Mindfulness enthusiasts may reject the comparison of mindfulness with New Age movements. Perhaps this has to do in part to the common association of New Age with being light-weight and faddish, whereas mindfulness is deep and steeped in ancient wisdom.
In the last post, I provided a very general and rough definition of mindfulness as “a more or less cohesive set of propositions about what is and what matters, along with various practices associated with those propositions.”
Approaching the mindfulness movement as a form of discourse reflecting a broad array of influences (cultural, historical, ideological, religious) and employing various rhetorical strategies to boost its appeal is not to say that the insights or wisdom associated with mindfulness are without merit or foundation in reality. A lot of things constrain and influence how we see the world and how we see the world may still reflect, more or less accurately, what is the case.
It would seem that awareness is related to what psychologists call “metacognition”. Metacognition is not one thing. The metacognitive system is composed of distinct anatomical and functional parts. So metacognition encompasses a lot of different things, including declarative knowledge about oneself, as well as anticipatory and emergent self-awareness – meaning anticipating and monitoring one’s environment, responses and behavior as the world unfolds.
All hail the engineer’s approach to problem solving! Recognize a need...Define the problem, the objectives and the constraints...Collect information and data...Generate alternative solutions... Evaluate the consequence of different solutions...
“What is the core, immutable quality of science? It's not formal publication, it's not peer review, it's not properly citing sources. It's not "the scientific method" (whatever that means). It's not replicability. It's not even Popperian falsificationism... Underlying all those things is something more fundamental. Humility.”
The Copenhagen Consensus Center does research on the costs and benefits of various policy approaches to global problems and provides information on which policy targets will do the most social good relative to their costs – acknowledging that factors other than cost/benefit ratios are also important.
Move your right foot in a clockwise circle. Now move your right hand clockwise on the table at the same time your right foot is moving clockwise…. Pretty easy....
Acknowledging that ecosystems are in constant flux doesn’t mean all change is good. But it does change our conception of what’s at stake. It’s not about preserving a biological moment in a specific locale. It’s about saving species.
In “The Age of Wonder”, Richard Holmes writes that “the idea of the exploratory voyage, often lonely and perilous, is in one form or another a central and defining metaphor of Romantic science.”
The technocrat is often perceived as uninspired, narrow-minded, overly focused on details, a competent underling. The opposing construct is that of the visionary: charismatic, impassioned, focused on the Big Picture, confident of his vision, a leader.
When the parts of a system are constantly changing, at what point do you say that the system is no longer itself? That may be easy to answer when the system is a living organism, which is either alive or dead. But ecosystems aren’t single organisms, so the either/or approach doesn’t really apply.
The Electoral College system mitigates the excesses of majoritarian rule by giving less populated states a bit more influence in election outcomes. The Electoral College system forces candidates and presidents to attempt a transregional appeal because no single region of the country is sufficient to guarantee victory.
We all know who won in 2012. But did you know Obama actually won by the lowest number of counties in modern US history? Just 712 counties out of 3007 voted blue – that’s less than a quarter of all counties in the US.
“To do this may be to be a mere technocrat, rather than a complete human being concerned with the moral implications of what I say and the greatest good of society…” (Solomon M. Fulero and Lawrence S. Wrightsman-2008: Forensic Psychology)
“We’ve forever altered the Earth, and so now we cannot abandon it to a random fate. It is our duty to manage it.” - Emma Marris; Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World
There’s this cool measure called the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status. It was developed to capture self-perceived social status by means of a pictorial9-rung ladder. The Scale asks individuals to place an "X" on the rung on which they feel they stand.
I've been thinking about ocean acidification, the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans due to global warming. What to do? Last post considered the possibility of adding iron in the ocean to stimulate phytoplankton, which consume CO2 and ultimately reduce acidification. In theory. Risky. All sorts of unknown unknowns. Likely unintended consequences.
For the sake of argument, I'm reducing the value of social status to its effect on widening the "field of eligibles" - that is, increasing the quality and quantity of potential mates. When in mate-seeking mode, we look around to see who’s available and who we think we can attract. Social comparison is the game. Inequality of mating opportunities is built into this game.
Should every generation be “better off” than the previous generation? What does “better off” mean? Looking only at the middle class and above, I’m assuming recent generations have been able to meet their core needs (sufficient housing, nutrition, healthcare, and education), so what should the current middle class be getting to reflect that they’re doing better than their parents?