conferencereportMy Mum died at 3 pm on Wednesday. Thanks to all of you for your prayers and thoughts.
Her passing was probably as good as you can get with those things; she was in no pain and didn't seem to be experiencing any fear. She's been losing her cognitive faculties slowly for years but this process escalated in the last 6 months, she hasn't recognised anyone since around Christmas and she last spoke on Mother's Day, when she said 'Lovely flowers'. Thankfully she seemed to lose her faculties in an order which kind of made sense (if that doesn't sound like a callous thing to say). Her attachment to the material circumstances of her life went quite early, she didn't seem to know or care where she was. Her memory pretty much all went some time ago but not in a way that troubled her; the fact that she couldn't remember who these people were who visited her didn't seem to matter, she just seemed pleased that they/we were there. The last couple of weeks before she died she was barely responsive at all but her eyes were still lively, wide open and taking in the world, and she was smiling all that time. I might be kidding myself but I'm imagining her entering some kind of beatific state like you read about in Buddhist philosophy. My sister and I sat with her for the last 48 hours. Her eyes were still open but misted over, and whilst she made some movements, putting her hand to her face, pulling at the bedsheet, I'm pretty sure these were undirected. At the end Susie and I held her while her breathing became shallower and shallower and then stopped altogether. It's funny but we stayed like that for quite a while, and even after the nurse had been we carried on talking to her for about an hour afterwards. Not about anything important, just trivia really. Bye Mum. Love you.
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Vigilconferencereport2014-04-19 | My Mum died at 3 pm on Wednesday. Thanks to all of you for your prayers and thoughts.
Her passing was probably as good as you can get with those things; she was in no pain and didn't seem to be experiencing any fear. She's been losing her cognitive faculties slowly for years but this process escalated in the last 6 months, she hasn't recognised anyone since around Christmas and she last spoke on Mother's Day, when she said 'Lovely flowers'. Thankfully she seemed to lose her faculties in an order which kind of made sense (if that doesn't sound like a callous thing to say). Her attachment to the material circumstances of her life went quite early, she didn't seem to know or care where she was. Her memory pretty much all went some time ago but not in a way that troubled her; the fact that she couldn't remember who these people were who visited her didn't seem to matter, she just seemed pleased that they/we were there. The last couple of weeks before she died she was barely responsive at all but her eyes were still lively, wide open and taking in the world, and she was smiling all that time. I might be kidding myself but I'm imagining her entering some kind of beatific state like you read about in Buddhist philosophy. My sister and I sat with her for the last 48 hours. Her eyes were still open but misted over, and whilst she made some movements, putting her hand to her face, pulling at the bedsheet, I'm pretty sure these were undirected. At the end Susie and I held her while her breathing became shallower and shallower and then stopped altogether. It's funny but we stayed like that for quite a while, and even after the nurse had been we carried on talking to her for about an hour afterwards. Not about anything important, just trivia really. Bye Mum. Love you.
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0DEBATE - Conservatism is the New Punkconferencereport2017-11-27 | Debate between Chrisiousity and Philip Moriarty on the proposition 'Conservatism is the New Punk'. Moriarty to take the Affirmative, Chrisiousity the Negative.
Debate page on the Ka Paio blog - kapaio.wordpress.com/2017/09/20/jordan-peterson-tells-the-truthDebate!conferencereport2017-09-20 | Debate between myself and Prof. Philip Moriarty will be hosted on a channel I have created for the purpose. Proposition is 'Jordan Peterson speaks the Truth'. I will be arguing for the Affirmative, Philip will be taking the Negative position. Enjoy!
Also blog: http://kapaio.wordpress.comWhat is Truth? - Sam Harris and Jordan Petersonconferencereport2017-09-09 | An introduction to a short series of videos I want to make unpacking the conversation between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson on the nature of 'truth'. The confusions seemed to emerge from the fact that each was working with a very different epistemology, and held that the epistemology held by the other was inadequate or just plain wrong.
I think the discussion by Marina, and others of her generation, about identity is really great. However, it may be that the focus on sexual attraction and sexual behaviour as indicators of that identity is a little over-stated, probably because of the age of those who tend to talk about these things.
As a 60 year old man I know that my identity is defined less by the particuliities of who I might be sexually attracted to, or by what kind of gender performance I might want to engage in, but by the state of my body. A body which is undergoing the inevitable processes of ageing and failure.
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Italo Calvino - 'Exactitude' from 'Six Memos for the Next Millennium' goo.gl/8v7v1p
Eugene Gendlin on Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Gendlin (Gendlin's comments on vague hand-waving in poetic creation is in his 'Experience and the Creation of Meaning: a Philosophical and Psychological Approach to the Subjective' (1962).
Measuring Information Integration in Social Networks - file:///Users/admin/Documents/Research/Measuring_information_integration_in_Social_Networ.pdf (Note: the network discussed in this paper is fixed therefore, whilst it exhibits integration it does not allow for adaptations which will increase complexity and make for more integration, what I refer to as 'intelligence')
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creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5Trigger Warnings vs. Flagging Upconferencereport2017-01-15 | Giving students advanced notice of 'troublesome' educational content isn't about protecting the delicate sensibilities of those too weak to confront that material. It's done in the interests of good pedagogy.
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creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5Theory Theoryconferencereport2016-12-22 | Preamble about walk n talk videos followed by some initial thoughts on the notion of 'theory'. The term has application outside of the 'hard' sciences, as well as misapplication in version circles, particularly in relation to providing an 'explanatory framework'.
I was aiming for irony in this video (lauding the virtues of citizenship whilst simultaneously making damaging accusations of other citizens). Unfortunately I missed the mark by about a light year. Sorry guys, I didn't mean no offence.
(Hugs)
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I don't want to romanticise the past but am I wrong in thinking that it's easier to find out about people now than it used to be? Wasn't there a time when, if I wanted to know your taste in music, your relationship status, your employment history, I would have to wait until you told me? And if I couldn't wait and I needed that information right now, without the inconvenience of getting into some kind of relationship with you, then I'd have to hire a private detective, and that would be weird, right? Finding out about you, and letting you find out about me, used to be part of the establishing of a friendship. Or if not a friendship then maybe a business relationship. Or at least a foundation for tolerant coexistence. Remember that? These details I told you about myself, and those things you said to me, were the contributions we brought to the potlatch and we both benefitted from this reciprocal sharing. This is called 'disclosure', and I'm not talking about the Michael Douglas/ Demi Moore film. Getting to know someone and building a relationship of trust with that person depends on reciprocal disclosure (and there was little trust between Michael and Demi). We open ourselves up secure in the knowledge that this person will never take these disclosures and turn them into ammunition. Better together because we haven't walled each other apart. We trust one another a bit more, not just because we have let one another into our lives but also because we may have revealed things about ourselves which could potentially be used to harm us, if they fell into the wrong hands. Not that your hands are wrong of course. Your hands are perfect. Gimme your hands. Well we're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy and I don't have to wait until you think the time is right to get to know you better. Your intimate details are just a Google search away. Of course, I'd have to have somewhere to start that search; you'd have to give me a name, maybe a location or the name of the school you attended or your place of work. Or you'd have to show me what you look like, maybe in an avatar or on your profile page. You might have to give me a link to your blog, your twitter feed, your Facebook profile, something like that. I wouldn't need much but if you give me something, anything, I can find out everything about you, and vice versa. Does that make me a stalker? Am I spending my evenings prying into your private life trying to dig up the dirt? Am I tracking all known associates and modelling behaviour patterns? Hell no, I'm just not turning away from the information that's already out there on you, and on all of us. How's the family? Did your father get over that thing with his heart? How about your brother, is he still out of work? Your daughter is growing up fast. So how do you and I establish trust in this network, where your details and mine can longer function as the tokens we trade to mark our commitment? I have nothing special to share with you about myself that you can't get easier and cheaper elsewhere. When information about one another is free the value of disclosure goes through the floor. I can't offer you anything special. I can't open myself up and be vulnerable just for you. All the ammunition anyone needs is just lying there. People say that 'information wants to be free', and maybe they're right. They say that 'free speech' is indivisible and an open society is a good society. These things might be true as well. It seems to me though that openness and freedom only become valuable when they are accompanied by respect for boundaries and acceptance of difference. Trust networks cannot develop amongst people who are only too happy to pick up that ammunition, or even amongst those for whom it is a last resort (because we all know that last resorts are always resorted too). They require a collective discipline, an ethic, that recognises that my freedom to throw your information around begins and ends at the point of your willingness to say it's ok for me to do so. I know everything about you but I will never ever mention it, not even to you.
When discussions or debates are held on YouTube, either asynchronously via call and response or 'live' through Skype or Google Hangout, this interaction can proceed according to one of a number of different structuring principles. One of the most common of these follows the logic of a metaphor in which debate is understood as a kind of 'warfare'. Participants in debates of this nature will talk of 'destroying' the opposition, of 'attacking' their position, of identifying and exploiting their 'weaknesses', and of 'putting up a defence'. The ultimate aim of each side in debates of this kind is for one's own ideas and opinions to emerge victorious and those of the opponent reduced to rubble. When all participants in an interaction understand the rules of engagement, and more importantly all frame the interaction in the same way, using the 'warfare' metaphor, then the results can be entertaining and instructive. What wins the day is usually sheer force of rhetoric; the blunt objection, the sharp riposte, and after they have done their work and the inconvenient opposition has been swept away the ideas left standing can often be seen at their most clear. The disadvantages of the warfare metaphor as an organising framework for engaging in discussion are multiple. Firstly it negates any possibility of synthesis. There is no sense that listening carefully to the opposition and trying to accommodate their ideas might be a good thing to do. Any possible benefit that might be gained from these competing forces coming together to pool their knowledge is lost. Any effort by either side to suggest they join forces and attempt to build an order of understanding that transcends petty differences is seen as surrender, appeasement and treachery . The warfare metaphor forces participants to resist showing weakness; all the points one makes must be claimed as strongly supported and there must be no admission of gaps in the defence of those points. No one says "I don't know". Bluster and false displays of confidence are common. Furthermore, participants might also be tempted to adopt the philosophy that "all's fair in love and war", which can lead them, can lead us, to think it fair to use any ammunition we can lay hands on against our opponent. When winning is what matters we fight with whatever is available. There is no Geneva Convention here. A simple Google search reveals that our enemy in this war of words has a vulnerability that might be exploited; they once suffered from a mental illness, as a youth they used to hot-wire cars and go joy-riding, they once lied about their age. Loading our arguments with these weapons of reputation destruction is one way of making sure the odds are ever in our favour. Some who engage in discussion refuse the warfare metaphor however, or simply frame the encounter using different means. Watch a number of such dialogues and it is clear that some participants have come together to converse with others not to assert the superiority of their own position over that held by the person they are speaking with but to advance a set of ideas through collaboration and mutual critique. Rather than being structured around the logic of the battlefield they are more likely to resemble the raising of a barn, or the stepping together of a dance, or the running of a relay. To say "I don't know" in such encounters is not a sign of weakness but the drawing of attention to a space in the conversation that the participants might enter together, to gain better understanding through mutual occupation of that unknown. Taking on the viewpoint of the other is expected, not an entrenchment in one's own position to the exclusion of all others. The purpose of the conversation is the joint construction of an edifice of knowledge which can contain more than either participant is capable of on their own. Ammunition is unnecessary. What's needed are tools. Such encounters have less drama, less cheering from the side-lines for one or other participant, less comfortably unequivocal results. No-one will type 'pwned' in the comment section and there will be no cheerleaders waiting to congratulate both sides for confirming whatever biases they already hold and which they feel have been confirmed. They do however have the distinct advantage of being more likely to proceed an argument toward a more sophisticated resolution. Or as Kyle might put it, 'I learned something today'.
I know this isn't any kind of legitimate interpretation, but what the heck, I like it.Richard Coughlan is a Massive Failureconferencereport2014-03-26 | *The 5 Cardinal Rule of YouTube Success*
(with extra added dog fight)
1. Don't talk to people with fewer subscribers than yourself 2. Always refer to your subscribers as 'fans' 3. Turn yourself into a precious commodity by restricting access 4. Don't show any signs of weakness 5. Control the conversation
This video is shared under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0Is Religion Better than True?conferencereport2014-03-01 | Why do some religious folk insist on their beliefs being true when there's a much bigger prize up for grabs?
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Something I should have mentioned, but didn't, is the proposed relationship between neuronal pathways and the electromagnetic field that is generated around them (the so-called 'cemi' field). For info on this see - http://www.surrey.ac.uk/qe/pdfs/cemi_theory_paper.pdf
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