[pcp-discuss:] New subscriber: Robert Pollard

From: Cliff Joslyn (joslyn@lanl.gov)
Date: Fri Oct 20 2000 - 00:07:06 BST

  • Next message: Cliff Joslyn: "[pcp-discuss:] New member: Alberto Cid"

    >X-Sender: fheyligh@pop.vub.ac.be
    >Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 15:40:09 +0200
    >To: gbrain@listserv.vub.ac.be (Global Brain Discussion)
    >From: robert pollard <ecology2001@mindspring.com> (by way of Francis
    > Heylighen)
    >Subject: New subscriber: Robert Pollard
    >Sender: owner-gbrain@listserv.vub.ac.be
    >Reply-To: gbrain@listserv.vub.ac.be
    >
    >
    >* Name:
    >
    >Robert Pollard
    >
    >* Email address:
    >
    >ecology2001@mindspring.com
    >
    >* URL of your home page:
    >
    >http://www.igc.org/habitat
    >
    >* Postal address:
    >
    >26 Bushwick Avenue, 2-F
    >Brooklyn, NY 11211
    >U.S.A.
    >
    >* Affiliations:
    >
    >Founder & Information Ecologist, Information Habitat: Where Information Lives
    >Visiting Scholar, Development Planning Unit, University College London
    >
    >Many additional leadership positions in NGO (non-governmental organization)
    >Networks and Committees on issues of sustainabilty, Justice and peace.
    >(see http://robert-pollard.net/positions for details)
    >
    >* How did you hear about the Global Brain group?
    >
    >A guest on Gary Null's radio program on WBAI, New York, mentioned the Global
    >Brain Study Group, and I found the group on the Web via the Altavista
    >search engine.
    >
    >* Please take at least one screen to describe your interest and ideas with
    >respect
    >to the concept of a Global Brain or social super-organism. If you have written
    >documents about these subjects, please include the references (URL or
    >bibliographical):
    >
    >For the past 11 years, my primary focus has been on the systematic
    >application of
    >information and communications technology in support of broad-based
    >participation
    >by NGOs in the recent series of United Nations global conferences, from
    >the 1992
    >Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to the 1996 Habitat II conference in Istanbul
    >from a holistic perspective guided, inter alia, by the Taoist, Quaker and
    >Pythagorean traditions, and by my academic training in Mathematics and
    >Economics
    >at Cambridge and in Sociology at The Johns Hopkins University.
    >
    >I am the Founder, Information Ecologist and UN Representative of
    >Information Habitat:
    >Where Information Lives, an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the UN
    >Economic
    >and Social Council - http://www.igc.org/habitat - and have been developing and
    >practicing the emerging discipline of Information Ecology - predicated on the
    >recognition of information and information systems as life forms.
    >
    >A major current focus - and a centrepiece of my application for a 2001
    >Guggenheim
    >Fellowship - http://robert-pollard.net/guggenheim - is a proof of what I have
    >been calling the Gaia Mind hypothesis - that the Internet is evolving as a
    >super-intelligent global brain and home of Gaia Mind, with the capacity to
    >enable a profound transition to sustainability justice and peace.
    >
    >The establishment of Information Ecology as a holistic life science - and
    >as an
    >operating system for sustainability, justice and peace - has been central
    >to my
    >development of the Gaia Mind hypothesis, and inter alia, it incorporates a
    >General Framework for a Knowledge Economy and Society, that is a critical
    >enabling mechanism for transition to a sustainable economic system,
    >principally
    >via the mechanism of full-cost accounting and full-cost markets. Information
    >Ecology is based on an appreciation of fundamental properties of information
    >and networks that are radically different from properties of the material
    >world.
    >
    >The framework for a global brain, and for an operating system for
    >sustainability
    >justice and peace incorporates methodologies that I have been developing
    >in the
    >course of my work supporting NGO participation and access to information
    >at the
    >United Nations that are designed to evolve into a set of protocols for
    >access to information, public participation in decision making, and access to
    >justice, and intended to serve as a set of voluntary protocols for the Aarhus
    >Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation In Decision Making,
    >and Access to Justice.
    >
    >While I have not published much of my approach to the Gaia Mind hypothesis,
    >I have a number of brief concept papers on various elements of Information
    >Ecology - mostly under the heading of "List-related files and webpages" at
    >http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/dpu-pip and a brief introduction to the
    >Gaia Mind hypothesis at http://gaia-university.net
    >
    >I look forward to the opportunity to participate in the work of the Global
    >Brain Study Group.
    >
    >In peace
    >
    >Robert Pollard
    >Information Ecologist
    >Information Habitat: Where Information Lives
    ><ecology2001@mindspring.com>

    ----
    O------------------------------------------------------------------------>
    | Cliff Joslyn, Member of the Technical Staff (Cybernetician at Large)
    | Distributed Knowledge Systems and Modeling Team
    | Modeling, Algorithms, and Informatics Group (CCS-3)
    | Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop B265, Los Alamos NM 87545 USA
    | joslyn@lanl.gov     http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~joslyn     (505) 667-9096
    V All the world is biscuit-shaped. . .
    

    ======================================== Posting to pcp-discuss@lanl.gov from Cliff Joslyn <joslyn@lanl.gov>



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