These boys danced in a very empty Times Square amid the coronavirus pandemic. John Lamparski/Getty Images

May 29, 2020 (theconversation.com)

Author

1. Aili BresnahanAssociate Professor of Philosophy, University of Dayton

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Aili Bresnahan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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“Ring around the Rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!”

I grew up singing that refrain in the 1970s in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood, holding hands with other children while skipping around in a circle before we’d all wind up laughing and cross-legged on the ground.

I didn’t know then, and was not to learn for many years, that the Mother Goose rhyme and its accompanying dance, sprang from London’s Great Plague of 1665. The tragic origin of that joyful childhood routine suggests that dancing in the face of tragedy can signify the affirmation of life and resilience in the face of struggle, death and despair.

Still dancing

Many years later, I was still dancing, both socially and as a student at a performing arts high school. My classmates and I would dance in the street, in Central Park – wherever and whenever we could. These were scenes straight out of the movies, Broadway show and TV series “Fame,” which our school inspired.

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Later, I studied law and philosophy. Eventually, through interdisciplinary work in dance studies as well as philosophy, I discovered that dance is good for people as individuals, as well as for society as a whole.

Dance is good because it expresses human nature – it’s not just fun, although it is certainly fun. It’s not just exercise, either.

At its best, dance is an extension and expression of who we are as human beings in ways that can allow us to share emotions that increase our sense of community and connection. This is why, in good times and bad, in times of war, slavery, fleeing homelands and during pandemics, kids still bounce, leap and spin.

They are feeling. And they want to share these feelings with others. This doesn’t stop when schools go online. This doesn’t stop when parks and playtimes are limited by fears of contagion. Kids still want to connect with each other in physical and rough-and-tumble ways. And one of the ways they want to do this is through dancing.

An outlet for natural impulses

The idea that something is good when it is part of helping human beings to flourish comes from Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher.

Dance helps children to flourish because it is an outlet for their natural impulses that has emotional and social benefits. As the philosopher of dance and religion Kimerer LaMothe has explained, a desire to dance and to move your body is the beginning point of all human life.

Soon after babies come into the world, they begin to move. This is readily apparent when observing toddlers and young children, who have a natural energy and joy and a love of exploring space and the world around them.

What this means is that when parents allow or encourage their kids to dance they are just stoking something that is already natural to them and that they often already like.

Plato, who was Aristotle’s teacher and is widely considered the father of Western philosophy, advocated that dance training be used for the civic education of children, for both health and citizenship reasons. But dance training need not be formal to benefit kids.

TikTok

I’m glad to see so many kids finding ways to dance together during this COVID-19 pandemic. As a college professor I can see blank and pale faces in required Zoom classes as my students slump in their childhood bedrooms or in empty dorms.

They are either alone, as is the case for the foreign students who remained in the U.S., or back with their families – and may be experiencing an array of stress brought about by social isolation, economic distress and illness.

Many may just want or need to dance it out.

My daughter, for example, belongs to one of Dartmouth College’s dance teams, Ujima. She and her teammates have kept up both rehearsals and flash performances through social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Rehearsing, she tells me “is one of the few things keeping me sane and connected to my friends right now.”

Another thing I think is keeping them and their peers sane is TikTok. The short video app that features many dance challenges has gained more popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic as kids of all ages have struggled with isolation away from their school friends.

The most popular TikTok dancers, such as Connecticut teen Charli D’Amelio whose dances have been downloaded more than 2 billion times, are those who seem real and friendly – and are performing simple dances that anyone can learn.

Dance for kids today, I believe, is about friendship, caring and connection.

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This is not about Powell or even about Trump anymore. It’s about the complete abdication of integrity by leaders on the right — Republican officeholders, conservative opinion leaders and right-wing TV.

By Mona Charen  Mar 25, 2021 (chicago.suntimes.com)

The Big Lie is starting to unravel. One of Donald Trump’s disinformation stars, Sidney Powell, is backing down. But while we’re considering the matter of truth and lies, let’s recall when conservatives cared about truth (or seemed to).

In the 1990s, Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchu was a phenomenon. Of Mayan descent, she offered harrowing testimony about the conduct of the Guatemalan military during that country’s civil war. Her 1983 as-told-to memoir, “I Rigoberta Menchu,” was a sensation. In 1992, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

When it came to light that Menchu had distorted key aspects of her autobiography, right and left responded very differently. David Stoll, an anthropologist, learned through archival research and interviews with more than 120 people that some of her tales were false. A younger brother she said had died of starvation never existed. Another brother, whom she claimed had been tortured to death in front of her parents, died in completely different circumstances. A New York Times investigation confirmed Stoll’s findings.

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Liberals tended to excuse Menchu, on the grounds that her story revealed a “larger truth.” Some argued that while details of her story might not have been strictly true, the overall narrative remained valid because it “raised our collective consciousness” about the Maya people.

Conservatives were appalled that Menchu’s Nobel Prize was not rescinded, and galled that some liberals defended Menchu’s invocation of “my truth.” There was no “my truth” or “your truth” they countered. There was only the truth.

The Menchu story comes to mind because this week we’ve witnessed further evidence of just how corrupted the right has become. The assault on truth is Donald Trump’s most damaging legacy.

It’s not good for Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic that allies of the president grossly defamed them, but it may turn out to be good for the country that they are availing themselves of legal remedies.

Powell, a key propagandist in Trump’s big lie about the 2020 election, has issued a response to Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit. Let’s review some of the statements Powell made after the election:

Appearing on Newsmax on Nov. 17, Powell said she had a video showing Dominion founder John Poulos bragging, “I can change a million votes, no problem at all.” The video did not exist.

At a press conference with Rudy Giuliani and others, Powell said Dominion had been “created in Venezuela by Hugo Chavez to make sure he never lost an election.” She said the machines had an algorithm that automatically flipped votes, and that George Soros’ “No. 2 person” was “one of the leaders of the Dominion project.” Also false.

Her tone has changed.

The reply Powell’s lawyers issued to Dominion’s complaint is a climb down. After challenging the court’s jurisdiction and venue (standard lawyer maneuvers) and adding the claim that her comments were First Amendment-protected political speech, they get to the substance and things get truly mind-bending.

Sure, Powell’s reply acknowledges, she made a series of claims about the election being stolen, but because she was clearly speaking in a political context, her comments must be construed as standard political exaggeration.

The election truther’s argument, then, is that any factual claim, no matter how false, is insulated from consequences under defamation law if it is connected to politics. This is worse than “my truth.” This is the claim that any politically motivated lie is fine.

But Powell takes it to another level. She next argues that the very outlandishness of her false statements is a defense. Sure, her reply acknowledges, Powell had said, “Democrats were attempting to steal the election and had developed a computer system to alter votes electronically.” But “no reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.”

So, that’s it. The great lie that has poisoned our politics and inspired an attack on the Capitol and bids to become the incubus of future extremism and violence was such absurd bilge that “no reasonable person would believe it.”

Of course, millions of Americans did and do believe it. The crazed mob that stormed the Capitol believed every word. Polls have found that between two-thirds and three-quarters of Republicans believe the election was fraudulent.

This is not about Powell or even about Trump anymore. It’s about the complete abdication of integrity by leaders on the right — Republican officeholders, conservative opinion leaders, right-wing TV and so forth. At first they countered Trump’s lies. Soon after, they began to avoid them. Next, they pretended to find them amusing. Then they shrugged. Finally, they joined. When enough people in authority tell lies, they cripple their audience’s capacity for reason. A few meritorious lawsuits cannot repair that.

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Reparations For Bias, Slavery Gain Momentum

By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor

Terry H. Schwadron

Keep your eye on Evanston, Ill., which this week became the first U.S. city to make reparations available to its Black residents through home loan repairs or down payments on property.

Reparations – financial amends for discrimination and slavery – is among the most controversial of social programs sought by progressives.

Evanston’s City Council made it real with a revolving $400,000 fund for qualifying residents. Qualifiers have lived in or been a direct descendant of a person who lived in the Chicago suburb between 1919 and 1969 and who suffered discrimination in housing because of city ordinances, policies or practices against Blacks.

The program will be underwritten through donations and revenue from a 3% tax on the sale of recreational marijuana. The goal is distribution of $10 million in 10 years in chunks of up to $25,000 per household.

In this age of me-first, it is stunning to see some Americans willing to acknowledge with public policy that we of current generations owe something to those who had suffered not only through slavery but decades of approved and formalized discrimination.

Getting policy approved for the elimination of unfair poverty and bias deserves celebration. And the discussion itself feels important, which should inspire us to learn how we got to this point.

So far, these entities are considering providing reparations in some form:

• California cities
• Amherst, Mass.
• Providence, R.I.
• Asheville, N.C.
• Iowa City, Iowa
• Georgetown and Brown universities
• the Episcopal Church
• the Jesuit order

Congress is once again debating a federal reparations study, an idea stagnant for decades. President Joe Biden has offered support, unlike the Former Guy, who rejected the whole concept of acknowledging institutional racism in America.

Practical discussion of reparation programs started taking off after last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The arguments for and against are not always straightforward. Debates range from how much the history of slavery is worth to whether reparations are paid to individuals or communities to is there such a thing as payments for historical ill-worth.

Even among Black Americans, programs are seen as paternalistic or segregating. Some ask whether investment in overturning centuries of housing discrimination will make a wide difference in the lives of Black communities that badly trail the ability to build wealth and share fully in the American Dream.

Agreement on Need, Not Payment

Even in Evanston, population 73,000, the liberal home of Northwestern University, debate over how to approach reparations has yielded unusual splits.

Alderman Robin Rue Simmons, an architect of the measure, told The Washington Post, “It is the reckoning.

“We’re really proud as a city to be leading the nation toward repair and justice.”

But the details show disagreement among officials, residents and activists for racial equity. There was debate about using money for housing grants and mortgage assistance rather than cash payments to individuals. Housing grants are targeted to residents who can show that they or their ancestors were victims of redlining and other discriminatory practices. No one knows exactly how many people that might mean or how to show it.

Another alderman, Cicely L. Fleming, voted no. She said, “I 100 percent support reparations. What I can’t support is a housing program being termed as reparations.”

In a noteworthy 2014 Atlantic article author Ta-Nehisi Coates used Chicago area neighborhoods to lay out the case for reparations to rebalance the wealth lost by the generations surviving slavery who were made subject to continuing waves of mortgage redlining and discriminatory practices that met with official urban approval over decades. The article helped to update and focus on practical calls for reparation for centuries of bias, and, like others mentioned below, offers loads of scholarly references for learning.

“Chicago’s impoverished black neighborhoods—characterized by high unemployment and households headed by single parents—are not simply poor; they are ecologically distinct,” he argued. Chicago was not alone. he said.

Carefully exploring sociological studies, he outlined the case that while the daily lives of Black Americans had improved, Black neighborhoods still suffer demonstrably worse performance in income, health, environment, poverty, teen pregnancy and lack of education, among other measures. Wrestling publicly with reparations as policy, he said, “matters as much as—if not more than—the specific answers that might be produced…

“More important than any single check cut to any African American, the payment of reparations would represent America’s maturation out of the childhood myth of its innocence into a wisdom worthy of its founders.”

A 2020 Brookings Institution study traced much of the economics, finding that the racial wealth gap resulted from a lack of financial capital to provide improvements in social services. It said, “Wealth is positively correlated with better health, educational, and economic outcomes. Furthermore, assets from homes, stocks, bonds, and retirement savings provide a financial safety net for the inevitable shocks to the economy and personal finances that happen throughout a person’s lifespan.”

The study argued for reparations aimed at improving neighborhoods.

Last summer, New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, the force behind the paper’s 1619 Project, argued that the natural resolution of issues raised by the Black Lives Matter protests must be reparations.

“The process of creating the racial wealth chasm begins with the failure to provide the formerly enslaved with the 40 acres they were promised,” one interviewee told her. “So, the restitution has never been given, and it’s 155 years overdue.”

What’s Ahead

Congress has before it H.R. 40, last considered in 2019. It refers to the Civil War-era broken promise to give former slaves “40 acres and a mule.” Under the bill, $12 million would be spent to establish a commission to study the history of slavery and discrimination and create a proposal for remedies.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Tex., took up the yearly cause from the late John Conyers, D-Mich., to create the 13-member commission. House subcommittees have retold the stories of slavery in an attempt to win the day.  California Secretary of State Shirley Weber who guided a parallel state law as a California assemblywoman to establish a task force to study reparations for descendants of enslaved people argued that the federal government should follow suit.

UCLA School of Law professor E. Tendayi Achiume, an expert in international human-rights law, added that while popular conceptions of reparations tended to be relatively narrow and focus only on financial compensation, the international system emphasizes a more comprehensive approach that may also include transforming political, economic and social institutions.

Opponents have included Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) and former football star Herschel Walker, a Donald Trump supporter, who argued that reparations are divisive.

“Reparations teach separation. Slavery ended over 130 years ago. How can a father ask his son to spend prison time for a crime he committed?” Walker told the committee.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in 2019 he believed reparations aren’t a “good idea”, and “No one currently alive was responsible for that.”

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican senator, also rejected the idea last year: “I don’t think reparations help level the playing field — it might help more eruptions on the playing field.”

It would appear that consideration reparations are starting to kick into a higher gear. We should help.

Corporations Need To Support Our Democracy

By David Cay Johnston, DCReport Editor-in-Chief

David Cay Johnston

As the Senate minority tries to kill H.R. 1, which would add many more Americans to the voting rolls, there is a simple and effective mechanism to build support for the bill to expand the franchise.

Corporate America needs to step up or face a serious reputational risk for not supporting the For The People Act.

That bill would ensure voting by mail, which, despite fact-free Trumpian claims of fraud, works as well or better than in-person voting, It would make sure people are not limited to Tuesdays to cast ballots, a practice enacted early in America’s history when men with property voted, but few working men cast ballots.

Passage in the Senate requires a 60-vote majority. How absurd. A minority of senators hold the power to prevent majority rule. Repealing or revising the filibuster rule would allow a majority vote to pass H.R. 1, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote if Republican resolve endures against popular voting.

But imagine if Corporate America comes out for H.R. 1 as strongly as it did recent efforts to oppress Latinx and LGBTQ Americans, which it would if pressure is brought to bear hard and credibly.

A narrower voter base will divide and weaken the United States. Deny people their right to vote or impose barriers to casting ballots and America represents the privileged, not the people.

The most powerful economic force in America is corporations. Fewer than 3,300 companies control more than 80% of all business assets. This tiny slice of America’s nearly six million companies rings up more than half the total corporate sales each year. And if there is one thing many of these corporation’s CEOs have said again and again is that discrimination is bad for business.

Starbucks and Lyft teamed in a get-out-the-vote effort for the 2020 election.

Limiting the franchise is rank discrimination at its most base level, a threat to the strength of our democracy. Blocking voting is exactly what is sought by the Russian president and meddler, Vladimir Putin, who says democracy is a joke and less bluntly that dictators should rule. Putin, the man Trump said he admires and trusts, knows that over time a narrower voter base will divide and weaken the United States. Deny people their right to vote or impose barriers to casting ballots and America represents the privileged, not the people.

What could be more un-American than to keep people from voting? We literally fought a war over this since enslaved people, who by law were not human, could not vote. America spent more than seven decades seeking suffrage until women, at least nominally, got the right to vote a century ago in the 19^thAmendment.

I can’t imagine that a single one of those 3,266 big companies would publicly take a stand against enabling citizens to vote. That doesn’t mean they don’t practice racial, gender and religious bigotry with their workers and customers, good intentions or not. All of the many formal complaints and lawsuits tell you that many of them do discriminate.

What you don’t see is major companies proclaiming, as many did before the Civil Rights, Feminist and Gender equality movements, “bigots are us.”

A Stain on America

Bigotry, especially racial and gendered bigotry, has been a stain on our country from before its founding. It’s a stain that millions of people want to protect from the political solvent of government by the people because of their own prejudice and the benefits they perceive flow to them from limiting who votes.

Putting big companies on the spot can help change that. In the past, we’ve seen how as the dominant force in American life, the biggest corporations, can influence the law to reduce discrimination. These moves have not always been successful. But on the whole, they have been tremendously positive in moving America toward a society of equal justice for all.

In 2015 nearly 400 companies joined in asking our Supreme Court to strike down state laws barring same-sex marriage. The firms ranged from Aetna, Amazon and Apple to Northrup Grumman to Zoom and Zynga. By a 5-4 vote, our Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges held that denying same-sex marriage violated a fundamental Constitutional right and violated the 14^th Amendment due process and equal protection clauses.

That post-Civil War reform amendment has been under attack by Donald Trump, GOP leader Mitch McConnell and a few senators because it grants citizenship to anyone born in American territory. Some people such as anti-taxers want to repeal the entire amendment, an argument I’ve heard at national gatherings. Some conventioneers believe our federal government is a criminal organization.

Proposals to repeal the 15^th Amendment, which guarantees the right to vote regardless of race, have been under way among conservatives for more than a century. The libertarian Cato Institute has published in favor of enabling states to discriminate by effectively ignoring parts of our Constitution.

Corporate Interventions

Corporate America intervenes when it is smart for business. And that means when the public makes clear they will move their dollars to a competitor. Here are some examples of Corporate America doing the right thing to oppose bigotry laws.

Consider the silly bathroom bills that discriminated against people whose sexual orientation isn’t binary. Republicans in North Carolina said their discriminatory legislation wouldn’t cost the state a dime. In fact, the state suffered $3.8 billion in lost business over a dozen years, according to a richly detailed Associated Press investigation.

Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, North Carolina’s biggest company, was front and center in saying discrimination is bad for business. He told a March 2017 World Affairs Council meeting in Charlotte, just after a loudmouth bigot became president:

“Companies are moving to other places because they don’t face an issue that they face here. What’s going on that you don’t know about? What convention decided to take you off the list? What location for a distribution facility took you off the list? What corporate headquarters consideration for a foreign company — there’s a lot of them out there — just took you off the list because they just didn’t want to be bothered with the controversy?”

A year earlier, Disney took a public stand against bigotry in Georgia. “Although we have had great experiences filming in Georgia, we will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law.” The company said the legislation would permit religious groups and organizations to discriminate based on sexuality.

The legislature passed that law, but Republican Nathan Deal, at the time Georgia’s governor, vetoed it. “Our people work side by side without regard to the color of our skin, or the religion we adhere to. We are working to make life better for our families and our communities. That is the character of Georgia. I intend to do my part to keep it that way,” the governor said.

Arizona Discriminates

In 2010, after Arizona passed what amounted to a “show me your papers” law designed to discriminate against Latinx peoples, numerous companies, trade associations and individual businesses canceled conventions, sales meetings and other events in the Copper State, which as a territory was part of the Confederacy.

The companies were not alone. Cities from St. Paul to San Francisco adopted policies that banned most official travel to Arizona.

In 2012 our Supreme Court struck down most of Arizona’s anti-Latinix law. It upheld only the section requiring police officers who lawfully stop someone for an unrelated reason to determine immigration status.

That surviving provision created a zone of bigotry so wide that one of my middle-aged children was caught in it. She looks as Latinx as I do, which is to say not at all. An Arizona patrol officer stopped and questioned her for 20 minutes. His grounds? Oregon license plates were on her car.

Repeatedly he asked where in Mexico she grew up, ignoring her New York driver’s license, proper registration and insurance documents and her careful civil statements that she was born in Northern California and had never been to Mexico. Such harassment under the pretense of law in Arizona remains commonplace.

Corporate pressure doesn’t always work.

Indiana still has a bigotry law signed by Mike Pence more than a decade ago.

In 2016 more than 80 CEOs sent a letter to North Carolina’s governor telling him they would invest and spend their money elsewhere if a bill barring any future protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people became law. Gov. Pat McCrory signed the bill anyway.

Politicians depend on donations from PACs, which in good measure are funded with corporate money. Money talks, especially in the Senate.

The smart move for those who want universal voting would be to put the heat on Corporate America and its trade associations. Organize friends in phone call chains and dial up the “stand up for America” U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers or these Digital Age trade associations.

Featured image: A PayLess Supermarket in West Lafayette, Ind., hosted a polling place. (John Terhune/Journal & Courier)

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Today, Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney, announced that Alan Turing will appear on the new £50 polymer note.

Published on 15 July 2019 (bankofengland.co.uk)

Making the announcement at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, the Governor also revealed the imagery depicting Alan Turing and his work that will be used for the reverse of the note. The new polymer £50 note is expected to enter circulation by the end of 2021.

Alan Turing was chosen following the Bank’s character selection process including advice from scientific experts. In 2018, the Banknote Character Advisory Committee chose to celebrate the field of science on the £50 note and this was followed by a six week public nomination period. The Bank received a total of 227,299 nominations, covering 989 eligible characters. The Committee considered all the nominations before deciding on a shortlist of 12 options, which were put to the Governor for him to make the final decision. 

Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, commented: “Alan Turing was an outstanding mathematician whose work has had an enormous impact on how we live today. As the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, as well as war hero, Alan Turing’s contributions were far ranging and path breaking. Turing is a giant on whose shoulders so many now stand.” 

Alan Turing provided the theoretical underpinnings for the modern computer. While best known for his work devising code-breaking machines during WWII, Turing played a pivotal role in the development of early computers first at the National Physical Laboratory and later at the University of Manchester. He set the foundations for work on artificial intelligence by considering the question of whether machines could think. Turing was homosexual and was posthumously pardoned by the Queen having been convicted of gross indecency for his relationship with a man. His legacy continues to have an impact on both science and society today. 

The shortlisted options demonstrate the breadth of scientific achievement in the UK, from astronomy to physics, chemistry to palaeontology and mathematics to biochemistry. The shortlisted characters, or pairs of characters, considered were Mary Anning, Paul Dirac, Rosalind Franklin, William Herschel and Caroline Herschel, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, Stephen Hawking, James Clerk Maxwell, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Ernest Rutherford, Frederick Sanger and Alan Turing.

Sarah John, Chief Cashier, said: “The strength of the shortlist is testament to the UK’s incredible scientific contribution.  The breadth of individuals and achievements reflects the huge range of nominations we received for this note and I would to thank the public for all their suggestions of scientists we could celebrate.” 

The new £50 note will celebrate Alan Turing and his pioneering work with computers. As shown in the concept image, the design on the reverse of the note will feature:

• A photo of Turing taken in 1951 by Elliott & Fry which is part of the Photographs Collection at the National Portrait Gallery.
• A table and mathematical formulae from Turing’s seminal 1936 paper “On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem” Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. This paper is widely recognised as being foundational for computer science.  It sought to establish whether there could be a definitive method by which any theorem could be assessed as provable or not using a universal machine. It introduced the concept of a Turing machine as a thought experiment of how computers could operate.  
• The Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) Pilot Machine which was developed at the National Physical Laboratory as the trial model of Turing’s pioneering ACE design. The ACE was one of the first electronic stored-program digital computers.
• Technical drawings for the British Bombe, the machine specified by Turing and one of the primary tools used to break Enigma-enciphered messages during WWII. 
• A quote from Alan Turing, given in an interview to The Times newspaper on 11 June 1949: “This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be.”
• Turing’s signature from the visitor’s book at Bletchley Park in 1947, where he worked during WWII.
• Ticker tape depicting Alan Turing’s birth date (23 June 1912) in binary code. The concept of a machine fed by binary tape featured in the Turing’s 1936 paper.

The full note design including all the security features will be unveiled closer to it entering circulation.

£50 note character selection announcement – speech by Mark CarneyOpens in a new window

Benjamin Zander|TED2008 (ted.com)

Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it — and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Benjamin Zander · ConductorA leading interpreter of Mahler and Beethoven, Benjamin Zander is known for his charisma and unyielding energy — and for his brilliant pre-concert talks.

(With thanks to Bruce King)

Our Incorrigible Ontological Relations and Categories of Being: Causal and Limiting Factors of Objective Knowledge

by Julian M. Gálvez 

The object of this book is to present a radical novel conception of the ontological categories, their nature and epistemic importance. A conception that constitutes a challenge to the prevailing tenets, if not paradigms, of ontology today. The arguments and observations are given without addressing nor directly contesting the current theories on the subject. However, its author emphasises some of the main conclusions that entail from the new perspective, in particular regarding the role of philosophy among the sciences. Departing from the novelty of considering distinctions to be the subject matter of thought and language -that is, of reference and meaning- it is observed that there are certain concepts, encompassed under the notion of “Being”, that are each “all” comprising categories. It is explained that these categories are conformed by certain ontological relations, which seem to stand for the structure of reality in-itself, and cannot be, in any manner, denied cognitive content nor objective existence in any possible world. Following this, it is argued that they constitute the primary premises of judgment and ultimate explanatory resources, and, thus, the fundaments of logic and mathematics. Moreover, language is shown to be structured according to them, and it is likewise explained that, as primary premises of all our judgments, they cannot be but determined a priori, standing for aspects of mind objective reality of a non-sensible nature, which are essential elements of cognition. It is shown, that it is they that enable to bridge the gap between the mind and the world, but set a limit to our possible knowledge of reality, which forces to presuppose the existence of higher or hyper-orders of reality. The importance of this work is, that from a naturalist stance, its observations and arguments constitute a strong case against established and well-rooted tenets in contemporary philosophy, while point to the need of focussing the field of the discipline to the study of the cognitive content of our innately determined a priori concepts.

(via Suzanne Deakins, H.W., M. and Goodreads.com)

Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death

by Robert Lanza, Bob Berman (With) 

Biocentrism shocked the world with a radical rethinking of the nature of reality.

But that was just the beginning.

In Beyond Biocentrism, acclaimed biologist Robert Lanza, one of TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in 2014,” and leading astronomer Bob Berman, take the reader on an intellectual thrill-ride as they re-examine everything we thought we knew about life, death, the universe, and the nature of reality itself.

The first step is acknowledging that our existing model of reality is looking increasingly creaky in the face of recent scientific discoveries. Science tells us with some precision that the universe is 26.8 percent dark matter, 68.3 percent dark energy, and only 4.9 percent ordinary matter, but must confess that it doesn’t really know what dark matter is and knows even less about dark energy. Science is increasingly pointing toward an infinite universe but has no ability to explain what that really means. Concepts such as time, space, and even causality are increasingly being demonstrated as meaningless.

All of science is based on information passing through our consciousness but science hasn’t the foggiest idea what consciousness is, and it can’t explain the linkage between subatomic states and observation by conscious observers. Science describes life as an random occurrence in a dead universe but has no real understanding of how life began or why the universe appears to be exquisitely designed for the emergence of life.

The biocentrism theory isn’t a rejection of science. Quite the opposite. Biocentrism challenges us to fully accept the implications of the latest scientific findings in fields ranging from plant biology and cosmology to quantum entanglement and consciousness.

By listening to what the science is telling us, it becomes increasingly clear that life and consciousness are fundamental to any true understanding of the universe. This forces a fundamental rethinking of everything we thought we knew about life, death, and our place in the universe.

(via Suzanne Deakins, H.W., M. and Goodreads.com)

By Barbara Marx Hubbard (studylib.net)

Over the past 40 years I have been developing certain social “templates” or patterns to facilitate the next stage of our evolution. All of them spring from an evolutionary perspective and a metaphor to describe our current situation. The metaphor is: “Our crisis is the birth of a universal humanity, capable of co-evolving with nature and cocreating with spirit.”This “birth” is dangerous, yet natural. The tendency in evolution at times of such crises is to develop evolutionary drivers that pressure us toward more consciousness, more freedom, and more life through more synergistic order. This is what we see happening now.In this paper I will place two of these key evolutionary social patterns in the context of evolutionary potential and describe them briefly so that those who are choosing to apply them in a variety of ways will know where they come from, and will help develop whatever their greater potential may be.These new patterns for social evolution come forth out of the recent revelation of the Process of Creation –cosmogenesis –understood as our own story, our own “birth narrative, from the origin of creation to us at the point of self-destruction or more conscious evolution.This Process is seen as an evolutionary spiral, proceeding quantum jump by quantum jump from pre-life to life, from single cell to animal, from animal to human, and now, possibly, from human to a more universal, cocreative, compassionate humanity.The spiral is experienced as directional, animated from within by an “implicate order,” a tendency, a universal intelligence or Consciousness Force leading to ever higher consciousness and greater freedom through more complex, synergistic order, as mentioned above.The “Core” of the spiral can be visualized as the designing universal intelligence animating every atom, molecule and cell, now becoming conscious within us as our own motivation to grow, to love more, to participate more fully in the process of creating a world equal to our aspiration and potential.From this perspective it appears that the universe is not neutral. It seems to be ‘coded’ with a prime directive: Create More Conscious Life. Transform Matter into Life. In this context the evolution of Earth Life including ourselves is understood as a vital stage in a universal developmental path toward a conscious universe. As James Gardner puts it: “The universe is coming to life,” We are a natural part of that life.When we place our current condition within the evolutionary spiral as the next turn, we realize that quantum changes are nature’s tradition; that crises precede transformation; and that nature takes jumps through greater synergy –separate parts coming together to form a whole system greater than and different from the sum of its parts. Intuitively we can imagine this greater whole pulling us forward to realize it.Revelation of higher states of being and creating are experienced as the next stage of evolution being born through us, in our midst.In the planetary developmental path we are at the stage of beginning to coordinate ourselves as a whole planetary body in order to survive. None of our current institutions or structures is designed for social synergy.We see that a vital key to our conscious evolution now is to create new forms of SOCIAL SYNERGY capable ofincreasing connectivity, communication and cooperation among diverse functions, groups, people, races, faiths forming a new whole system greater than and different from the sum of our parts.The theological definition of synergism is when human will and divine will join for the regeneration of the human race. In this sense social synergy is a way for us to tap into the deeper patterns of creation and align our individual motivation with that tendency in evolution toward higher, more harmonious order. We find that the “Big Bang”and the fourteen billion years of evolutionary transformation are alive and well within us as our own unique expression of the continuing creation. We are the face of evolution.From this perspective we see ourselves struggling to coordinate ourselves as a whole system, running out of non-renewable resources, over-populating, polluting, over-shooting our environmental base, in danger of collapse.This is the precise set of crises of birth of the next stage of our evolution that we are given which are in fact activating our new capacities and pressuring us toward social synergy in order to survive and thrive at the next stage of our unfolding.We also see that we are in need of longer-range evolutionary goals, an evolutionary agenda thatcan solve our problems in the light of the emergence of our extraordinary new capacities –spiritual, social and scientific/technological.In order to precede we now place our selves in the broadest context . We take the “overview perspective,” as the astronauts did, experiencing our t as the people of the Earth now entering the process of natural synergistic cocreation . If nature could take jumps through greater synergy and cooperation for billions of years with no guide book, then certainly, we can too!It’s innate. It the nature of nature. It’s the intention of creation. It’s not inevitable, but it is potential.The SYNCON process and the Wheel of Cocreation were both designed as processes to foster greater social synergy.The SYNCON PROCESS stands for synergistic convergence. It brings together diverse groups and interests to seek common goals and match needs with resources in the light of the growing potential of the whole system. It was tested 25 times in the 1970’s in venues as diverse as the gangs of Los Angeles, a rural group in the nation of Jamaica, Washington DC, the Generation Federation of Women’s Clubs and Huntsville Alabama. (More comprehensive description of the SYNCON Process is available).SYNCON was born out of this need to foster social synergy and to examine long-range evolutionary goals that have the potential of radically transforming the human condition for the good. It is a social acting out of the vision so many of us hold of a world wherein each person is free to do and be their best within the emergent whole system.It is a harbinger of a more “synergistic democracy,” a form of self-governance that is designed to foster cocreativity rather than. Synergy is the way nature evolves. When we create synergistic social structures, the evolutionary tendency in nature is supported by us and the genius of self-organization is facilitated naturally, because in fact it is natural.Here is a brief description of how the SYNCON worked. It can form an inclusive, coherent, evolutionary context upon which many advanced processes can be added.THE SYNCON takes place in a wheel -shaped environment representing vital functions of the social body, such as health, education, environment, governance, media, science and technology, etc. The Wheel symbolizes the whole, at the local, regional, organizational, or global levels depending on where and how it is used.DIAGRAMIn a more complex SYNCON it is desirable to have task forces at the growing edge of the Wheel representing evolutionary potentials not usually included in the social body, such as the biological evolution, space development, the psychologies of growth, the information evolution, etc.)The arts are also invited to symbolize, celebrate, and help the social body imagine and feel itself as a whole.A Coordinating Hub is composed of people from various sectors of the Wheel …

More at: https://studylib.net/doc/6775385/context-and-lineage-of-the-syncon-and-the-wheel-of

(Submitted by Sara Walker)