Fair Conversion

Our small town of 800 people has been host to the county fair for 100 years now. The fair is run down and has little zing left. The county, always in a budget crunch, stopped funding the fair 3 years ago. Now it is running on private donations and is begging for money. If they don't get enough soon, the fair may have to be cancelled.

Now is a teachable moment for the fair board.

They will listen to an idea to get them lots of funding and lots of additional volunteer energy. Simply focus the fair on alternate energy and sustainable living.

Many synergies will converge to make this work. (I won't eleborate on them now.)
This may be a first step towards converting the mindset of a whole community towards a more robust (and sane) local economy.
This will be our Zing Tau.

And the Truth is dangerous, for it shall set you free

The title is a phrase that popped up in my sleep about 7 years ago. It seemed profound in the context of my sleep. I always wondered what that context was.

I was reminded of that saying as I read a book online today. A theory of Power is anthropological and scholarly. It has lots of footnotes and references. It starts out explaining that nothing exists except power relationships. It goes through a little about physics, genes, memes, and culture. It ends up, in chapter 9, talking about how to structure a society that suits our genes much better by avoiding hierarchy. It looks just like the social structure that I have always dreamed of creating.

HUG is actively trying to create the foundations of this living style. The main motivations have been healthy living, economic well being, better ecology, less time stress, more resilient to social and economic storms. I never realized my reasons went this deep. This structure largely frees us from controls within our culture that don't fit our genes.

The book explained how memes now drive evolution far more than genes. Humans evolved to be vectors and hosts for memes. All the social structures around us serve the memes first, us if it’s convenient.

It helps complete a coherent picture of the universe. This truth gets at a reason for ego. It helps me see how ego traps us and why spiritual gurus seek to minimize it.

This truth can upset some people.
It is dangerous,
but it can help set you free.

Dream on

The gift economy is taking shape. Bill Gates should show his moxie by embracing it rather than letting Microsoft become a relic of an older economic system.

I would love to see this story play out...

Microsoft decides that they have made enough money the classical way. It's time to be bold. In order to compete with Linux, Microsoft decides to lead the way into the golden age of the "gift" economy. They warn all their stockholders that they will start giving away software over the net. For half a year, Microsoft will buy back stock from any stockholder who wants to sell. Few people sell because they figure Bill has something lucrative up his sleeve.

Finally it happens. On the internet, Microsoft releases new versions of office and every other popular software product, totally free. The uptake is huge. Millions of users insist that anyone they do business with should use the same software. Businesses everywhere suddenly find that they need assistance with updating, and training, and customizing. Microsoft is in that service business, and now they are busier than ever.

Of course in any major shift, certain types of employees become obsolete and need to be retrained. Advertising, marketing and retail people will be retrained as customer service personel. Without copyright issues, lawyers will have much less to sue about. They could be retrained as greeters at Wall Mart.

Phase of the moon?

Last week was very cloudy. The moon was full sometime during the week, but you couldn't tell by looking. That didn't matter. My mind behaved just like it was a full moon.

Thoughts were flowing fast and deep. I seemed to need little sleep. Creative things were happening everywhere I turned.

Today I sit staring at the computer screen, wondering why I don't seem to have any thoughts. Of course, it's the calm after the brainstorm.
I used up all my energy. That's why I have been sleeping all day.

Different

After watching a movie in a theater, the people I hang around with usually hang around during the credits. This serves at least three purposes...
It keeps us out of the exit crowd.
It helps us savor the mood of a good movie.
It helps us get a feel for what it took to create the movie.

We are usually the last ones out. I constantly marvel at how many people are in such a rush to leave.

Tonight as we sat alone watching some credits, I was struck by how different we are. It seems that about 1% of our population takes time to savor things. About the same percentage is in our local counterculture that takes environmentalism seriously. It gives me pause to think about how big the task really is if we want to get a lot of people involved in any kind of positive lifestyle change.

This just re-iterates to me that we can’t change anybody. The best we can do is inspire by creative example.

Could happen

What if our civilization is an embryo inside of an egg?

We are surrounded by all the nutrients we will need to develop. We just went through the early rapid growth phase and are now developing enough of a nervous system to enter a new phase. Soon we will start converting all the mater and energy in the universe into our living self.
(If that seems hard to swallow, read The age of spiritual machines by Ray Kurtzweil. He has a fantastic web site.)

Assuming we learn a way to travel faster than light, mathematics tells us we could occupy the entire 3D universe in as little as 300 years from now. Once we do that, we will be mature enough to hatch out of our shell. The confines of three dimensions will crack and break away. We will be born into the eleven dimensional world.

Design decision

I have been focusing on creating houses that are low energy usage even in Minnesota winters. Next year we intend to build several new buildings to practice with. The design process is filled with a zillion possibilites and we need to narrow our choices.

How about if each building we make also focuses on food production?
I think we can make some nice buildings that heat themselves and the whole south side is a self heating greenhouse. The roof is a garden. The north side includes food storage. The landscaping is edible.

This whole cluster of buildings fosters a local economy that is less buffeted by the winds in the larger economy.

Didn't come

I waited over a week, hoping that some of the examples of "Great Truths" would show up. I appreciate the comments by Paul, Geoge and Stacey. They come close, but don't quite hit the grandeur of the examples I almost remember. Perhaps these tantalizing, almost reachable examples weren't meant for now.
If they are ever meant to be shared, they will show up again.

Great Truth

Over the years I have come to accept as an axiom that:
One sign of a great truth is that the opposite is also a great truth.

I have seen many great examples. When someone asks me for an example, I always draw a blank. We need to start writing them down.

Do you have any examples?

Cyborg mind

A cyborg is part man, part machine. Sci-fi stories are full of them. Sometime in the future we might even see some.

You don't have to wait. You are one.
You have been using mind amplifiers most of your life. Every year your mind is more dependant on them. When is the last time you made it through the day without using machinery to enhance or take the load off your mind?

We use mind amplifiers to help us calculate, search, sort, filter, sense, communicate, create art, invent, design, even drive.

Your mind is getting bigger, and it doesn't all fit into your skull.

Death

If everything is alive, how do we define death?

One proposal:
Death is the collapse of some or all of an organization.
Every organization is made of other nested and overlapping organizations.
Thus parts of organizations are always dying. Other parts are benefitting from the resulting change.

Every noun is alive

Every time one of my kids went through the jr high school science class where they defined life, I got rather animated myself.

The criteria to decide if something was alive or not always made sense. It included such things as: Living things exchange energy. Living things reproduce. They then go on to apply those criteria very narrowly. They forget that everything exchanges energy of some kind, heat energy, light, magnetic, gravitational, psychic. They overlook the mere fact that every class of object seems it found a way to reproduce, or there would be only one.

The practice of defining life as taught in jr high school teaches kids to think narrowly. They get stuck in human scale time frames. They think that reproducing like we biolife critters do is the only valid way. (It's the same line of thinking that white is the only valid skin color.)

Shouldn't we be trying to expand our kid's frames of reference? It would reduce prejudice and help clarity of thought. It would expand our innate appreciation for the infinite number of spirits all around us, in every living thing.

Carefull

QUOTE

"The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel." Horace Walpole

I have been wrestling for the last five years or so with the possibility that in certain situations I have cared too much. Since being damaged by that kind of caring, perhaps I have found a more realistic balance, a mellow type of caring.

How do we learn how to care enough to fully realize life and its joys, yet not be ripped apart by life going on, as it inevitably does?

Bad analogy

We use analogy to understand our world. It is pretty important to find good analogies. Our power to understand is only as good as our analogies.

I was watching a university channel on satellite TV. It was a biologist explaining that biology is nano technology. It was very informative and I was marveling at how intelligent and educated he was. Then he got into his personal opinions. He explained why he disagreed with a computer expert who was saying that eventually computers will perform many functions that are now done exclusively by biology.

He went on to explain how computers can’t evolve, or heal themselves, or feel. As he made his point, he compared a single transistor to a neuron, or a single computer to all of evolution. A more fitting analogy would compare a neuron to a million transistors, and biological evolution to the evolution of electronics.

My concern was the lack of critical thinking in his arguments and the apparent lack of the same in his audience. During the questions after his talk, nobody mentioned that his analogies were way off base. These are smart people. Why the glaring lack of clarity of thought?

I can only conclude that education can (and often does) get in the way of sound thinking.

The teacher speaks

This blog is beginning to replace my written journal. That means that it needs to meet "the teacher".
Sometimes, when the spirit is right, the teacher speaks louder than the background noise. Sometimes very loud. The teacher gives me lessons, and answers questions. Sometimes, a simple question requires five years worth of lessons before I have enough background for an answer. It seems that I always eventually get my answer.

Tonight I happenned to ask if Conciousness had inertia. The answer flowed from my keyboard as easily as it used to flow from my pencil...


Of course consciousness has inertia. Consciousness is based on inertia, and vise-versa.

The most basic concept in a neural network is that neurons have many connections to other neurons. The strength of those connections get enhanced or diminished as the network learns. Think of yourself as a neuron (you actually are, in society’s brain). You have many acquaintances. Some of them you like, some you distrust. As you interact with people you learn who to pay attention to and who to ignore.

Learning how to treat an acquaintance is a kind of social inertia. It takes a lot of opposite energy to change how you interact with a given person.

Consciousness (as we know it on earth) is an emergent property of complex neural networks. As such it is a complex conglomeration of attitudes, each of which required energy to create, and would require equal energy to undo. Consciousness is made of inertia.




The chemistry of life
Our consciousness is made up of many small masses connected to create a working unit. It is a tightly packed mass, like an atom. It might bind into pairs or into larger groups to become like a molecule. It may bounce off of other atoms like molecules in air. It may stick loosely in large groups, forming a liquid. It may bind into a rigid organization, forming a solid. Each phase has its own kind of energy and its own uses.

We can learn much about personal energies by applying knowledge of chemistry.

Developer

We cannot take credit for our talent.
It's what we do with it that counts.

How am I developing my talents?
How am I deploying them?





And you?

A great get-together

Friday we had a get together with Lynn's family and all our kids and grandkids. It was in honor of at least 5 birthdays, thanksgiving, and Ruth and Nathan's return to the south. It went remarkably well, better than we could have hoped. No major meltdowns among 8 little kids who played well all evening.

After many rounds of happy birthday, Nathan recited two poems he wrote as birthday presents. In written form, they may not win any awards, but as an oral performance it was great fun. I posted them in the two previous posts.

Nathan's second poem

Ryan

In the deep virgin woods near the River Pine
Stands a large red mansion that’s ever so fine.
Therein lives a man of great and handsome stature
Dedicated to researching mother nature.

For Amber, Trichelle, Ethan and Avery
Ryan provides a life most savory.
Life in Ryan’s house is never boring.
All of its members are given to constant exploring
Of books, toys, gadgets, and of mother earth.
Of imagination and genius Ryan has no dearth!

His achievements form an awesome collage
Of environmental ideas and scientific Knollage.
He managed to skip two years of college!

Ryan’s systematic thinking and digital approach
Put his scientific work far above reproach.
With oil prices rising with impunity
He sees a fantastic new opportunity.

As mankind for new oil resources cries
Ryan seeks fuel from oil from French fries!
Like an artist expert with his easel
Ryan’s now designing bio-diesel!

So Ryan, we today offer you many cheers
For a happy birthday and for many more wonderful years!

Nathan's first poem

Paul
My son-in-law Paul has knowledge abounding.
His scientific achievements are nothing short of astounding.
As a scientist he's always proving his worth
with ingenious new uses of straw and earth.

He always seems to be having fun
in finding new ways to use heat from the sun.
By designing recycling water and waste recourses
he'll help the world save many precious resources.

He's saved much time in overcoming electronic hurdles
with his circuit-break-locating turtles.
In addition to being an outstanding inventor,
he's a great family man and outstanding mentor.

His warm smile, gentle manner delights folks of all ages.
He's truly one of our greatest sages.
He's never too busy to pause with you for a talk
and always has time to take grandchildren for a walk!

So for all his love, dedication and loyalty,
let's wish him a birthday fit for royalty.

Whoosh!

It's been almost a whole week since the last entry. I can't tell you how many times I almost wrote something, but was just too busy, or consequently too tired.
This has been a week of many new connections and opportunities, a week of meetings and seemingly non stop talking, a high energy week.

My major challenge has been to find enough isolation time to ground myself and re-grow / recharge my cosmic energies. I fought to get some of that kind of time last weekend. It paid off almost immediately with creative designs bubbling up in my sleep Monday morning.
Yeah, That's still what I need more of.