will go with our "Personal Portal" idea. More >
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9 Dec 2003 @ 10:18, by ming. Systems Thinking
One could say that there are several different kinds of logic, which are differentiated by the number of possibilities one is considering at any one time.
 You know, of course, two-valued logic. That is black and white thinking. It is when one considers that there are only two options, and one needs to choose between them. You're either for or against. You either support freedom, or you're a terrorist. You're either a christian or a heathen. You're either for or against abortion. A person who uses two-valued logic does merely need to decide whether to pick the 'good' option or the 'bad' option, and the only other thinking involved is to try to match the options with previously known 'good' or 'bad' labels. "Aha, he uses bad words, so what he's saying is of course bad".
 There can also be three-valued logic. That's when there is Yes, No and Maybe. That is, the answer is either a clear Yes (good), a clear No (bad), or we just don't have enough information to decide yet, which is a Maybe. That can of course be considered a little more advanced than two-valued logic, as everything doesn't just get categorized at first glance. But not much better.
 More simple than either of those is one-valued logic. That is when there's not even any need for or faculty for evaluating things. Things are just the way they are, usually because The Big Book says so, or The Big Guru, or The Big Government. And if they didn't mention it, it of course doesn't exist. Generally it is if you consider yourself so powerless that you just have to accept whatever comes along, from the only direction you're looking in. Like, if you've latched on to a literal interpretation of some kind of religion, and you believe that the decision making process is entirely out of your hands. Oh, nothing wrong in believing in bigger things, but here we're talking about whether you think or not.
If you predominantly use any of those three approaches in your life, you're somewhat less than sane. Or, more kindly, you are likely to make decisions that don't work very well for you, and you might not be able to figure out why.
 Another, undeniably more effective, kind of thinking is what we can call infinite valued logic. Essentially that means that any situation, any problem, consists of many different factors. And each of those factors might be pegged on a scale with an infinite number of gradations, in relation to some particular measure or outcome. And to make a good decision, you'd need to relate and weight all these factors together.
Infinite valued logic will maybe appear less slick and convenient and forceful at first. Essentially it implies that the answer is "It depends" until you've examined all the factors involved. Including who do they apply to, and what are the exact circumstances.
Is smoking bad for me? Is extra-marital sex wrong? What is the Republican Party good for? Should I become a buddhist? Should I eat less cheese?
If you had the answer ready for any of those, without having to think about it, chances are you didn't really examine the factors involved in the questions, and you probably didn't look at how these questions related to me and my particular circumstances.
Take smoking. There are certain negative health influences. And there are certain positive things smoking might do for a person. Both of those are different for different people. What exactly are they, specifically for this person? And how much smoking are we talking about? A cigar every evening, or 3 packs of unfiltered cigarettes per day? And who are we talking about? A soldier in war who's being shot at every day, or an accountant sitting by a desk? What would he replace smoking with if he didn't have that? And what else does that person consume on a daily basis? Is he happy about it or not? All of those are factors that have a whole range of possible answers. Some of them will support the person's decision to smoke, and some represent reasons not to. You'd have to add all of it up to make the most rational decision.
You could do that very mechanically. Write down all the factors involved and peg each one on a scale between 0 and 10, or between -10 and +10, in relation to a particular outcome. And then you add the numbers up and see what you get. However, it doesn't at all have to be done that way. It doesn't even have to be done terribly explicitly. Good decision makers naturally do this internally. They are conscious of most of the factors involved, they rule out their own preconceived biases, they pay attention to the exact circumstances, and they might come up with an answer that just seems or feels or sounds right, without necessarily having articulated exactly why.
In brief, it is about avoiding categorizing things in advance. Avoiding making decisions based on abstract generalizations one carries around. It is about noticing what is actually going on right here and now, what the actual components and influences are, and responding rationally to what is in front of you.
For more on infinite-valued logic, check out Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics. See, for example, here, here, or here More >
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 8 Dec 2003 @ 14:43, by ming. Social System Design
In 1927 as Buckminster Fuller was standing at the edge of Lake Michigan, intent on committing suicide by throwing himself into the dark, cold water, he instead hesitated and started thinking about what meaning his life could have. For the first time doing some thinking he felt was his own. And he asked himself what one penniless little human could possibly do for humanity that the most powerful governments and corporations couldn't do better."Answering myself, I said: "The individual can take initiatives without anyone's permission."
I told myself: "You do not have the right to eliminate yourself, you do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will forever remain obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all your experience to the highest advantage of others." So I vowed to keep myself alive, but only if I would never use me again for just me - each one of us is born of two, and we really belong to each other. I vowed to do my own thinking instead of trying to accommodate everyone else's opinions, credos and theories. I vowed to apply my inventory of experiences to the solving of problems that affect everyone aboard planet earth.
I didn't want to waste a second, so I slept that way that certain animals sleep: lying down as soon as I was tired, sleeping a half hour every six hours. I also decided to hold a moratorium on speech. It was very tough on my wife, but for two years in that Chicago tenement I didn't allow myself to use words. I wanted to force myself back to the point where I could understand what I was thinking.
I decided to forget about earning a living. It seemed to me that humans are honey-money bees, doing the right things for the wrong reasons, just as the bee pollinates the flower.
Released from the idea of earning a living, I was able to address problems in the biggest way. I decided to commit myself to the invention and development of physical artifacts to reform the environment. I decided that a plurality of such artifacts had the potential to evoke humanity's most intelligent, interconsiderate qualities. It became obvious that if I worked always and only for all humanity, I would be optimally effective. I'd be doing what nature wanted me to do, and nature would literally support me." Now, get that. One individual working for all of humanity. Applying all of your energy and intelligence to making the biggest possible positive difference for the whole world. But doing it completely on your own premises. Not sacrificing yourself to the will of some homogonous group. Not just trying to tweak the best advantage for yourself out of life. No, doing the very best you can, in the way that only you can know how to do - not for yourself, not for any particular group, but for all of us together. There's nothing quite as powerful as that. It is a profound statement, a profound intention. And not just some idealistic do-good kind of thing to say. It is maybe the most sensible thing to do.
Many years later, two years before he died, Bucky wrote a book called "Critical Path" in which he summarized much of what he had learned. This is part of what he wrote in the foreword:"My reasons for writing this book are fourfold:
(A) Because I am convinced that human knowledge by others of what this book has to say is essential to human survival.
(B) Because of my driving conviction that all of humanity is in peril of extinction if each one of us does not dare, now and henceforth always to tell only the truth, and all the truth, and to do so promptly—right now.
(C) Because I am convinced that humanity’s fitness for continuance in the cosmic scheme no longer depends on the validity of political, religious, economic, or social organizations, which altogether heretofore have been assumed to represent the many.
(D) Because, contrary to (C), I am convinced that human continuance now depends entirely upon:
(1) The intuitive wisdom of each and every individual.
(2) The individual’s comprehensive informedness.
(3) The individual’s integrity of speaking and acting only on the individual’s own within-self-intuited and reasoned initiative.
(4) The individual’s joining action with others, as motivated only by the individually conceived consequences of so doing.
(5) And, the individual’s never-joining action with others, as motivated only by crowd-engendered emotionalism, or by a sense of the crowd’s power to overwhelm, or in fear of holding to the course indicated by one’s own intellectual convictions." Notice that it is at first not always easy to read what he wrote. After his two years of self-imposed silence he then only wrote and spoke in very precise statements that pack quite some wisdom into each sentence, but which uses many made-up words. However, if you get used to it, you'll appreciate how clearly the man was saying things.
OK, so again he's talking about how we might make the world work optimally for all of us. First of all how we might possibly save humankind from imminent extinction. Not by some political or religious ideology. Not through any organization that claims to be working on such big matters. No, through well-informed individuals, who come to realize what they're here to do, and who go and do it, in accordance with their own integrity and intuition. And such individuals then freely joining their actions with the actions of others.
I went and picked those quotes out because I was thinking about the principles of the open source movement, and about how I better can do something useful in the world. Notice that most people who're developing open source software are following the principles outlined above, even if the individuals doing so might not at all resonate with the lofty aims described. But it ads up to the same thing. If you develop some little software utility just to scratch your own personal itch, but you actually put it out into the world for others to freely use, and it turns out that it is useful for others too - you're doing exactly that. You, as an individual, are guiding your actions by your own intuition and decisions, not taking direction from any authoritative group outside yourself, doing it entirely you own way, and you give your work to the world with few or no strings attached.
If the world just worked a few percent more like that, the tides would turn. If more works were put into the world by people who did exactly what they think is needed, without caring whether it pays or whether power groups might agree or not. If more big and small problems were solved for all of us by smart people doing whatever they damned well felt like. Little by little, the pool of tools and resources supporting humanity is growing. And, one by one, organizations that hold on to power for its own sake, for their own sake, or for the sake of some dried-up idealistic principles - will fall apart and fade away. Just because they don't work as well as a network of free people who serve the world. They never have, but it is not beginning to be clear before now.
Anyway, I will be searching for a better understanding of what it means to be working in that way. Indeed, it doesn't have to be something big and noble and idealistic at all. It can be simply doing little useful things that need to be done, and making them as available as possible, More >
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 5 Dec 2003 @ 12:15, by susannahbe. Ideas, Creativity
Image title:Golden by Susannah Bec
Some thoughts to celebrate the wonderful sun filled afternoon here in the UK today :-)
..............................................
Winter sun burnishes my world.
Late afternoon glow.
Golden lights, pick out natures shadows.
The world is alive beneath my feet.
The air dances with energy.
The giant fireball in the heavens
bathes me in liquid yellow streaks,
as it tumbles lazily onto the horizon.
And as I honour my journey,
as a living breathing piece
of a universal jigsaw.
The power of life,
overwhelms me.
...................................... More >
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2 Dec 2003 @ 15:12, by mmmark. Spirituality
It is our shared purpose to co-discover and co-create a Healthy Society.
Through ongoing political and media references planet-wide, human society has become divided by labeling one segment of the population from another, based on any criteria that some people might share. We often reference the 'Poor,' 'Immigrants,' 'Communists,' Conservatives,' 'Scientists,' 'The Homeless' and the like, in a very long list of subgroups of human beings. This activity is useful on a superficial basis and yet it conditions our minds to believe that different groups of people have different basic needs, or that one group is not entitled to the same liberties as another group. This seeds prejudice, bias, segregation and war! It seems that we have set ourselves up in competition with one another, disconnected our global human family artificially, for special interests not associated with the general welfare. I believe it is important to understand and visualize that we are one family with the same basic needs for survival, no matter where you live, what religion you practice, how much money you have, your sex, age, or the color of your skin.
In order to govern ourselves equitably, it is vital that social and political agendas focus to provide infrastructure and resources to support human life consistently. The first meaning of life is to survive and so this is what we are trying to do. However, we have been making feeble attempts on a limited basis which are not sustainable. If we hope for a better future, we must identify and practice shared purpose in a way that preserves human diversity.
What we are looking for is the most basic form of Universal Philosophy that all people can relate to and participate in. This is a valuable goal. Let us not confuse the intellectual pursuit of meta-physical philosophy with this practical need to have a clear incentive for living and working together. Why do you get up in the morning?
The opening statement is designed for ALL people to comprehend, to be profound, truthful and trustworthy. It makes no judgements, but sets before us the core challenge that has always been and always will be our true path. It provides the primary goal of making a healthy society and instructs that we must learn what a "Healthy Society" is. The use of the word "Healthy" is the key governor to making responsible individual and group decisions in any situation. If this statement (or similar statement) is adopted and applied, it becomes difficult to argue or hold conflict against a healthy course. War is not healthy, nor is smoking, lying, or taking more than one needs from the planet.
To include context for our place in the cosmos and respect for the environment a variation on the statement would be:
It is our shared purpose to co-discover and co-create a Healthy Society co-existing in harmony with nature.
The Conscious Evolution Community of Santa Barbara made this statement of shared purpose on 29 April 2003:
"Our purpose is to be a habitat for conscious evolution. Recognizing our oneness with Spirit, we co-create with each other and Nature's Intelligence to discover and contribute our genius for self and social benefit."
I urge that we concentrate on the subject of shared purpose and place our energies on aligning our dreams and actions with the essential need to form a common, positive foundation for our evolution.
Mark Smollin - 2003.12.01 More >
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2 Dec 2003 @ 12:08, by raypows. Sexuality
Women Needed to Test Orgasm Machine
11-28-3
LONDON (Reuters)
No, really. An American surgeon who has patented a device that triggers an orgasm has begun a clinical trial approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and is looking for female volunteers.
"I thought people would be beating my door down to become part of the trial," pain specialist Dr Stuart Meloy told New Scientist magazine on Wednesday.
But so far only one woman has completed the first stage of the trial, with apparently breathtaking results, and a second has agreed to take part.
Meloy, of Piedmont Anesthesia and Pain Consultants in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is hoping to find eight more volunteers willing to have electrodes inserted in their spine and be connected to a pacemaker-size machine implanted under the skin to heighten their sexual pleasure.
The married woman who tested the machine, dubbed an orgasmatron, had not had an orgasm for four years. But during the nine days she used it, she had several.
"She even told me she had the first multiple orgasm of her life using the device," said Meloy.
He stumbled on the unexpected side-effect while using a spinal cord stimulator a few years ago to treat a patient suffering with severe back pain. The woman had already had back surgery for degenerative disk disease and fusion surgery.
When Meloy placed the electrodes into a specific spot on her spine to find nerve bundles carrying pain signals to the brain, she moaned with delight.
"You're going to have to teach my husband how to do that," he quoted her as saying.
The tiny impulses of electricity applied to the electrodes seemed to have turned on the patient's orgasm button.
Although the device has been compared to the orgasmatron featured in the 1973 Woody Allen film "Sleeper," Meloy envisions patients using it temporarily to retrain their sexual response.
The women in the trial described it as "really excellent foreplay."
Although some medical experts are skeptical about the procedure and say a vibrator can produce the same results, Meloy believes it could help to improve sexual response in women who cannot have orgasms and might even help men as well.
A full implant of the device would cost about 13,000 pounds ($22,000).
"I don't see it any differently from procedures such as breast implants," Meloy told the magazine. More >
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2 Dec 2003 @ 06:39, by craiglang. Altered States
Just wondering: has anyone else had a powerful sense of "warning" in the last day or so? I awoke this morning with a powerful sense of "something-wrong". It was the same feeling I had just before 9/11.
Followup: What was the warning?
...... More >
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1 Dec 2003 @ 11:53, by bkodish. Communication
Columnist Julie Burchill, bless her soul, is leaving her job at the British newspaper, the Guardian. She has gotten fed-up with the pronounced anti-Israel prejudice of that so-called 'liberal' publication.
As she put it in her Saturday, Nov. 29th article Good, bad and ugly : "...if there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite striking bias against the state of Israel. Which, for all its faults, is the only country in that barren region that you or I, or any feminist, atheist, homosexual or trade unionist, could bear to live under...I don't swallow the modern liberal line that anti-Zionism is entirely different from anti-semitism; the first good, the other bad..." More >
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1 Dec 2003 @ 11:35, by craiglang. Recreation, Fun
Yesterday, on a beautiful afternoon as we were driving home to Minneapolis from visiting family in Wisconsin, we were treated to one of those rare beautiful, crystal clear late-fall days. A stark blue/white and gray sky, the visibility infinite, and a sharp, cold wind out of the North. Driving along U.S. Highway 10, the road winds in, out, and through the central Wisconsin hills. At times, when the road tops over a hill, you can see forever. It is a beautiful sight - the stark november sky, leafless trees, and brown, harvested fields. It leaves one with a sense of wonder and mystery at this world God has provided for us.
And with wonder is a sense of mystery. Why? Several interesting things occurred in recent weeks that have served to focus my attention on the mysterious and the climactic. At the most general, there is simply the year-end - the approach of the winter solstice, holy days in nearly all religions. Yet there is a more specific sense. As one travels, one can sometimes sense a deep underlying interconnectedness. A sense that each house, each person, each small business along the roadside - each thing is interconnected with all others. One can sometimes sense an almost-visible web of being that interconnects each person, and each work of humanity or nature in an almost-tangible way.
Another mystery is one that perhaps being an anomaly researcher affords, that one might not otherwise notice. This comes from having looked into a number of rural sightings and close encounters in recent months. Among residents of the area, these are seldom discussed - especially with outsiders. Yet, sighting report databases indicate that the area we were driving through has had a bountiful history of recent anomaly sighting/encounter reports. So as I drove through the rolling hills, fields and woods of central Wisconsin, I could only wonder - In which of the farm-homes in the distance, did someone have a truly fascinating story to tell?
Sunset occurred as our car crested the tallest hill in the region. And in an interesting compliment to the mystery of a few moments before, we were rewarded with a spectacular portrait of the works of God. We were afforded a spectacular view of the western horizon - a colorful contrast of red sky and deep-blue clouds. It was a sight to never forget. A delightful dose of mystery and wonder on a Sunday afternoon. More >
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1 Dec 2003 @ 07:29, by charper. Spirituality
It was 2020, on a quite night where a few friends delighted in what they had achieved without an ounce of brick and zero mortar. A new religion started from a little idea - but one grounded in truth so its understandable that it easily flourished thoughout the world.
Now 15 years later peoples from throughout the world were actually taking time to honor its many tributaries - and the many souls that it had saved.
It's vision began in a website in the year 2003...when a dream was shared for the world to receive. It began something like this...
I had a dream that one day everyone would honor the one God of love at the altar of all great religions. In this acknowledgement everyone would agree - we are all children of God first...and as his children, we would start a new religion - one without bricks and mortar, one that only serves the one God of Love. It's purpose would be that it's members work only to honor every path people walk in their way to God, knowing that the key to finding God is found in desire to know him and a willingness to exercise it by walking a path to greater understanding. The rest of the process we knew God would provide...guiding each to his kingdom, via the path he saw fit at any moment in time.
This religion was called COG. It wasn't Christian based but Christian it was, it wasn't Islamic based but Islamic it was, it was Buddhist or Muslim, but both it was. It was none of these but part of all it was...for it was a religion like a river of love - that flowed without conflict, without judgement, embracing all that it touched.
This religion called COG became a centerpiece of trust for which the whole world could embrace - for it sang a truth that touched the sole of every human heart. Never had there been a single religion that was grounded in the word "religion’s" true meaning -which is "realization of our oneness with God."
Prior to the moment when this religion was discovered there as great conflict among its many paths. The Muslim God was seen as different from the Christian God, the Buddhist God or the Islam God - and as a result, each fought to convert the other to their God. Mother Earth cried as blood soiled her garments - saddened by the conflict that kept eclipsing her joy.
Little did they know that COG all started when a young lad named John questioned his father after school one day, asking, "Dad, what religion are we?" In his answer a new religion was born...when he replied, "son, we are Children of God first and foremost, and as Children of God, we can choose from many paths that will lead us to knowing him in our lives. So you might say we worship the one God of Love on the altar of all religions." To this his son replied, "but what religion are we?" "Children of God," his father replied. "But dad Children of God isn't a religion," I mean, are we catholic or something like that?" A little saddened at seeing that his son needed to be something...the thought came to mind that their religion could be called the Religion of COG, so he reply, "son, our religion is the "Religion of COG!"
"But let me explain," he quickly followed having seen the great puzzlement passing across this son’s face. "The religion of COG is the one religion over all religions. It's the one common purpose of all religions. What it teaches is that every religion out there is all about helping us to rediscover that we are in fact children of God. God is our creator, our Father and even Mother to some. Our God is the same God of Love at the altar of all religions. We are all a part of His one family. There is nothing that can separate us from Him - except our thoughts if we choose. And even if some believe they’re not His children doesn't change the fact that He created us all.
"You see son, he continued, "all religions are like different paths you can walk to get to you true home with God. God doesn't care which one you take. He only cares that you are walking back to the understanding that He Loves you just the way you are. This will never change for God’s Love never changes. So today you can say we walk a Christian like path - but tomorrow he might have us change if He thought it would help speed our journey back to him. See son, God doesn't care as long as we are walking a path that acknowledges that we are His children and His Love for us is without end."
"Do you see John?," he questioned his son. "Yessssss...dad, I see" he replied, still having a little frustration of not being something common with his other classmates perhaps."
A little saddened as well, his father later prayed, "God, why can’t everyone see that we are all your children, why such separation and frustration, all the darkness that's blinding so many eyes – when truly God, we are all your children?"
To this came God’s reply, "So start a new Religion called COG, that has no traditions, leadership, prophets, or edicts. It has no bricks or mortar, no books or bibles. There is nothing to donate to, support or dictate. It is to be something that everyone can be…without sacrifice or judgement coming from their current religious choices. They can be a COG Islam, COG Christians, COG Moslems – it matters not. It’s only purpose is to embrace one truth, and one truth only: “God is my Father and I am His Child.” ”
The rest became a movement from all over the world – when a simply story was written and God’s Love became better understood - and embraced by His children one heart at a time.
God’s children the world over heard the story, read it from emails, web sites and words share from every language. People began standing in their truth first when asked, what’s your religion?…proudly responding, “COG!”
Before long COG became common ground for all great religions – creating a great honor for every path to God. The extremists from all path soon lost support for their conflicts – as adoption of COG released love held hostage – proving to all that there is only one final truth – that each and all are one common expression, all flesh and bones, all Children of God.
So the next time you’re asked, “What’s your religion?”…perhaps sharing the religion of COG would be a great new place to start.
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