Zen Happiness

Zen Happiness – I linked before to this page by Francis Heylighen at VUB, and noticed it referred to his 1992 paper on Maslow. As you know I’ve been observing parallels between Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and motivations, and Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ), and Heylighen’s evolutionary cybernetic philosophy seems to account for both.

Apart from this effective re-statement of my own thesis [Quote] The general problem is that if holism as a reaction to reductionism is understood in a too simple-minded way, then any type of scientific analysis, of precise, formal modelling becomes meaningless. [Unquote] He also says …

Quality [Quote] The state of ultimate well-being as conceived by Japanese Zen Buddhism, “satori”, seems quite similar to “self-actualization”, especially in its emphasis on the openness to experience, the not deficiency-motivated behavior and the transcendence of dualities, and this reinforces my tendency to believe in Maslow’s statement about the culture independence of self-actualizing behavior. [Unquote]

Dynamic Quality [Quote] Self-actualization, on the other hand, may be called a growth need, in the sense that deviations from the previously reached equilibrium state are not reduced, but enhanced, made to grow, in a deviation-amplifying positive feedback loop…. The “goal” of an autonomous system is not a fixed equilibrium, but a dynamic process which continuously reconstructs the system’s identity…. Self-actualization is reached when all needs are fulfilled, in particular the highest need. Because of the positive feedback, self-actualization is not a fixed state, but a process of development which does not end. [Unquote]

We’re in Porto Heli

On holiday, sailing in Greece.

Met John Flynn and son David. John works for EMIL (ex EEEL) ExxonMobil in New Malden UK. A long term customer of mine at Foster Wheeler, Reading, UK, down at Esso Fawley. He regularly works with Richard Carroll, someone I employed during my 22 years at FW. Small world.

Also met Hillary and Darren from Epsom (both under 30 !). Sylvia may have persuaded Darren to come to Reading FC to see some real football (England v Lichenstein, who ? tonight). A very lovely couple. I got them and others into a conversation about Northrop’s Meeting of East and West, (which I’m reading by the pool when I get the chance), and Pirsig’s ZMM, and all things human and linguistic about what really matters – poiitics, religion, metaphors dead and alive, metonyms, weak and strong homonyms, aphorisms, euphemisms, rhyming slang, etymology, philosophy, the lot.

Oh yeah, and Alan Pardew resigned as manager of Reading FC this very day.

Good reviews from NIBBS

Good reviews from NIBBS – Myths We Live By by Mary Midgley [Guardian / John Turney]
Natural-Born Cybogs by Andy Clark [Metpsychology / Neil Levy]
Quest: The essence of humanity by Charles Pasternak [New Scientist / Brian Fagan] [Quote] Even plants have quests – for the sunlight that fuels their growth. Humans, of course, have enhanced searching ability …[Unquote] Or, as Peter Gabriel put it, “The forest fight for sunlight takes root in every tree.” [See dysteleology post earlier]
Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti and Carol Stewart
Nature via Nurture by Philip Gerrans [F2 Network / Matt Ridley]

Ontologies and Tools

Some great posts recently from Seb, on semantic web ontologies and on tools to link different feeds and forms of information with a consistent metaphor. Particularly liked …
[Semantic Web Ontologies][W3C Philosophy ?][Streams, Pools, Mountains & Lakes metaphor]

Intrigued by Seb’s eclectic list of “dead” people, which includes Abraham Maslow, as well as Curt Cobain and Bertrand Russell. The Maslow link is a good one. Three related issues here for me ….

(1) Maslow / Pirsig parallel worldviews.
(2) Evolutionary psychological aspect of “ontologies”.
(3) My lack of tools to experiment with these modelling ideas.

Philosophy of Technology Reading List

Philosophy of Technology Reading List – From the UIUC (Uni Illinois at Urbana) – eight years old, but interesting nevertheless. (Marx, Wiener, Heidegger, Baudrillard, Herrigel, Pirsig, Buckie-Fuller, Foucault, Penrose, Theroux, to name a few)

Pollard Predicts the Future of Communication

Pollard Predicts the Future of Communication – An interesting analysis of patterns of communication now and in the future from Dave Pollard.
[Quote]
I see the weblog becoming a ubiquitous communication medium, a proxy for every individual, where everything you want to know about that individual (which they have given you permission to see) can be called up. The effect of that will be to eliminate many communications whose purpose is simply to get information. The blog will be the main vehicle by which we educate, inform and explain (the first of the five communication objectives) and express ourselves (the last of the five objectives). The middle three objectives – to persuade, decide and relate – are the more intense and participatory reasons for communicating, and even the much-improved weblogs of the future aren’t going to be up to those tasks.

I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that the communication ‘killer app’ of the future will be peer-to-peer videoconferencing. Not the bulky, cumbersome room videoconferencing tool of today, but the next-gen personal wireless webcam-based tool that will allow you to look at, and talk to, some one on the other side of the globe as if they were right beside you. For the same reason that I have predicted weblogs will transform the way in which we share information, by becoming the proxy for what you know, so do I predict webcams will transform communications by becoming the proxy for where you are. Turning on your individual webcam in the future, so others can see you, will be as simple and automatic as putting on your glasses is today, so you can see others.
[Unquote]

How – Peer to peer – Agreed, as I’ve said several times too.
Want to know what I think – see my web-log proxy – Agreed.
Want to communicate with me – see my portable web-cam – I wonder ?