| Monday, December 23, 2002 |  |
| Consensus and Consent -- Making Synergic Decisions |
 Timothy Wilken writes:"Today, mind and brain scientists have made enormous progress in understanding how the human brain works. There has been many surprises in these recent advances. But the biggest shocker is that the brain doesn't decide what to do. Decision making is not controlled centrally in the brain. The mind-brain appears to act as a coordination and consensus system for all the cells, tissues, and organs in the body. The brain doesn't decide to eat. The cells of the body decide to eat, the brain coordinates their activity and carries out the consensus will. Our human brain stores the gathered information from the body's sensing of its environment, the brain presents opportunities for action reflective of both the sensing of environment and the needs and goals of the 40,000,000,000,000 cells it serves. The brain is not the leader of the body, it is the follower of the body. It is a system that matches needs in the body with its sensing of opportunities to meet these needs by action within the environment. The brain is a 'government' that truly serves its constituents– the cells, tissues, and organs that make up the human body. The apparent " I " is not real. It is really a " We ". ... If the human body can using unanimous rule democracy and synergic consensus can organize and coordinate the actions of 40 trillion cells so totally that we identify the whole organism as a single individual, then we humans should be able to use these same mechanisms to organize our species and solve our human problems..." [ Knowledge | 2002-12-23 03:17 | 8 comments | PermaLink ] More > |
| Bucky on Wealth |
 Buckminster Fuller defining wealth:"Wealth is the performance per pound utilization of the world's resources. It is the number of forward days that the number of people on earth can live at an increasingly higher standard of living without the negative effects of environmental pollution."Here's another version: "Intellect and energy; measured by the amount of forward days for how many humans with which we are technically organized to cope. Because energy can neither be destroyed nor created, and 'know-how' of intellect can only increase with each experiment, or experience, wealth consisting of both the physical and metaphysical can only increase with each and every re-employment." [ Knowledge | 2002-12-23 04:08 | 1 comment | PermaLink ] More > |
| Who sold what weapons technology to Iraq |
USAAnd so on and so on and so on. Who sold what to Iraq, as contained in the Iraqi arms declaration, brought to you by Andreas Zumach of Die Tageszeitung. The article also lists French, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Dutch, Belgian, Spanish and Swedish companies. Zumach's articles are available in English here, in the original at taz.de; and there's an interview with Zumach at Democracy Now! [from randomWalks] [ Politics | 2002-12-23 16:05 | 3 comments | PermaLink ] More > |
| Expanding the search for weapons of mass destruction |
 "Canadians to lead weapons inspection team into USA.
A coalition of Canadian peace groups today announced their intention to send an international team of volunteer weapons inspectors into the United States later this winter. The coalition, Rooting Out Evil, is recruiting inspectors through their newly launched website, www.rootingoutevil.org. "Our action has been inspired by none other than George W. Bush," said Christy Ferguson, a spokesperson for the group. "The Bush administration has repeatedly declared that the most dangerous rogue nations are those that: 1) have massive stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons; 2) ignore due process at the United Nations; 3) refuse to sign and honour international treaties; and 4) have come to power through illegitimate means. "On the basis of President Bush's guidelines, it is clear that the current U.S. Administration poses a great threat to global security," said Ferguson. "We're following Bush's lead and demanding that the U.S. grant our inspectors immediate and unfettered access to any site in the country - including all presidential compounds - so that we can identify the weapons of mass destruction in this rogue state," added David Langille... " [From an e-mail quoted by Spiritseeker] [ Politics | 2002-12-23 16:05 | 5 comments | PermaLink ] More > |
| How to Tell If Someone is Lying to You |
Posted by shelala on weeno.com, some points of good advice on spotting when a person is lying to you:And I'd say those are correct. The way I see it, you'd be looking for whether there is congruency between what the words say and what the person's body says. The body is typically much more truthful than the words. None of those signs will say for sure, as there might be many other reasons for being nervous or not meaning what one says. And it only works on people who aren't trained in being good liars. Politicians being a good example. So, it works for O.J. Simpson, but not for George W. Bush. [ Patterns | 2002-12-23 22:25 | 151 comments | PermaLink ] More > |