Climate Change: The Science (Part 2 of 3)

Double Hockey Sticks or Moving Toward The Goal

In Every Moment There is Change Some Climate SCIENCE Some Evolutionary SCIENCE & Maybe just a little Zen

No Climate Science is not simple... However.. The science does show Climate Change is inevitable...  NASA Earth Science is taking continuous satellite data and there are all kinds of climate research here on Earth  being conducted by eminent scientists  all over the world and from all over the world. The conclusion reached by the vast consensus  is clear and simple enough for a simpleton. It's getting hotter... fast. We are doing it. Climate Science like most studies of nature are about dynamic, interacting, complex systems. Fortunately, you don't need to know all of them, but you should at least know about them. The science facts are there to see if you want  and even a little education about this is important. Make the effort to learn some science... It may save more than just one life.

Climate isn't just about whether you should bring an umbrella or shades.

It affects everything about the way (or if) we live.

In life change occurs through many interactions, on many levels. It can happen by mutation, epigenetics, selection, competition, predation and these are just some of many factors in the global ecology. The changing environment provides plenty of opportunity for it. For humans, this would include the human economy, information, technologies and the waste products of industry and consumption.The chief ecological factor among these interactions and processes is the environment. Nature has systems that work together. The carbon system like other ecological systems is a dynamic one and cycles at varying rates. On earth it is and has been for a long time, intermingling and cycling from ground to air to plants, animals and you, in a concert of fluid, continuous systems. Just the shear number of us adds exponentially, as time goes on, to the amount of strain on the equilibrium of the global system.

NASA | Plant Productivity in a Warming World

When the deniers vindicate the science of warming and our contribution to it, it's time the undecided, decide.

More than likely, it may get worse for us before it gets better. We are starting to realize a little late in the process. The effects of climate change are going to be, in some cases, very dramatic. In both the global weather systems and in people's thinking and ways of life real changes are happening and will  inevitably continue to happen.  Large and small these changes are all going to be here for a quite while no matter what the cause or even what we do now. But large or small our activities have an impact. Better get used to that idea...because it's true. There are 7 billion of us now and counting. Our effects on Earth are cumulative.

We came out of the Earth and are part of a greater system than ourselves. With an ever growing population that will have more "carbon" demands, we will still struggle even if we radically go Green and reduce emissions from our energy sources...change our consumption and production...change our economies and ways of life. And it is certain we will have to change all that, even without climate change. Led by changes in our environment and the weather...We will have to change to survive into the future...just as our ancestrs did in the past. but as mentioned, we are late in responding... The best time to start was yesterday.

Take away only 2 points from this post:
The total amount of change and the rate of change are the issues here.
Regardless of the cause and if there is climate change or not ...There is still time and reason for us to change. 

It's Not Panic. It's Realistic.

We must take care and remember that we are the last species in our lineage, the last tip of our branch on the tree... and so we are vulnerable. We may not be able to control all the changes in life...but we still have a responsibility to cope with and to manage them as best we can. If we are going to improve our chances of making it through these climatic changes we must stop adding to the problem. As well, we must be innovative, working on making many other things in our world more livable for all of us in the long run. That's how to avoid extinction. Doing nothing does not leave the greatest legacy, does it? Just remember, it's still very important to make even small changes in our behavior now, in order to stem future disasters for us, our children and our species.

Yet we are smart enough,
We can DO SOMETHING about this.

Starting now.

First, You Should BE AWARE of What The Problem Is

Then, If You Care ...Maybe We Can Repair

A global awareness of the need will make it easier
 and
help find the innovative solutions humans will depend on to go into the future.

The way of the Tao is the way of change
We Will Change...It Is Our Way...And Inevitable

Next: Part 3  Climate Change & The Future
Our global family has a lot of spring cleaning to do.

Enjoy.

© 2012 MU-Peter Shimon

Earth Day 2012

Earth Day 2012 Global Events View all Earth Day 2012 Events

Enjoy.

© 2012 MU-Peter Shimon

Amazing & Beautiful

Stop The Presses!
15 Years ago I had a dream of a website or ware that was exactly like this.

I never finished it...

However,
Cary and Michael Huang

are twins who have realized this dream
in an amazing and beautiful way

14 years after they were born.

Scale of the Universe 2

That's right.
They are 14 years old and already capable of this.

More from these brilliant guys

What does the future hold for the digital generation?

What's the next step?
Will school outings be with Google glasses where the answers and the real thing are right in front of you.
All kinds of educational and training programs could be developed.
Could people then self-educate and self-inform so smoothly and effortlessly, all the time?

I can see a future where this is in 3-D and then eventually in a holo-virtual reality platform.
This kind of informational interface with "Wikipedias", libraries, museums and conservatories...
with every subject imaginable, can become available. Today's Internet may pale in comparison.

Enjoy.
© 2012 MU-Peter Shimon

Climate Change: The Denial Debate (1 of 3)

Frog in A Pot or Spring Cleaning is H - E- Double Hockey Sticks
Part 1 - The Deniers "Debate"

The evolution, abundance and distribution of our species were shaped largely by climate change.

Our hominid ancestors responded to these changes in the past, adapting to new environments

and so we survived until today. Climate has impacted us many times before...how will we react this time?

The Hockey Stick Chart

The Climate Change There are none so blind as those who will not see? Denial "Debate"

Bill Maher before Michael Mann went to play dirty hockey with the deniers in Copenhagen

I don't need to preach to the enlightened or converted.

This is for those who aren't sure, don't care or are still sitting on the bench and not in the game.
Question for you - Don't you find the denials or the deniers incredible? Literally.

Hardcore climate change deniers... even if they know... apparently won't let the facts get in YOUR way.

Michael E. Mann - March 2012

True, some people can't see the forest for the trees. Some people don't see trees... they see only paper. And not just any paper, if you know what I mean. And they also seem to like using that paper to cover your eyes.

You're smart, look at all the evidence and use your own judgement. Regardless of the cause, doesn't "our family home" need some spring cleaning? intelligent animals don't soil their nest. So isn't adopting and adapting to things "Green" a smart, long-term yet profitable strategy for humanity to take?

There is now ample evidence from solid data and it all points to an obvious conclusion. There can no longer be a stick your head in the sand attitude denying that the climate is changing. Reason alone to re-assess.


Along with changes in the weather are changes in ecology. Life tends to adapt to the new patterns at varying rates depending on its capacity to keep up with the rate of change. The rate of change is important. Whether the climate change we are seeing today is due to man's activity or a normal part of a long planetary record of climate change...it is really happening. And now, it’s happening at an unprecedented rate.


The hope now is, it's not too late too late to ward off drastic disaster...

Where there any early signs? Yes, 40 years ago. A  Polar Bear or  a  Canary in a Coal Mine? Will this be us? "Bearly" hanging on? A short drop  from dominant predator to extinct mammal?

"The Warning" officially came 20 years ago David Suzuki and more recently Requiem For A Species Clive Hamilton

Our domination as a species has pushed aside or rubbed out others just as the domination of the dinosaurs did in their day. But natural history shows us that eventually all species have a limited life span. Not just the individuals in a population, but entire groups of populations can also die out. it's all a question of time, while some species will live on and some die earlier on and we recognize that as extinction. Yet the evidence is they are all likely, at some inevitable point, in the future to become extinct. Even overly successful species can come to be so numerous that the resources no longer support any of them. Consumption and waste tip the equilibrium, grow exponentially and ruin stability. The two points we should pay attention to are; this time we are contributing to the harm to ourselves and we ourselves can do something to stop that part at least. Adopting an attitude that bases decisions on the possible consequences to seven generations ahead like in old North American and many aboriginal cultures, may not be a bad policy.

It is not the end of the earth, but…The history of life on earth for various reasons from drastic climate change from geological activity to comets and asteroids and has seen several mass extinctions. Life and evolution have always had the opportunity afterward to generate and increase bio-diversity. This is the idea of punctuated-equilibrium from Alvarez and Gould. (I will have more to say about this theory and my consulting in future posts.) The diverse post-extinction species however, would be new and can be expected to be quite different from those that were dominant there before. The evidence is that it has done so again and again. Humans themselves have hominid relatives who are now extinct. (Although Neanderthal genes are still with us). We own our existence to our ancestors having the quick ability to come up with a very wide range of adaptations when exposed to new conditions. There is no reason why this should not continue. I dare say we are still intelligent enough but are we up to the next challenges ahead. But the fact that we are not so diverse, the last lonely species in our lineage should be sobering. And wake us up.

News Media was once journalism of the facts. But is it even about science or facts anymore?
Is it about "Balanced Reporting"? Yeah right...far right. 

Cleopatra the Queen of De Nial

It's scientifically real and there are facts if you care to see them. So, aren't we better off responding to it? Now, rather than later? That is, if we care to minimize the consequences on us and our children. It is already too late for many of the plants and animals we have come to know. Some are not going to be able to move to new locations, some will move but be unable to cope or even adapt to a different ecology. Many others have already been lost that we didn't really know at all. There are changes afoot in the world's species diversity and distribution. 


Disruption is underway in our ecology on many fronts....
These changes can no longer be mistaken or ignored, regardless of the cause.

David Suzuki at Occupy Montreal

Most animals will realize the temperature is changing, unless they are bit less wise & more cold-blooded

Frog in a Pot Please Note: No frogs were actually harmed in this clip

More climate change science to come in Part 2...
Enjoy.

© 2012 MU-Peter Shimon

Genesis: Adam, Eve & The Tree of Innovation

or How A Local Family Business is Now Branching Out Into A Family Global Economy

The biggest problem in the world

 - we draw the circle of our family too small. 

We need to draw it larger every day.

 ~ Mother Teresa

In a previous post I wondered whether the Internet hadn't become the global campfire we now sit around.
An article on Steve Jobs, Zen and Innovation made me think further of how the economy may now become a human(e) global business. Sure more may be sometimes better, but in the spirit of Thoreau, I believe success in life depends and is based not only on the quantity of things but most importantly on its Quality.

This is a story of a Mom & Pop business that used disruptive innovation and sustaining to grow into a global economy. It was done the way business was done originally from the beginning. Based not only on "truth" and "knowledge" but wisdom.

Early groups encountered others, not in hostility but in openess and curiosity. Connecting, getting to learn about each other, finding new useful innovations and exchanging value for value in an atmosphere of trust. This innovation, communication, may very well have helped our survival during disruptive times and sustained our expansion and growth throughout the world. I believe it is this "Law of the Jungle" innovation that is more co-operative than aggressive, that grew a healthy commerce in the world. What innovation made them so successful? I would say, Excellence. The Sophists taught arête (Greek: ἀρετή, quality, excellence) as the highest value, and the determinant of one's actions in life. The Sophists taught artistic quality in oratory (motivation via speech) as a manner of demonstrating one's arête. Oratory was taught as an art form, used to please and to influence other people via excellent speech; nonetheless, the Sophists taught the pupil to seek arête in all endeavours, not solely in oratory. (Wikipedia) 

Can we keep this branch of the tree alive?
Can we keep up to the challenges of continuing this family business into the future?

It will take the courage of innovation and wise decisions, but our family has shown no lack of that.

No-Thing is Permanent All There Is, Is Change Rational mathematical models of the economy are about people as predictable numbers We live in times where we will have to adapt or die in how we make our living as a species but it's always been like that in this world The economy is what it's always really been about, relationships between people... from the earliest days its about connecting together and trust Do you think complex social changes come with disruptive innovations? Yes. I think so. And Evolutionary Economics is about complex relationships. Hmm...

Shocking Facts You Didn't Know A Minute Ago This clip is only a couple of years old and it's already dated The pace of science and technological change used to double every few thousand years, then hundred, then five, now? What time is it? As shown in patents and academic publication,  human knowledge doubles at different rates. For example,  ranging from 2 years for nanotechnology  to 21 years for other sectors. But the growth of  Asian knowledge engines hasn't yet  replaced the flattening of the growth curve in the developed world. So there is uneven growth in sectors like nanotechnology, growth is very rapid. In other areas,  such as Alzheimer's Disease, it is not as rapid as one would think.

A warm shout-out of respect to all my relatives. Hey, That's YOU! The Human Family Tree - Spencer_Wells Family Reunion -We share close to 98% of the our DNA with chimpanzees... we are "apes" or they are "human" ? -We are even more closely related to gorillas -There is more variation between individuals in a population than there is between populations -All current non-African humans  have a small % of Neanderthal DNA in them

Charles Darwin's sketch from 1837 His first diagram of an evolutionary tree from his ‘First Notebook on Transmutation of Species" Museum of Natural History Manhattan, NYC. Interpretation of the handwriting:  "I think case must be that one generation should have as many living as now. To do this and to have as many species in same genus (as is) requires extinction . Thus between A + B the immense gap of relation. C + B the finest gradation. B+D rather greater distinction. Thus genera would be formed. Bearing relation to ancient types with several extinct forms".

The Population of Shanghai  (You have relatives there) In the future... We will have to be innovative  To feed, clothe, shelter and educate our family,  The World, that's 7 Billion PEOPLE and counting.

Disruptive Innovation in the public sector

Zero-Point Mind Good friends, our essence of mind (literally, self-nature) which is the seed or kernel of enlightenment (bodhi) is pure by nature, and by making use of this mind alone we can reach buddhahood directly. Now let me tell you something about my own life and how I came into possession of the esoteric teaching of the dhyana  (or the Zen) school... All the Buddhas  of the past present and future,  and all the Sutras  belonging to the twelve divisions  are in the self-nature of each individual,  where they were from the first. If one's self-nature is understood,  one's satori is enough to make one rise to a state of Buddhahood...  A man knows by himself  what his original mind is, which is no more than emancipation. When emancipation is obtained,  it is the Prajna-samadhi, and  when this Prajna-samadhi is understood,  there is realized a state of mu-en, thought-less-ness... Hon rai mu ishi motsu From the first, no-thing is (Hui-neng) The Sixth and Last Patriarch of the Southern School of Zen Buddhism

Disruptive Zennovation Hui-neng on the other hand  is the champion of the Abrupt School. That the process of enlightenment is abrupt means that there is a leap, logical and pyschological, in the Buddhist experience... The teaching of abrupt satori is then fundamental in the Southern School of Hui-neng. And we must remember that abruptness or leaping is not only pyschological, but dialectical. Prajna is really a dialectical term denoting that this special process of knowing, known as "abrupt seeing", or 'seeing at once", does not follow general laws of logic; for when Prajna functions one finds oneself all of a sudden, as if bt a miracle, facing Sunyata, the emptiness of all things. This does not take place as the result of reasoning, but when reasoning has been abandoned as futile, and pyschologiaclly when the will-power is brought to a finish. The Use of Prajna contradicts everything that we may conceive of things wordly; it is altogether of another order than our usual life. But this does not mean that Pranja is something altogether disconnected with our life and thought, something that is to be given to us by a miracle from some unknown and unknowable source. if this were the case, Prajna would be of no possible use to us, and there would be no emancipation for us. It is true that the functioning of Prajna is discrete, and interrupting to the progress of logical reasoning, but all the time it underlies it, and without Prajna we cannot have any reasoning whatever. Prajna is at once above and in the process of reasoning. This is a contradiction, formally considered, but in truth this contradiction itself is made possible because of Prajna. (D.T. Suzuki - The Zen Doctrine of No Mind)

We Are Family

Hon rai mu ishi motsu
Enjoy.

© 2012 "μ" -Peter Shimon

Sitting Quietly, Doing Nothing

Spring Comes, And The Grass Grows By Itself (Zenrin)
 or What Zen Has Taught: You want sound bites? Ok... Zennovation and Zero-Point Mind
There, I've coined 2 new terms...use them if you like, as long as you credit or "#mention" me. MU-Peter :)

Sitting Quietly, Doing Nothing “I gained no-thing from Absolute Awakening  That is why it is called Absolute Awakening.” (Siddhartha Gautama)

"I woke up one morning only to find that the whole world had changed around me..." - The End of Business as Usual by Brian Solis Chapter 1-A Quiet Riot: The Information Divide and the Cultural Revolution "Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more." - Nikola Tesla How did I come to Zen Buddhism? "I woke up one morning (30years ago) only to find that the whole world had changed around me...(see my Jan. post New Day) I realized the inevitable... "I am no-thing if not a Zen Buddhist." -Me

While I know no-thing of Zen… True, I often point to this kind of connection in my blog, yet I feel have to post a response to this article on : What-zen-has-taught-silicon-valley-and-steve-jobs-about-innovation

“Which raises a question that may seem crude, aggressively Western, and not at all Zen: Can the rest of us boost our innovation mojo by applying some of these centuries-old principles to modern-day challenges?” (from the article)

Ok, so you knew this would get my attention.

I am uncomfortable with the idea of vulgarizing Zen, with the idea that it is merely a technique for attaining something, a competitive advantage over your rivals. Especially when it is something material or motivated by ill-advised desires. And if your aim is spiritual... the desire for it may drive away the very thing you seek.

"You cannot be spiritual while you are in your own desires. So stop desiring to be spiritual."

 Rabbi Rami 

Perhaps, Marshall McLuhan (if the media is the message and the content is the audience) spoke in metaphors because the digital age is in really an analogue to reality. Want to paint a masterpiece, make yourself a perfect human being...then paint naturally.

The game is not about becoming somebody, it's about becoming nobody."

 ~Baba Ram Dass 

"In both life and art the cultures of the Far East appreciate nothing more highly than spontaneity (tzu-jan).

This is the unmistakable tone of sincerity marking the action which is not studied and contrived. For a man rings like a cracked bell when he thinks and acts with a split mind - one part standing aside to interfere with the other, to control, to condemn, or to admire. But the mind, or true nature, of man cannot actually be split... To make an end of the illusion, the mind must stop trying to act upon itself, upon the stream of experiences, from the standpoint of the idea of itself which we call the ego."

Alan Watts

In this post I would like to share with you some of my response to this article, zen and innovation.
This is my reply:

MU!

“At one stroke I forgot all my knowledge!

There’s no use for artificial discipline,

For, move as I will, I manifest the ancient Way.”

(Hsiang-yen)

When a monk asked Bankei what he thought of disciplining oneself to attain satori, the master said, “Satori stands in contrast to confusion. Since each person is the substance of Buddha, (in reality) there is not one point of confusion. What, then, is one going to achieve by satori?"
&
"You are primarily Buddhas; you are not going to be Buddhas for the first time. there is not an iota of a thing to be called error in your inborn mind...If you have the least desire to be better than you actually are, if you hurry up to the slightest degree in search of something, you are already going against the Unborn."
(Bankei Kokushi Seppo)

My experience in “pointing to the moon” has been that often people will just stare at your finger. I mention that at the end of my second blog post in Jan. "Rude Awakening". You can lead a horse to water but can’t make him drink. No amount of sitting zazen will bring enlightenment. Polishing a tile will not transform it into a mirror. (Matsu)

The opening words of the oldest Zen poem say that

“The perfect Way (Tao) is without difficulty,
Save that it avoids picking and choosing,
Only when you stop liking and disliking
Will all be clearly understood.
A split hair’s difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart!
If you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right and wrong,
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.”
(Seng-ts’an in the Hsin-hsin Ming.)

While I do believe there is a correlation of Zen mind and innovation… It is easier to say what Zen is not, than what it is. Paradoxically, and most confusing to the rationalists and those "classically trained", Zen is more about letting go of something and gaining no-thing.

"Men are afraid to forget their own minds, fearing to fall through the void with nothing on to which they can cling. They do not know that the void is not really the void but the realm of the Dharma...It cannot be looked for or sought, comprehended by wisdom or knowledge, explained in words, contacted materially

 or reached by meritorious achievement."

(Huang-po in the Chu Ch'an)

When my kids were younger they called me by my nickname and my company name
MU 
Something and Nothing

It can mean many things, in research and statistics it is the population parameter like sigma, an expedient but only an estimate of, not the reality.In neuroscience, the brain has what are called receptors by this name and so on, MU is a multifunction word from many contexts. Many things...

In Japanese MU means "not nothing" but rather "no-thing".

The dialogue between East and West is not easy to translate.

Zen is a state of mind whether you are sitting lotus, washing the dishes or any ordinary activity.

"You can't think sloppy 6 days of the week and expect to be sharp on the 7th."

(Paraphrasing R. Pirsig in ZAMM)

But I also believe it is Integral and does not lend itself so easily to patchwork or half-hearted and half-understood or half-done. Do, there is no try. (yes, a nod to Yoda). One does not know Kung-fu or Tai Chi simply by knowing technique without the moral and spiritual aspects that go with it. Art technique may be learned without the natural human feeling it is not a masterpiece.

Zen is a Way of Life, not necessarily a self-help book, new age fad or trendy gadget you can apply piecemeal. Yes I know that's Disruptive in this age of  Digital Darwinism

"Without looking forward to tomorrow every moment, you must think only of this day and this hour. Because tomorrow is difficult and unfixed and difficult to know, you must think of following the Buddhist way while you live today... You must concentrate on Zen practice without wasting time, thinking that there is only this day and this hour. After that it becomes truly easy. you must forget about the good and bad of your nature, the strength or weakness of your power."
(Dogen - in the Shobogenzo)

The taste of tea is the taste of Zen (old Japanese saying A word of caution as an epilogue. Like Martial Arts, Zen is not meant to be approached lightly. When drinking your tea, sip and savor it lingeringly. Don't gulp it, least you miss the flavor and maybe even burn yourself. Final words…before this whole thing starts "Stinking of Zen"

"You must empty your cup."

(Jackie Chan - Forbidden Kingdom)

"Like the empty sky it has no boundries,

Yet it is right in this place, ever profound and clear.

When you seek to know it, you cannot see it.

You cannot take hold of it,

But you cannot lose it.

In not being able to get it, you get it.

When you are silent, it speaks.

When you speak, it is silent.

The great gate is wide open to bestow alms,

And no crowd is blocking the way."

(Cheng-tao Ke)

Suggested reading:


The Zen Doctrine of No Mind by D.T. Suzuki
or
The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zubov
or
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Ok that's enough for now.


Look at the moon, not the finger


Enjoy.

© 2012 MU-Peter Shimon

The Best Energy Source For Ideas... No-Thing?

or A Hidden and Neglected Scientific Giant : The Invisible Zen-like Power of Tesla

NIKOLA TESLA “The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; First, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.” “The practical success of an idea, irrespective of its inherent merit, is dependent on the attitude of the contemporaries. If timely it is quickly adopted; if not, it is apt to fare like a sprout lured out of the ground by warm sunshine, only to be injured and retarded in its growth by the succeeding frost." "Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine."

This post is a postscript to Hominid Innovation. Hominid Innovation 2, if you like.

A disruptive man with disruptive innovations demands to be recognized

and honored for his contribution to humankind.

In my reference to the glow of our screens in the first post,
of course today that spark is manifested as the electricity we use. Early hominids likely long  knew about fire before mastering it. Unable to control it or summon it at will, it had not yet become an adaptation. So the discovery in Wonderwerk cave (still can't get over the name) made me wonder about the first hominid event of mastering fire. Who was that person? There had to have been a first. What kind of personality and thought would this individual have? Who would they be on the inside?

So now, what about the man who mastered modern day fire, electricity? Oh, yes. Just one man.
What kind of mind and vision might he possess and how did his genius come about? He appears to have come to Buddhism at some point. What power does Zen have? Did this have any influence on the state of mind that sees CLEARLY? Does enlightenment lead to further enlightenment?

“Like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagrams of my motor. A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally I would have given for that one which I had wrestled from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence.”

NIKOLA TESLA

You SHOULD know that name.
The man who lit the modern way and still powers us into hope for the future.

Owner of over 700 patents, inventor of the alternating current transmission of electricity, em motors, the theories behind computer circuits, robotics and the design for a communication system more sophisticated than Internet (the Internet also would not likely exist without Tesla). The list goes on... but includes one intriguing element. The possibility of truly disruptive innovation... free global electricity for all humankind.

All of his seizures and idiosyncracies aside, the man's mind was a marvel. Similar to Einstein and his "thought experiments" (Einstein once said "If give an hour to solve a problem...I'd spend 55 minutes understanding the problem and 5 minutes figuring out the solution."), the way Tesla worked was unconventional too. “If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.”

Another "daydreamer" like Einstein, he imagined the details of his theories and inventions in his mind. He designed, repaired and tweaked them there and then when he felt it was just right, he built it one shot, without beta versions. “Before I put a sketch on paper, the whole idea is worked out mentally. In my mind I change the construction, make improvements, and even operate the device. Without ever having drawn a sketch I can give the measurements of all parts to workmen, and when completed all these parts will fit, just as certainly as though I had made the actual drawings. It is immaterial to me whether I run my machine in my mind or test it in my shop. The inventions I have conceived in this way have always worked. In thirty years there has not been a single exception. My first electric motor, the vacuum wireless light, my turbine engine and many other devices have all been developed in exactly this way.”

In fact, his mind would continue to work in his dreams. I doubt anyone would hire him today to just sit around and dream, but losing these kinds of people and opportunities could prove to be very unwise.

While I have mentioned great scientists and theories I admire, some, usually ahead of their time, lived their lives with misunderstanding, some dying alone in obscurity. As brilliant a mind as Einstein's and hands above Edison (not that pleasant or brilliant a guy apparently, perhaps a "successful" businessman and engineer but a pip-squeak next to Tesla in science)...

“Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”
I note that this quote can be true for economists as well.

Nicolas Tesla a freedom-loving humanitarian,who empathized with humanity was a visionary scientist. He was also typically judged (and  prejudged) an eccentric and even portrayed in popular entertainment as the stereotypical mad scientist. Unlike Einstein or Edison who had fame and fortune, Tesla had near invisibility and poverty. If our society truly valued and nurtured genius in all it's manifestations and eccentrictiies...how did such a great mind come to this? Did he chose it, it come about by the risks he took or was obsurity thrust upon him by threatened business people of his day and their economic theories and models in peril as well as cultural circumstance and ignorance or (as he may have judged) a world just not ready (or perhaps not worthy) of his powerful gifts?

This blog cannot possibly do this great man of science justice.

Ignore the cheesy intro titles and it's not bad

This is longer but very informative

We owe him more than an ovation for so much charity, political wisdom and disruptive innovation.

“The scientists of today  think deeply instead of clearly.  One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply  and be quite insane.” (Nikola Tesla) Nikola Tesla Files

And if you still want more...
These videos may be viewed separately or together. You can follow this blog and return for more later.

Part 1

Part 2

Enjoy.

© 2012 MU-Peter Shimon

Hominid Innovation

or 
The Enlightened Spark of the World

DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION in HUMAN NATURAL HISTORY In a layer dated to one million years ago, hominid excavations found important new evidence of microscopic wood ash, animal bones and stone tools at the very aptly named Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa. The team led by the University of Toronto Michael Chazan and Liora Kolska Horwitz of  Hebrew University identified the earliest known evidence of the use of fire by human ancestors and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences April 2, 2012

The Wonderwerk Cave. (Credit: R. Yates)

As we sit in front of the glow of our screens,  under a moonlit sky... I wonder if the Internet has not become the human campfire. Sitting globally together, discussing our thoughts and feelings and sharing our dreams. This find pushes back the evidence for fire use by 300,000 years. Humans... the tool maker? Tools have been used even longer than fire. We know that tools are not unique to our genus, other animals such as chimpanzees fabricate and use tools. Stone tools were more of a sustaining innovation over wood and other organic materials, life as usual, just a bit easier. But one tool that caused a cascade of transformative changes was when fire became a our tool. The control and use of fire is perhaps our defining technology. Fire is an innovation that has been an important part of hominid life for a very long time. At the dawn of its use, it was a disruptive game changer in the "economy of nature". I have worked at some interesting, rather famous hominid sites (meaning...sweated, climbed up and down ravines, sweated, picked at dolomite harder than cement with a jackhammer all the way down to a tiny dental hook, obviously sweated, sifted and analysed dirt, sweated some more, excavated some more, yes sweated again and climbed up and down ravines.. all under the beautiful very hot sun, although some of our ancestors lived through very different climate there), in Southern France. Bau de l'Aubesier (with Dr. Serge Lebel), Les Eyzies de Tayac and Caune de l'arago, (Tautavel).  I had the great good fortune of working with Dr. Henry de Lumley excavating a Homo erectus site at Caune de l'arago in the Tautavel valley. I have seen the ancient traces of that game changing innovation, the control of fire. The species I have worked on ranged from Homo erectus, neanderthalensis to the more modern Cro-magnon. I have visited many more sites, including La Chapelle-aux-Saints, La Ferassie, Le Moustier, Lascaux and others. I will be blogging more about those in future posts. Today is all about the innovation not just of the use of tools (other animals have shown this ability), but of humankind's disruptive innovation of fire. There are no words to describe the feelings that pass through you when after... you've carefully brushed away the last layer of dust, then photographed, logged, numbered and cataloged, checked gps, measured co-ordinates and level of strata, applied preservatives (if needed), "gently" loosened from substrate... And then. then finally you are holding a fossil bone or stone tool in the palm of your hand. Last seen and held thousands and thousands of years ago. you are the first since. A sense of the profoundness of human history and a direct, tangible contact with your ancestors is, frankly, overwhelming. An experience that nears a Zen awakening.

MU Peter Shimon consulting  is based on Evolutionary Economics and I use Disruptive Digital Darwinism helping people and institutions to light their way  and hopefully disrupt the world  with innovation for the good. With my background in science and business I can't help but see things with the perspective and insight that working together those fields can bring.  Being a Zen mind, I can't help it if some of that gets in. Briefly what that means is that phenomena of the market are analysed through the lens of evolutionary biology.  Wikipedia definition:  "Evolutionary economics is part of mainstream economics as well as heterodox school of economic thought that is inspired by evolutionary biology. Much like mainstream economics, it stresses complex interdependencies, competition, growth, structural change, and resource constraints but differs in the approaches which are used to analyze these phenomena. Evolutionary economics deals with the study of processes that transform economy for firms, institutions, industries, employment, production, trade and growth within, through the actions of diverse agents from experience and interactions, using evolutionary methodology. Evolutionary economics analyses the unleashing of a process of technological and institutional innovation by generating and testing a diversity of ideas which discover and accumulate more survival value for the costs incurred than competing alternatives. The evidence suggests that it could be adaptive efficiency that defines economic efficiency. Mainstream economic reasoning begins with the postulates of scarcity and rational agents (that is, agents modeled as maximizing their individual welfare), with the "rational choice" for any agent being a straightforward exercise in mathematical optimization. There has been renewed interest in treating economic systems as evolutionary systems in the developing field of Complexity economics. Evolutionary economics does not take the characteristics of either the objects of choice or of the decision-maker as fixed. Rather its focus is on the non-equilibrium processes that transform the economy from within and their implications. The processes in turn emerge from actions of diverse agents with bounded rationality who may learn from experience and interactions and whose differences contribute to the change. The subject draws more recently on evolutionary game theory and on the evolutionary methodology of Charles Darwin and the non-equilibrium economics principle of circular and cumulative causation. It is naturalistic in purging earlier notions of economic change as teleological or necessarily improving the human condition." I will post more in the future about my excavations and thoughts on our evolutionary adventures, presenting them with a modern relevance to my current work. I am working on original videos...hopefully soon.

Cretaceous Meteor Showers, the Human Ecological "Niche," and the Sixth Extinction Excerpt from a presentation by Niles Eldredge,  AMNH "Two other points, before I get to my last characterization, which I hope will convince you that you can link humans up convincingly with the bolide impacts at the end of the Cretaceous: 1.65 million years is the onset of the first glaciation, and that's just about the date of at least the oldest-known specimens of Homo erectus, or the only ones now Ian Tattersall calls Homo ergaster. Larger-brained species, it's got a more sophisticated tool kit, and so forth. The significance here is -- well, and also they had fire. This is the last time, I think, you can point with confidence to a global climate, or any other kind of environmental event, and say: This had a direct effect on human evolution, whether it was an extinction event or an evolution event. Then,.9 million years ago, the onset of the second glacial: Humans, we now see, had gotten out of Africa, into Eurasia, prior to that, but not in any great numbers, apparently. At .9 million years ago, the onset of the second glacial, human beings actually left Africa and went north, and tools are all over the place. Presumably, they were hunting the megafauna that were there in abundance in Eurasia. I think, if these patterns hold up, and if I'm characterizing them correctly, that's dramatic and compelling evidence that we had expanded our niche. And I can't think of any other as dramatic example in the fossil record -- or any other source of data -- about niche expansion like that. And I think you have to think that it's culturally mediated." I will be commenting more on climate change in future posts.

"Human language originated in Africa, according to a newly completed University of Auckland study. The study results parallel and complement recent genetic and phenotype studies that support an African origin for Homo sapiens, or modern humans, strengthening the notion that the development of language was a key innovation that enabled modern humans to spread across the globe." Popular Archeology

Enjoy.

© 2012 MU-Peter Shimon