Monthly Archives: June 2016

The Illusion of Separateness

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Looking at the odd history in the making in Europe with UK voting to leave the EU, it becomes apparent that we generally look and understand parts better than the whole. This is certainly true on the political stage, where we often do not know, what we have lost abandoning the bargaining table. When Prince Escalus says “all are punish’d” in the final scene of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, he might as well have referred to all European nations and especially Britain in place of the Montagues and Capulets. They lost their most precious children in exchange for nothing. In the UK, it is the young who will lose the most being partially blocked from a larger world, which is struggling to become whole despite our common lack of vision.

I am starting to think that it is a peculiarity of our vision that makes us so fond of finding differences, of loving the parts more than the whole. Vision shapes our way of defining models. Delineating lines of shadow and dark, seeing colors instead of the continuity of the full spectrum is a trick our mind & vision use to make sense of the complexity of the world with limited capability. We simplify, reduce, decide under the illusion that seeing the parts we understand the whole. This is true even in science, where reductionism has given us progress especially since the Enlightenment. We are delving ever deeper taking the world to bits to find the Higgs. But even finding this God particle, our search is not at end. I sense, we are going about it wrong.

Perhaps we are about to enter the next age, where we look at the world with new eyes and try to understand it as one system – from the way we look at nature, our bodies, our societies, our ecosystem, and the world. Systems theory clearly shows that the most interesting emergent behavior is on the larger level of simple elements working together to shape much more complex behavior. This is where all of our answers lie, maybe even to our quest for purpose and the meaning of the universe.

The separateness of anything in the world is an illusion. The world is one system. As we look at the apparent boundaries in detail, they disappear to the point that we cannot truly tell one quantum particle from another. Our bodies are in continuous interaction with the micro-biome in us and surrounding us. We are seeing that our old disease models are simplistic. We are truly and deeply connected with our environment. In cyberspace, our minds and thoughts are exchanging thoughts and concepts at increasing speed. It might be a struggle, but I believe in seeing and making things whole, we truly find the solution to all of our issues. Being in and with this world and each other will give us incredible progress and peace and prosperity past anything we can image. It is the key to our humanity!

All we need to do is look at the world differently.

“What we think, we become.” — Buddha

We need to become one with each other and the world.

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The U.S. Is Failing in Infant Mortality, Starting at One Month Old (NYTimes)

There is really not much one can say – except “what is wrong with us?”

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Aaron E. Carroll: “The U.S. Is Failing in Infant Mortality, Starting at One Month Old “

“Many more babies die in the United States than you might think. In 2014, more than 23,000 infants died in their first year of life, or about six for every 1,000 born. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25 other industrialized nations do better than the United States at keeping babies alive.”

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Anthropocene

We are in the Anthropocene

There is a growing voice among scientists that would like to label the current epoch as the Anthropocene distinctly following the Holocene.

The Anthropocene is defined to begin when human activities started to have a significant global impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems. Our growth is accompanied by an exploding reduction in biodiversity. We large scale destruction of habitats followed by species extinction only paralleled by the major past extinction events like the Permian extinction.

We see the dramatic changes an extinction of wild life species on land, but the catastrophic impact of over fishing in the oceans tends to go unnoticed. First you might see a reduction in the size of the fish being caught, then you stop finding particular species altogether. If you take a look at peak catches over the last decades, you can see a dramatic reduction averaging 58% – and this was from 1964 to 1992 (I could not find more recent data.) We know that the impact of the last 25 years has been even more dramatic leading to complete collapse of certain species. This is solely due to unrestrained fishing not just catching the fish we want to eat, but also destroying numerous other species of “junk fish.” And BTW, many junk fish have been promoted to primary catch to replace species now gone.

Our techniques of industrialized over fishing and brutal drag net techniques not only decimate species, but also completely destroy supporting habitats. We unbalance ecological chains further destroying local ecosytems.

But this happens under the water surface, so the vast emptiness we are creating goes unnoticed.

Now we add to this the dramatic impact of climate change, which some of still debate fumbling at the edge.

If you look at the previous extinction events, you will likely note that it always ended in the destruction of the apex species, usually in the early phases. We pride ourselves as being the apex species. Good luck to us!

Earlier today I ran across a link on one of my favorite sites. Justin Hickey write about a fascinating book Open Letters Monthly In What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins Jonathan Balcombe writes about the research of the conscious existence of our vertebrate cousins in the water. Justing Hinkley provides a thoughtful review, which I could not do justice here paraphrasing. Just read it.

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I was left with my ever increasing wonder about this world we inhabit.

I firmly believe that not only our model of human consciousness is “not even wrong,” but we seem incapable of appreciating the mental existence of all the beings that share our world. There is a tremendous agree of shared awareness and emotion – the experience that drives action. And the ability to suffer is universal.

We pride ourselves the apex of creation. But we are not only blind to the suffering of our fellow humans, but we are completely insensitive to the suffering we cause in our farms, in our forrests, in our oceans.

How will our epoch be remembered? I can only think that future species able to express it will call the Anthropocene blessedly short in duration and dominated by a species that was given much promise, the ability for sensitivity and greatness, but turned out to be a brutal aberration of butchers.

I am not proud.

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Changing Behavior

We have this concept that humans are rational. We are rational. We make decision and do them.

We don’t.

I am relatively mature, middle-aged. Based on life expectancy in the US (78.4 years for a male), I should have 14 years left. This is probably skewed due to averages, suicides etc.. Given my education and life style, I could expect more. One would also hope for new developments over the next years to improve the odds, especially if I can pay for them.

What do I want? I want to maximize my useful and enjoyable life. In a way, this mean, doing even better than I do now. I am healthy, but can feel the slowing down. This might be less to age than really physical shape. The best thing I can do for myself is to improve that. Lose weight, maybe. But mainly feel optimum, sleep better. The actions required are clear, I have the laundry list and setup (exercise corner in a nice spot on the deck), start exercise, change the diet after filling the fridge with the right stuff, meditate, write.

I also want to spend more of my time doing what matters to me.

All very clear.

But every day I fall into the same patterns, which is not THAT.

So how do you change it?

Here is what I am trying now, trying to find a way to enjoy the process:

  1. Disrupting existing patterns. Do not go to the computer the first thing to do bills, but meditate instead.
  2. Make the goals small. Ensure, you embark on the activity rather than feeling disappoint about not achieving an aggressive goal.
  3. For me: measure, keep track of stats. I enjoy that. Apple Health app, Withings, Wahoo.
  4. Set a few concise goals. They have been in my head, but Streaks now make me accountable to myself.

The goal is to have a life that is healthy and enjoyable.

Every day is a precious gift.

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