Visited the Galápagos islands, Ecuador, this year.
The 'Charles Darwin Research Foundation', founded by a Belgian, is an unusal zoo situated next to Puerto Ayora, the prime tourist spot of Santa Cruz island.
Darwin is renowned for his discretion on the theory of evolution : the survival of the most adapted; Puerto Ayola zoo is famous for its adaptation of the least adapted. The century-old tortoise, Lonely George, is the last of a species of giant tortoise about to become extinct since he has no surving mate. No problem, the Foundation has deposited two females of another species in his caged area to see if he will mate. To date George has not done this to the disappointment of the 5 planes of human species of tourists who disembark on Galápagos each day.
Speaking of 5 Airbus planes a day, the Galápagos airport, built by the US military during World War II on Santa Cruz island, is now called an Eco airport. Eco as in ecological? Yes sir, the first ecological airport in the the world!. You may well ask: how can an airport which lands and sees off 5 Airbuses a day be ecological? It's the branding and cash flow, not the ecological reality, that counts.
By the way, the airport is around 45 minutes by bus and ferry from the capital, Puerto Ayora. This entails a ferryboat and a bustrip or taxi for all who land on Galápagos. Needless to say both the bus or taxi and the ferryboat spew out carbon monoxide to be added to the carbon footprint left by the departing Airbus. Did someone say ecological trip?
Many 'introduced' species were brought to the Galápagos islands by pirates and sailors. One of these was the tick bird (garapatero) which was introduced to rid the imported cattle of worriesome ticks:
However, the tick birds found that plundering the nests of the endemic species was easier and allowed them to survive better. Man has decided that this is not the 'endemic' way of living and has decided to eliminate the tick birds. If we followed this logic we would also eliminate the human population as non-endemic. But we are also of the human species so we don't apply this logic.
Is Galápagos a brand rather than a place? Is it a place where Mankind poses as God almighty?
Galápagos & Ecology?
I Believe
There’s an intriguing story told about that eye-catching insect, the bumblebee. In summertime it is frequent to see its plump form buzzing around gardens or other natural areas in search of nectar and pollen to feed its young. You have probably spotted one flying around tipsily, pollinating flowers and gathering food. They are difficult to miss because of their insistent buzz and striking yellow and black stripes. However, you might be surprised to learn that, according to the laws of aeronautics, bumblebees can’t fly! Restated in another way: the laws of aeronautics still cannot explain how bumblebees fly. In other words this aeronautical model is not altogether wrong, but certainly defective.
Our beliefs are just like this model for flying, they are constructions of how the world works, built up through our daily experience. There is no problem with that unless we succumb to the temptation to believe that our model really explains how the world works. The aeronautical equivalent would be expectations of lots of bumblebees toppling out of the sky.
Beliefs as Generalisations
In his book “Changing Belief Systems”, Robert Dilts defines beliefs as generalisations. According to Dilts they are generalisations about the connection between different experiences. For example one day in the middle of one of your boss’s tantrums you happen to notice that he is wearing red socks. You think it a little unusual and record it in your memory bank. However, the next time the boss goes off the deep end he happens to be wearing the same red socks. This double sequence of events, seeing the boss in a bad mood and seeing his red socks only has to happen to most of us three times and we’ll start believing that there is a causal relationship between the two events. From then on we’ll begin to expect the boss to start bellowing if we notice he has his red socks on because we have generalised the relationship between the two experiences into a reality when in fact it is a coincidence. The important point is that it is we ourselves who forge the connection between the two experiences. It is a mental construct. That is the nature of belief - we construct it in our minds.
The positive angle, of course, is that we can also learn to deconstruct, or change our beliefs. I believe that this is window of opportunity. If we can reconstruct our beliefs to make our lives more fulfilling and happier then we should grasp the chance. Why not learn to laugh at the boss and his red socks instead of seeing them as an ominous sign? Why not ignore them and avoid provoking a confrontation because we believe one should take place?
The Placebo effect
Another striking example of the power of belief to alter our lives is the placebo effect. Dilts looked into the research on placebos done in the USA where every new drug has to be tested against a placebo. He concluded that more than a third of the time placebos had the same effect as the drug being tested. This means that in over thirty-three percent of cases belief in the placebos effected a cure equivalent to the available chemical stimulant. This may not be so surprising if we reflect that vaccination works by eliciting the body’s own defence system and that, possibly, belief has the same immunological effect. However we explain it, the placebo effect remains a powerful example of the capacity of our beliefs to transform our lives. In education, for example, we can turn the placebo effect to our advantage simply by expecting students to learn well. Those who swallow the pill of our expectations will learn more than the subject matter; they will learn the benefits of constructing positive beliefs. Unfortunately our beliefs are often self-limiting and we don’t actually expect as much as we should. As Nelson Mandela put it,
"... our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."
A model for beliefs
In his book Dilts goes further and offers a framework which enables us to explore the way in which we construct beliefs. The model of organisation he proposes distinguishes 5 different levels : Identity – Beliefs – Capabilities – Behaviour - Environment. For example if a child is having problems learning maths, a parent might talk about the problem from any one of the 5 viewpoints:
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| Beliefs: “Maths is only one area of problem solving.” |
| Capabilities: “You’ll have to develop better maths strategies.” |
| Behaviour: “You don’t put effort into concentrating so you can’t calculate correctly.” |
| Environment: “You don’t do your maths well because you can’t concentrate on your maths homework and the TV at the same time.” |
The impact on the student of an isolated analysis will range widely depending on the level chosen, from Identity : “I am not intelligent.” to Environmental : “I can’t do maths because of the surrounding noise.”. Dilts invites us to view beliefs not as an isolated occurrence but as one level of the system. It is important to note that the higher levels of Identity and Belief have a knock-on effect and that working at these levels is probably more efficient. The function of beliefs, for example, is to activate capabilities and behaviours. The student above is encouraged to improve his maths strategies and make an effort by the belief that in this way she will be better able to solve other problems. In the same way enhancing a learner’s Environment, through supportive feedback, will also underpin their chances of believing long enough in themselves to allow change to take place, despite temporary failures. Belief is a construct and can be analysed as part of a system. It affects and is influenced by the other levels of the system. It is not to be confused with reality.
Belief and Faith
I believe that there is a difference between belief and faith. It is a difference in quality. Both terms suppose a leap in the dark, but faith is a belief which matters deeply, because it makes the world more sensible to the believer. Belief goes something like this:
- Do you believe that Australia exists?
- Oh, yes, I saw it on a TV documentary the other night.
- Did you believe the documentary? (Back to square one.)
Faith, however, goes more like this:
- Do you believe we were created by God?
- Well, no, I’m an atheist.
- Oh, how does that help you to make sense of life?
In other words, faith deals with the unanswered questions which seem to haunt humans. We appear to be doomed, probably by the structure of our brain, to seek to understand the whole meaning of things, including our own existence. This innate impulse towards holistic comprehension of life has lead humans to depths of despair and also to peaks of beauty. This is surely what Art in all its forms is seeking : to give more meaningfulness to life, be it in the form of a symphony, a classic play, a good book or a great painting? This is also what religious faiths are striving to offer us: the ultimate meaning of existence. Sin, after all, is just the name for the contradictory human experience of needing wholeness yet being unable to attain it. The Existentialist philosophers made a brave attempt to live on a horizontal plane with no reference to anything outside mankind. Yet Camus was haunted by what he called “le soupçon d’autre chose”, the suspicion that there is more to living than what we can quite explain. Sartre himself also admitted that there was no explanation which could account for the suffering of an innocent child. They had come up against ‘sin’, which doesn’t admit philosophy with ease.
We are makers-of-sense and we cannot but help look for patterns in what we experience around us. Christianity, for example, follows the Jewish tradition and sees in the two Genesis creation stories the expression of how life can be given meaning, the affirmation that creation exists for a purpose, not just by accident. The rest of the biblical story is an attempt to analyse and convey the meaningfulness of living. The ancient Greeks, the Maya and the Celts also created a meaning for their world through myth, as all cultures have, because they needed a holistic explanation of how their world was.
Many contemporaries prefer the modern myths of science to those of religion. It is curious to reflect that Science doesn’t claim to give a whole explanation to life but we have such a thirst for complete explanations that we attribute it that capacity. This conjures up that fun picture of bumblebees falling out of the sky.
Science and Pseudoscience
I know a researcher who worked for the Swiss government at the cutting edge of nuclear medicine investigation - non-invasive brain scanning. I once asked him what practical use his work had. He thought for a moment then said brightly, “Well, when someone thinks of the word ‘cheese’ we know exactly which part of his brain he is using.”
Surely this is how fundamental scientific studies work: it measures a tiny piece of life and, using the results of other equally small experiments, gradually builds up a general hypothesis which is relentlessly put to the test through more detailed experiments.
This is a highly rational and verifiable method of understanding reality. It enables us to build up models about the world that surrounds us, based on measurable and accurate data which can be confirmed and re-confirmed if necessary.
However, it is always necessary to remind ourselves that no matter how detailed the experiments, the resulting models are constructions and do not reflect reality exactly. They are themselves hypotheses. In fact they are beliefs about how the world is, based on laborious and often ingenious hard work, but nonetheless, beliefs, not reality.
This is not an attempt to deny the scientific method all its merits, but rather a caveat to prevent us from converting it into a magical answer to everything. Take an example of what an anecdote that happened to me. A few years ago I wrote an article on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work. When working as a psychologist at Chicago university Csikszentmihalyi’s developed a theory called “flow”. Basically it is that state of grace which you experience when you are deeply involved in something of great interest, when hour-long activities pass like minutes. The article talked about the possible applications of ‘flow’ to educational contexts. Some time after publishing the article in Internet I received an e-mail from a chemistry graduate who said that ‘flow’ was not a complex psychological phenomenon but actually a straightforward chemical reaction. He added that to induce ‘flow’ you simply had to provoke a surge in dopamine. I asked him how you administer dopamine surges in a classroom. He still hasn’t replied.
The point here is that sciences such as chemistry have found clear answers to some chemical questions but maybe need to recognise that description is not application. When chemical answers become applications the answers are less clear. Think, for example, of the disastrous effects of thalidomide or the moral implications of cloning. Recognising that humans can be analysed into chemical components does not imply that humans must see themselves as chemical compounds. Scientific analysis is true, but it is not the whole truth. Wholeness is something that the human spirit yearns for and which can only be satiated in complex beliefs like art, which influence our culture perceptions, religions which give us interpretations about the ultimate meaning of life or scientific models which rationalise the structure of our reality. The clash between these different beliefs can lead us to think that one is more valid than the other. I think that it is truer to say that one usually prevails, depending on the moment, but that none of them is more authoritative in all spheres.
It is certainly true that application of science to everyday life, what we call technology, is very attractive. Its method of asking the pragmatic question. “How can we make it work?” has led to very useful innovations. They have directly affected our daily lives, particularly in communications and health, from cell phones to heart transplants, from the Internet to cures for cancers. However, we must not confuse this very positive spin-off of fundamental science with scientific philosophy. True science does not claim to explain everything. It patiently builds theoretical models and tests them in a rational manner. It would be irrational, and unscientific, to assert that science is Truth.
It was the Greek philosophers who gave us the belief that we could understand the world through our reason and thus opened the way for measurement, analysis and science. This has enabled mankind to work towards material progress in many areas. Yet some would argue that reason cannot explain everything we experience. In fact the very impetus of science, that of concentration on the observable, may have blinded us to what is not directly observable, or measurable, and given us a materialistic perception of our world. In this way, science, just as it has enabled us, could at the same time limit us, by inducing us to believe that what we cannot measure does not exist.
How does space smell?
The question still remained of how to create these smells in a relatively naturally way. Surprisingly experts consulted were able to bottle these olfactory experiences. More surprising is the reason they are able to do this. It seems that the sense of smell depends less on the air going into your nose and more on the vibration of the molecules being sniffed. Thus smells can be created and changed by manipulating their movement and thus capturing the smells in a container - ready for use.
The Cloud
The Cloud is the trendy name for the process of computing in Web2.0 when all our data will be on the Internet - in the cloud.
The advantages of this are that you can use the most up-to-date software without downloading it to your local computer. All your information will be available anywhere at any time since it is stored in the cloud, not in a personal machine. You will be able to access all your own data and any other information you might want on the move via a small reader like a 3G phone so 'offshore location' takes on a new, positive meaning. You will have everything with you, everywhere.
The Cloud sounds like a wondrous place to have your information stored. It has connotations of a big white fluffy blob in the sky. It is almost cuddly. The advantages it offers a mobile world seem endless.
However, one thing is the concept and another the reality. Google, among others, have been hard at work building the Cloud right here on earth. It consists of a series of computer farms spread round the globe at places where there is a rich supply of electrical energy. This is the down-to-earth picture of Google's cloud :
So why should big companies be spending so much cash on Web2? One reason is that the investment will probably be very profitable. The Apple iphone is paving the way for mobile computing which will require the Cloud if it's going to be successful. After all you can't expect people to lug around laptops containing their data forever. No, Apple and Google's android operating system will ensure that you can access all the information you want on a small screen.
The info., of course, won't be on your 3G phone, it will be in the Cloud. And guess who owns the Cloud? The owners will have to be trustworthy since they will be the keeper of all your data, who you are, what and how much you buy, where you move, when you go, your preferences... In a word your full and evolving profile.
Is the Cloud beginning to look blacker?
Seeing things.
Kay summarises this in a catchy phrase: "We see things as we are." Not as they are. In sensory terms this means we filter the reality that our senses offer us and discard what we can't make sense of. Perception wins over 'reality'.
Reason gets us no further since it is always based on a belief; quite the opposite of reason.
Perspective: the world is not as it seems and we use science to rectify our distorted view of it. We use models to approach reality but we can't reach it.
We each view things through a distorted mirror. That's why we are condemned to negociate reality with one another.
Tom
The Net result.
When I wrote with a typewriter I was actually just copying from a handwritten script, principally because updating the text meant typing it out again. I longed for a way of typing and updating at the same time. Along came the word processor to answer my dreams. It incorporates a spellchecker and synonym dictionary - all the better. Does this mean I write differently? Not really, the ideas still well up from my experience. The outcome is probably comparatively better though, since it is more checked, more varied and more revised.
Reading a newspaper I tend to look first at the economy section, then the international news, the opinion pages and finally the home pages. I read all these parts linearly starting on the first page of the section and turning over until the last.
Reading online is a completely different experience. I use the index page as my base and click out from there, sometimes following up other links within a story.
I do read web news differently, using more choice and less habit than with the printed press.
Searching for information on the internet is always a googling task for me. I sometimes get sidetracked but often find the answer to my question in a few clicks. I hardly ever consulted an encyclopaedia when a schoolchild so I believe Google has enriched my curiosity and learning. (Something quite different is to believing that everything read on Google entries is true.)
Surfing the web and cooperating on it can lead to disparity and lack of concentration but it is almost always stimulating.
Sense of Direction
Now there is a new route being opened for the same purpose of trading - a motorway running from Oviedo to La Espina which shadows the Original Way. At times the two routes intersect and it is the old way which loses out each time. From el Fresno, Grado, to well past Cornellana, half a day's walk, the hiker doesn't follow the original way but is rerouted along paths and an asphalt road. To someone interested in following the way's medieval footsteps this is a senseless part of the walk.
This is just the beginning of the clash between the two routes because the motorway is in its infancy. The keen santiago walker feels more routed than rerouted each time modernity's machines obliterate sections of the historical Way.True progress leads us to a better future by respecting the past.
Tom
Advertising sense
In order to sell more of their alcoholic concoction the Bosch family from Badalona, Barcelona, put their drink into a suitably enlarged perfume flask design and depicted their pet monkey on the label. The unusual feature of this representation is that the monkey has a human face. A closer look reveals a striking likeness to Charles Darwin.
Taking advantage of the then hotly debated theory of evolution Bosch commissioned the drawing to figure on the bottle of spirits. The interpretation of this representation is still open to question: was it an attempt to scorn Darwin and his theory or a statement that this anisette was the most evolved one?
Whichever you choose to believe there still remains a rather bittersweet taste in the mouth
WYSIWYG
My website editor would have me believe that 'What you see is what you get'. This is akin to asking me to believe that the website will be exactly like the model I build with my editor. This is not always true and I have to check the similarities and differences by actually uploading and viewing it online after editing.
The WYSIWYG belief is, I believe, spread across the net. We tend to accept what we read on the web as true. Google gives us access to boundless information sources that easily overwhelm our critical faculties and we end up by accepting that what you see is what is true. Doesn't the same habit kick in when consulting Wikipedia?
In fact we cannot always believe our senses. The camera does sometimes lie, or rather the photoshop editor always allows manipulation. Here's a spectacular example:
What you see/hear/smell/taste/feel is not always all there is.
Tom
Hope
Not much hope there.
However, in the Eastern tradition a slightly different perception of the same crucifixion scene evolved. This was taken up by western European artists in the Romanesque period. One example is that of Italian artists in Tuscany who painted crucifixion scenes on wood. These show a brightly coloured picture of Christ in glory, well robed and with a serene expression. Here, instead of morbid death, there is hope of a resurrection, a pointing towards a better future, a positive outlook on life.
For example the Pisan master painter created this visual sense of hope for those who wish to believe:
Tom
Hard and soft
McNealy is no romantic computer scientist. In fact he was trained in the business field at Harvard University where he graduated with a BA in Economics. So you wonder how he could head such a free download company.
A closer look reveals that Sun's principal product is computer hardware, especially servers. So what Sun is really promoting is free software to run on their expensive hardware. The more information and gratuitous software available the more hardware needed to run it. Google knows that - it manages information searches using server farms full of hardware. Sun's motto "The Computer is the Network" has a harder look about it, somehow.
However, what is hard can be dressed up to look like soft for the occasion.
Tom
Colours and Humor
Your state of mind can be influenced through colour according to the geocromotherapy model.
Red is an exciting stimulus. It capacitates and can overexite. (Think of fire)
Yellow stimulates the memory, concentration and internal wisdom. (Publicity's favoured colour).
Green awakens a sense of serenity and self-healing. (Hospital colour)
Purple is antidepressive and stimulates creativity. (Cardinals' clothes)
Blue infuses security and protection against adverse circumstances. (The TV news background)
Orange is dynamic, cleans the emotions. (The Dali Lama's clothes.)
Don't believe or disbelieve. Try it out. If it works then it's good for you.
Tom
No pain, no gain.
George Soros, one of the most successful stock market players, revealed one of the clues to his knack for earning easy money in a BBC interview this week : his backache.
His son explained that his father knew when to invest because his back pain guided him. Soros gave a more interesting angle. He reckoned that when he was in a quandary about what shares to buy and sell this stress was reflected as backache. So the pain was actually psychosomatic.
So much for the mind / body division.
Tom
Modelling
David Gordon gave a workshop course on Modelling in Whally, Lancashire, UK. It was to complement his book on the subject. This was not an intellectual affair but based on experience, on the senses.
The aim of modelling is to study the beliefs, strategies and emotions of someone who performs well so as to be able to replicate their performance.
Imagine teachers were able to replicate the performance of the best students. They would quickly be able to really help struggling pupils by passing on this valuable experience.
Tom
The Third Culture
In 'The two cultures, a scientific revolution' C.P. Snow noted that Arts and Science provided equally important ideas. However, somehow the leading literary lights managed to define themselves as 'the' intellectuals, leaving scientists a second place.
In the second edition of book Snow suggested that the scientists would gradually gain merited recognition alongside the literary leaders. This was to be the 'third culture'.
However it turns out now that scientists are by-passing the middlemen and speaking directly to the public who are hungry for their ideas. This is the real third culture: literate scientists.
Tom
Two views
Humans have a tendency of trying to make sense of something by thinking of it from one of two basic viewpoints: detailed or general. At the level of detail we can't see the overall structure, and vice-versa. Glance at the two maps you can see here : one shows the outline; the other all the detail. The first represents top-down thinking ; the other is bottom-up thinking .
The deductive approach starts from an abstract level and works its way down to applications. However, if we think inductively then we have a preference for gathering details and building up the general picture from them.
Good thinking skills are inclusive and use both approaches.
The flight of the bumble bee
You've probably seen many a bumblebee flying heavily around flowers in summertime in order to gather nectar and spread pollen for next year's blooms. They are difficult to miss with their striking black and yellow stripes, buzzing about in a their typically tipsy manner.
However, you might be rather surprised to learn that according to the laws of aeronautics bumblebees cannot fly! Restated in another way: the laws of aeronautics cannot explain how these insects manage to keep aloft. One conclusion is that the general model of aeronautics is not wrong, but it is deficient.
Human beliefs are like this aeronautical theory. They are personal constructions of how the world works, built up through daily experience. There is no problem with that until we succumb to the temptation to believe that our belief models really explain how the world works. This would be the aeronautical equivalent of bumblebees falling out of the sky.
(The flight of the Bumblebee by Rimsky Korsakov)
Tom
The Eye of the Beholder
When we humans look at something, a face, an object, a landscape, artwork ... we immediately judge its beauty. Now it is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, meaning that we each have our own canons of beauty as cultures and even as individuals.
However, there is a sight which is always pleasing to the eye. That is when we look upon the golden mean. In everyday life you can find this type of object - in the metro ticket for example. Measure it and you will find that its sides are in a proportion of 1:1.618 This is the golden ratio and allows the simple ticket to be pleasing to the eye.
Artists like Dali organized paintings such as the above, 'Last Supper', using this pleasing proportion. It is a sort of eye candy trick.
Well-proportioned faces also fall into this category. Both Cathérine de Neuve and George Cluny's faces measure up well.
Despite all this, could it be that the golden mean is not really 'out there' in faces, objects, landscapes and artwork but within the eye? In other words perhaps we perceive things as beautiful, or not, according to the structure, an innate golden ratio, in our own eye. Might beauty really be 'in' the eye of the beholder?
Tom
Common Sense
An Obituary of the late Mr. Common Sense
'Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.
Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement..
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.'
Tom
