Pride in your place of birth.....

Something that I have been thinking about a lot of late is my sense of place. For many years I felt that at best I could say I was an occupant of planet Earth, but that was about it. I felt rootless and adrift, not in any negative way particularly, but simply that nowhere really felt any more special than anywhere else, but that changed about six months ago, and I wanted to share the experience as I feel that it made a positive impact in my life. I was asked, as a leading member of my spiritual community, to contribute to a multi-faith sonic art installation being created by South African artist James Webb, and as part of that process I was recorded carrying out an Earth healing ritual invoking ancestral spirits and deities and giving something of my spirit back to the planet.

In doing this I had a flash of inspiration as I started the ritual. I never prepare for these types of things other than a self cleansing procedure and getting myself into the correct mental state as I have been carrying out rituals of one sort or another for a number of years and have a fairly well defined procedure that I follow. I began the ritual as I usually do, but having invoked the spirits of my personal deities the inspiration was that I should invoke the memories of the pioneering industrialists who founded the city of my birth. I don't know why this felt appropriate, but as I worked through it I felt increasingly connected to the land around me, the space that I occupied and my place within it. After the recording, I walked home and as I did so the feeling of connectedness to my surroundings continued to grow.

I will confess to being a bit of a history bore, and I know a little about the heritage of my home town, the key people in the building of it, the development of it over time. I'm from Birmingham in the United Kingdom and it is, by UK standards a fairly modern city having developed predominantly during the early years of the industrial revolution. Most of the key players within the area are industrialists and, as was common at the time, philanthropists. You can find out more about some of them here but in the main they were a force for good within the region. So, there I am walking along feeling more and more a part of my home towns history and I was walking through a part of the city called Digbeth, past the site of the former Birds Custard factory, an old industrial zone close to the city centre, and I began to think about the city as it currently is, and the wealth of talent and industry that we still have, even when the industrial base in the UK is in steep decline. I thought of the technical innovations that have allowed Birmingham companies to remain successful and to grow and maintain the wealth of the city and I had a moment of quiet pride. The first time that this has happened for me, which is a very pleasant experience. When I think of companies like Stephens Plastic Mouldings I think of quality and innovation and the commercial drive that made my city the great city that it is today.....

Can beauty be taught?

Following on from yesterdays post on beauty, there is a obvious continuation. There is a saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if this is the case, how does it tie in with the current research into perception suggesting that the way we see things is conditional on the way in which our brains are wired, which in turn is conditional on our upbringing and experiences and a whole range of environmental factors. If the ability to perceive something as beautiful is dependent on an individuals ability to understand the concept of beauty in terms of an aesthetic ideal, then it would make sense that it was something that was learned rather than being inherent. However, if we consider Chomsky and his theory of an inherent, universal language ability that is unique to homo sapiens, then could it not be argued that the understanding of beauty could be an inherent cognitive function as wekll. It would certainly seem to make sense that a perception of beauty linked to, lets say, food stuffs that are good for us, or sexual partners who will provide a good chance of genetically vibrant and resiliant offspring.

So, we find ourselves with two disparate arguments with strong contentions on each side. I strongly suspect that what we consider to be the ability to teach what is beauty is actually an ability to teach concepts of aesthetic principle, or concepts of "right and wrong" from a perspective of social convention rather than something as discrete and concrete as fundamental beauty. If we consider the concept of beauty in architecture we see relatively rapidly changing aesthetic tastes in terms of form and changes of stylistic conceptions of function, but if we go beyond this I would suggest that there is at least an element of convention in regard to beauty found throughout the great architectural styles from the Parthenon and Colliseums of Rome and Greece to modern skyscrapers and shopping malls.

The principle is also found in nature, and is sometimes refered to as the "Golden Ratio" or a Fibonachi sequence of numbers. The principle has been at times erroneously employed in a far wider context than is appropriate to attempt to quantify human physiological beauty, which doesn't really work. However it does raise an interesting point. Perhaps it would be better to try to argue for the idea of an ability to teach beauty in terms of purity of concept, whether by an abstract mathematical theorum, or a great work of art, or an architectural masterpiece. Let me know what you think?

What is beauty.....

Back in the distant days of my first spell of University life a friend of mine doing a fine art degree was forced to take a first year additional course in philosophy. This was long enough ago that it was considered important for first years on a very specific degree to keep their options open at least for a while, but what was interesting was that this friend of mine, who was a reasonably bright lad, was able to cope with the whole course but was stumped by one question, the title of this blog...."What is beauty?" You would think that as an artist himself he would have had an insight into what beauty was. as an artist he was tremendously visually aware, and had a strong aesthetic sense but neither of these seemed to help with this question.

I have some pretty clear ideas on beauty, but I'm not sure if my answers would make sense from a philosophical viewpoint. I am very much of the opinion that form should follow function and that beauty is found in a cleanliness and simplicity of the conveying of an idea or concept. Whether that be fine art from the great masters, or industrial design of an interesting product, or a well designed web site but I'm not sure that this is what the question from a philosophical viewpoint is trying to establish. If we consider the question itself, are we looking for an insight into what philosophers consider "Truth"? If so, does a definition move us any closer to that aim? My idea of conflation of form and function works in the sense of defining an aspect of beauty that works for me but it doesn't cover the way beauty makes me feel.

True beauty causes a vast array of emotional and physiological responses that can transport ones mind to an altered state of conciousness and I'm not sure that my simplistic definition does this justice. I guess it is up to you, dear reader, to do better....

A controversial idea of Darwinism.....

Caution, opinion piece, but hey, thats kinda the point of having a blog in the first place....

First a clarification, I am certainly not a proponent of creationism or even intelligent design, I am firmly on-side with evolution and evolutionary principles, and am happy with large portions of Darwinian theory, to a point, that point being the limitations of the scientific developments and advances that were available to him so I have no issues with the lack of understanding on the mechanisms of evolutionary theory that have been developed subsequently. My contention is with regard to the tree of life proposed by Darwin with an ever expanding branching structure as species change and evolve over time, some branches terminating and dying out, other forking and splitting into different groups and, over time, species. I have an alternative proposition, that the tree of life as described by Darwin is fundamentally wrong in the it is upside down.

This may sound a little odd, but I am convinced that early life on this planet began in a vast number of forms making use of a huge number of different ecological niches. The mechanism of the formation of life is not understood, but in general it is considered that life began in single celled form and remained at that stage for several million years. The Darwinian implication is that this single celled life was of a very limited number of types, but this doesn't make sense to me. The early earth as we understand it was full of small highly variable ecosystems, that tended not to be interlinked so it seems far more likely that life would have developed many times in many different niches giving rise to organisms suited to very different environments. I contend that from this widely varigated start point a much broader range of multicellular organisms arose, and that evolution, rather than being a method of changing species to suit an environment, is in fact a process of refining what works, weeding out the least suitable at each stage and slightly modifying the most successful, typically those who are most heterozygous, therefore the most likely to adapt over time through mutation, the counter position being homozygous being far less prone to genetic variation through interbreeding.

As evidence for this conjecture I look to the history that we have so far discovered for mass extinction events, particularly the "Great dying" during the Permian era when it is estimated that 97% of species were eradicated both on land and in the oceans. It is an interesting idea I feel, and as with so many aspects of the ancient history of life on this planet, one which we have limited evidence for either way, but there is still hope of further evidence being discovered.

Thoughts on the death of Amy Winehouse.....

It is always a tragedy when someone dies so young. There has already been a lot of talk about lifestyle and about Ms Winehouse' excess' with drugs and alcohol, and the irony of her breakthrough single being "Rehab". Her parents have been interviewed stressing the efforts that they made to help her, her friends have said the same, and it is unquestionable that every effort was made to prevent this death. Trouble is, it is pretty much impossible without resorting to complete physical restraint, to prevent someone with a self destructive bent from acting on that impulse. This is seen most clearly in people suffering with alcoholism. When in the grip of a deep seated addiction, there is no way to persuade the person to get help until they are ready to receive that help, a position generally referred to as "rock bottom". Having spent time around people with severe alcohol problems I can confirm that rock bottom is a pretty low place, and for many people is synonymous with the line between life and death.

When you add in complicating factors such as illegal drugs, partcularly crack cocaine and heroin the situation only becomes more dangerous. The ease with which a heroin user can overdose is incredible, but it happens all the time. I have no doubt that there will be much hand wringing about the perils of someone so young and vulnerable being exposed to such a lifestyle whilst having the money to indulge it, and calls for knee jerk responses that serve no purpose. Legislation is not the answer. Drugs have been legislated against for long enough to know that it is no real solution. There will always be ways around any legal prohibition. The answer is education, understanding and awareness. People take drugs, they get drunk, they smoke, and they do these things for a variety of reasons, boredom, curiosity, for excitement, for self destructive reasons, and perhaps the one that gets the least amount of coverage, the elephant in the room, because taking drugs can make you feel good. It can be an uplifting and rewarding experience that more than makes up for the negative consequences for many people.

There is a history within the music industry of excess and early death. Throughout the '60's and '70's we lost a tremendous amount of talent early. One only has to think of Hendrix, Bonham and the rest to know that the ethos of life fast, die young was, and still is an integral part of the rock and roll lifestyle. Personally I see no benefit in placing blame for the death of Ms. Winehouse. I don't buy into the idea that it is the fault of the media, or her management, or the industry she was in. We are all, as individuals, responsible for our own actions, and must all, as individuals, accept the consequences of our actions. I shall be thinking of her family and their grief, and wishing her spirit safe journey onwards whatever its destination, but I shall not be thinking about who is to blame, or bemoaning the society that has allowed this to happen. I shall accept the loss and move on.....it is the only way......

Preparation is everything.....

I spent the weekend working with a good friend of mine, helping her to prepare for an interview. As part of the interview process for a graduate trainee role she had to give a three minute presentation on why she would be suitable for the role. We worked together to write the presentation, rehearsed it, timed it, re-wrote, re-timed and over 4 days maintained that practice until we were happy with it. She agve the presentation to the interview panel, on a buzzer timer and ended the presentation with "Thank you for listening, the buzzer will sound in three, two, one.....BUZZ". The audience apparently loved it, collapsing in gales of laughter, commenting that she had obviously been practicing. In fact they loved it so much that they offered her the job within 24 hours and even changed their plans of wanting someone to start immediately to allow her time to hand in her notice and take a holiday.

I like this because it highlights one of the crucial aspects of business that is often overlooked. There is a terribly trite saying, "Fail to prepare, prepare to fail" but as with many trite saying there is some truth in it. Being prepared, knowing what is expected of you and how to deal with it, understanding the situation and the implications of each action or in-action, being clear about your goals and objectives and so on all put you in a stronger position with a better chance of success. There is no such thing as being over-prepared, although as a small caveat, there is such as thing as being over-confident, being cocky and obnoxious. Confidence through preparedness is a positive thing but it must be tempered with humility and a quiet self-assurance.

get it right, and it can be a wonderful thing.....

So farewell then Atlantis.....

After 30 years of service to the American space program and to the International space exploration effort, today sees the final touchdown of the final shuttle in Service. There can be no doubt that the Space Shuttle programme has been a triumph of mans ingenuity and our commitment to progress. There have been errors along the way, as there will always be at the cutting edge of technology, but in terms of providing a low earth orbit delivery system for satellites, people and components for the International Space Station it has achieved. Without the shuttle there would have been no way to get astronauts to the Hubble space telescope to effect the necessary repairs that have kept Hubble working and making new discoveries about the Universe. Without the shuttle, the ISS would not have been built. Sure we can launch satellites into orbit using unmanned rockets favoured by European and Chinese space agencies, and the Russians are still running manned missions to the ISS but there really is nothing to match the shuttle in terms of flexibility and operational efficiency.

The end of the shuttle programme is being blamed on budget cuts, and yes, that is, in large part, the reason for todays final mission and the end of an era, but in reality the shuttle is a 30 year old programme and is due for retirement anyway. Personally, I shall be celebrating this last safe landing. However, what I am not celebrating is that we currently have nothing to replace it. It appears that we are moving into an era where there will be increasing reliance on private companies to provide space services, following the success of the X prize and the late Burt Rutans company Scaled Composites, and that is all well and good, but I do feel that NASA have let themselves down somewhat. I can't get away from the feeling that if NASA had been a little more aggressive in terms of developing the successor to the shuttle programme at an earlier stage and come up with something truly spectacular, and ideally something that was properly reusable, the funding would have been found to replace rather than remove manned space flight.

It would be wonderful to think that America can rediscover their way in terms of extra-terrestrial exploration, they seem a little lost currently, but without real direction and leadership from the very top, this is unlikely. Personally I dont class planing to land on an asteroid by 2015 and Mars by 2025 to be anything like ambitious enough to provide the drive that is needed, but we shall see.