Speed 26 October 2016

Sometimes speed is all right and other times it can be harmful.

How can we detect harmful speed ?


We have speeded up in the last 100 years, because : we learn more,…our children will know more than we will ever know,…and of course the existing paradigm of “TIME IS MONEY” which directs us into sharp consumerism and competition. So the faster people work and do things, the more money they earn. That is a paradigm that may have had its days. Maybe we are lifting ourselves up to another paradigm that values and respects slowness instead.

Professional life is often hectic, fast and stressful. Modern cities, 
where everything goes so fast give an individual an enormous amount of visual input. Compared to some 100 years back brain cells have to digest much more information inputs addressing all our senses while walking down the street. Some seem to be able to cope with it while others seem to get an overload of information which is impossible or hard to absorb and results in physical reactions like pain, tension and stress. What are the consequences? 
Adaptation [Physiology. the decrease in response of sensory receptor organs, as those of vision, touch, temperature, olfaction, audition, and pain, to changed, constantly applied, environmental conditions.]! In other words: People get used to it…and then there is the question : What does that mean ? “getting used to it” ? Do we speed up our brain centres so that

information is absorbed faster ?
According to the 'physiology definition' of adaptation that is not the case; quite the opposite: ...its a decrease in response of sensory receptor organs... ( we become less sensitive ).

There are certainly different energy levels of adaotation in each and every one of us and we learn to adapt differently. Adapting to different speed : the speed of a rock concert and/or the speed of a baroque concert will happen to you automatically,…and you will walk away from it with an unpleasant feeling or a good feeling. And those feelings have for a good amount to do with the speed you had to deal with.

Similarly watching a great amount of TV

in which countless pictures come into our eyes, our brain has to deal with an overload of information and the speed of which various information comes in is very high. Filtering is the result…we just take up the information that seems to make sense. Some of it we do consciously but a lot of information comes in without our conscious choice. ‘If we do not learn to add any value at TV programmes and shows we become more ‘stupid’, because our own set of values and standards is being jeopardized.’

The amount of information we take in when travelling in a train (depending on the speed) changes our perception of, say, a tree. When walking past a tree we see very clear structures and colours,…of leaves and we here “pink sounds”plus we can smell it. In a train that sound is gone and the colours are different…but the quantities of trees and rocks and things we see are much higher than when in a slower moving vehicle. We are confronted with an overload of information that does not come to our conscious mind. Yet our brain has all the nerve cells activated by the visual input. What does our brain do with all the information which is taken in subconsciously ? And what are the consequences ? 

We live in a time of digital information overload and that is also speeding up thought- and brain activities. Yet, we can “unspeed” ourselves by exposing ourselves to less digital "overloadinformation".The next question would be : What is "overload" for any person? Where is the limit ?

 
When our thoughts are activated, our minds cannot stand still and nerve cells keep firing at each other. Eastern philosophy comes with remedies that might help: Happiness is when your mind is fully relaxed.

Then how do we get to that relaxed mind ?…”unspeeding” is definitely a good start. We can try meditation, slow food, slow talk, slow think and much more
OR we can start with no laptop or professional phone in your private homes. 

Cyclic development, 17th May 2016

Sabrina, Frederik, Colin and Ambar were present on the 17^th May to discuss the topic :

Association round :

Colin had to think of a football match that has a definite end and beginning, so that was an example for a linear action but he also talked about the emotion that goes with it. Where did it end and where did it start for the football match ? Colin also referred to the cycle of grief in which he sees a timeless cycle: –denial, - anger, - arguing, - depression, acceptance. Colin tells us that the cyclic nature of our environment leaves an impression on our genes and its inherent cyclic system. 

He also refers to the mentioned wave in the discussion and analyses it as a curve along a line….so he asks himself what would happen if we took out linearity. At the same time he is also convinced that linear things are more stressful.

Energy 19 th April 2016

Intro:

The energy that keeps the cosmos moving manifests itself in ever changing patterns: energy becomes matter, matter becomes energy; this happens in such a complex way that our eyes cannot see or isolate this ongoing stream of change. All matter comes into existence out of what was before.

So what does cause and effect mean concerning energy ?

Is there a way to become the observer of this ongoing transformation of energy ?

What does speed have to do with humans dealing with energy ?

What is behind this mystery ? 

Energy keeps the cosmos moving. Ambar thinks that from an individual stand point of view energy gives you the capacity to do things…behind which we have the question : “Do I have the energy to do this ? “ Whilst at the same time energy from a physical law description always goes to the lowest state of energy. He transfers this thought to politics and brings an example: “Big governments with too much regulations break up, become smaller and people resort to lower systems.”

Hugo on the other hand starts out with natural physical laws and obviously refers to the sun as the one and only energy for our planet Earth without which (1 h would be enough) everything on this planet would vanish. So yes, E=mc2 and yes there is a personal touch to it as well. Hugo says that food is energy source number…

Ambar and Hugo have a double facetted look on the topic, which is big and small, sun and individual, physical law and political/social systems.

Another interesting thought comes in when Hugo says that energy is not lost. At the same time he wonders where the energy of the sun goes that does not reach our planet. He comes with another example : “Is the light from a light bulb wasted because we do not benefit from its warmth in one way or the other ?”

When Ambar refers to the parallel of how nature works and how we work we get to a deeper level, also more individual. Our senses – originating from that same physical energy flow – can forecast weather situations precisely if we are trained or educated to do so. It depends on how sharp and how well we pay attention to the process.

Cause and effect : According to Hugo energy is an ongoing process, which entails that there is complexity in simplicity. Ambar thinks that there is complexity in energy and form whether they are changing or static.

Then Hugo tells us the Sufi story of  a boy who got a horse. It was a little village and he was happy to ride the horse. Then one day he fell off the horse and broke his leg so his father and the whole village thought it was so unfortunate but when the soldiers came to that same village to take all the young men to war except the boy his father was happy…and so was the boy…etc. cause and effect…

Cosmos & Earth 13th April 2016

Intro: The etymological source tells us that cosmos goes back to order, right order, gracefulness, jewels and even the plant cosmos that grows in clean air. It also goes back to world order or order in a particular state. In antique history one of the first ones to use this word and describe reality with it was Pythagoras who was obsessed with numbers, saw this order of numbers in everything,…the harmony of the spheres and also the harmony in other relations. The earth was something they were discovering and starting to understand in numbers and other comparisons. The cosmos

JOY of LIFE, 30th March 2016

Intro : The two contradicting philosophies

…”there is a deep feeling of joy of life we get when dancing, drinking or making love,…that’s the blood knowledge of Dionysus”
- D.H. Lawrence about Dionysus

Dionysus  (Greek god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy) believed in the power of intuition and reaching out for our state of unconsciousness. He believed that the act of giving into our temptations brought us closer to our real selves and that is the real secret to achieving joy in living.

Socrates, on the other hand, was convinced that moderation, rationality and self-awareness through self-discipline was the way to go.

                                     

First associations from guests

It was clear early on that we wouldn’t end with a unanimous definition that suited all our assumptions, thoughts and beliefs about JOY of LIFE. We broadened the topic by listening to various examples. There were bright insights into what joy of life is, how to get it, keep it and whether it is even necessary to have!

A..: The pursuit of happiness has become an obsession.  I think that we all create

Balance, 22nd March 2016

What's the origin of the word ? Balance in its lat. origin is spelt bilanx  and bi means two whereas lanx is a scale. The starting point is thus a material good that is weighed and compared…

Question : For what purpose do those goods need to be equal…and what kind of ingredients do we put into the scales ???

Artificial Intelligence. Philosophy and machines, 28 Okt 2015

Present: Ambika, Eric, Fredrik, Mark, Petri, Trevor, Yvonne

To begin with we all wanted to define intelligence. Intelligent comes from rational,…the lat. word intellegere means to perceive, comprehend,…from inter (between) and legere (choose or read) actually : reading between the lines or picture…There are different kinds of intelligence : and we are moving towards ever new definitions of intelligence. (rational, spacial, language-wise, emotional, cognitive, physical…etc). In an artificial system, intelligence is defined as simply: the ability to adapt… or connecting ideas…The result of the judgement