I agree Gary. But to my way of thinking, including the non physical
aspects in the account is the simplest and thus may be the best
heuristically.
> and
> > more urgently;
> > I have a sense of "Rome burning,
> > while cyberneticists & systems thinkers fiddle
> > with notions which are unlikely(?) to yield any real leverage
> > to help us steer or halt the techno-pollutive firestorm on planet Earth.
> > Eh?
I agree that we must understand the physical systems aspects of the
"techno-pollutive firestorm" as an essential ingredient of guarding the
long term future well being of planet earth. And I also agree that this
work can probably be accomplished without the non physical notions we
are working on.
My concern centers around why we humans seem prone to create these
synthetic bust time situations in the first place. This is not new.
Our forebears had this bad habit of ruining their food supplies and
habitat long before civilization. So my question is what can we do to
keep from killing each other and turning our beautiful blue planet into
a junk yard?
This involves more that just understanding the chemical and biological
aspects of our environment and ecosystems. In my opinion, we must also
have a much better understanding of the beast behind these self
destructive acts. To me this means understanding what I refer to as
human understanding.
I am convinced that until we have a much better understanding of our
selves, we will just be applying band aids to the symptoms of our
destructive actions. More important, I am also convinced that we cannot
understand ourselves without dealing with the non physical aspects of
our human understanding.
This is why all the talk about experience, awareness, consciousness,
values, memes, instincts, evolution, data, life systems and brain
processing etc. is so crucial. We are trying to learn how to understand
our selves and our social, cultural, political and economic systems
better.
I, for one, think we are beginning to understand our understanding much
better. And with this understanding, we will gain a much better
understanding of our selves, each other and our surroundings. To me,
this is the best and fastest way to deal effectively with the
"techno-pollutive firestorm" we all ought to be worried about.
Norm McPhail