Wednesday, December 31, 2008

In The Night I Traveled North To Harbin


In the night I traveled north to Harbin



In the night,
I traveled north
to Harbin,
to Harbin.

Crescent moon,
starry night,
I traveled along
a new way,
from Canyon,
to Harbin.

Redwood tunnels,
now misty night,
the road opens,
from Canyon,
to Harbin.

Come now,
in-world,
and explore
the place
which is Harbin,
oh, Harbin.

It's freeing here ~
such beauty, too ~
in the waters,
at Harbin,
oh, Harbin.

Take off your clothes,
and come in the water
in the warm pool, ~
feel the warmth
in the heart pool,
at Harbin,
oh, Harbin.

Be with these folks ~
these hippies,
these brothers
and sisters,
these children
of hippies,
these flower~loving beings ~
who cuddle,
naked,
and snuggle,
in the water,
at Harbin, ~
be, at Harbin.

Into the hot pool,
now slow,
so slow ~
for, from
the whale's mouth
flow waters hot
at Harbin,
from Harbin.

The woman's bust,
that sculpture
above the whale's
water spout,
sprouting forth
beautiful,
fresh flowers
from her head,
inspires, ~
earth's fires,
~ the water
is hot!

Too hot, too hot, ~
to the cold pool,
to plunge,
amidst forest
and flowers
all around,
in the water, ~
to tingle,
oh, mingle.

MMmmm ...

Now back to
the warm pool,
to your love,
to cuddle,
with your love,
and snuggle,
at Harbin,
yes, Harbin.

What emerges
from our
bodyminds
is bliss ~
oh, bliss ~
bringing us
close, together,
oh, gather
together.

Welcome, bliss,
as you come,
when you come, ~
that neurophysiology ~
this lovely
neurophysiology,
in our bodies,
oh, our bodies.

To the tent now,
to our tent,
to live love,
to touch ease, ~
to kiss and to hug,
to make love,
together, ~
to our tent, now,
at Harbin,
be, at Harbin.

To our tent, love, ~
To love ...



*









(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/12/in-night-i-drove-north-to-harbin.html - December 31, 2008)

Red Beauty Rose: Virtual Harbin, OpenSim, Streaming A Virtual World From A Home Computer

Virtual Harbin Hot Springs is one step closer to actuality today. I think there will be a lot of soaking, clothing-optional pool area visiting, dancing and camping in-world here. :) Exploring yoga positions, contact improv, Watsu, intimacy, unconditional dance, free-form dance, water, healing dance and waterdance in a virtual world is all possible and fascinating, but not as great as in actuality. And digital technologies make possible the exploration of these wavy and fluid forms.

You can stream a virtual world island from your home computer, so that other people can come onto your hard drive and interact in the virtual world you have made there. Similarly, you can go onto the virtual worlds they have made on their hard drives. This bypasses any 'central' server computers controlled by others, and is an example of how virtual worlds can become free and open. All you need is a relatively fast internet connection, a fast computer with at least a gigabyte of RAM, for example, new-ish MacBooks, and some know-how for installing OpenSim - http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Download - and setting up the network, which I'm doing with friends {Network with friends:}. I'll post how, to this blog over time.

Heading to actual Harbin Hot Springs this evening . . . for a birthday celebration . . .


***

As the bodymind~brain is a biological system, I'm continuing to explore how to elicit loving bliss, when and as one wants, naturally (and without side effects), and in a liberating way. The relaxation response is integral to this for me.

How to make 'chamber music' lifelong with bliss-brains together?

scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissPractices.htm

Let's . . . AW . . . love

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Cactus Flowers: Nontheist Friend Definition, The Free Encyclopedia Wikipedia, The Relaxation Response

Here's a modified version of the Wikipedia entry for 'Nontheist Friend' on December 30, 2008, which I mostly wrote, with someone named Z@ch contributing, as well.


Nontheist Friend

A nontheist friend or an atheist Quaker is someone who affiliates with, identifies with, engages in and/or affirms Quaker practices and processes, but who does not accept a belief in a theistic understanding of God, a Supreme Being, the divine, the soul or the supernatural. Nontheist Friends are actively interested in realizing centered peace, simplicity, integrity, community, equality, love, happiness and justice in the Society of Friends and beyond.

Friends have recently begun to examine actively the significance of nontheistic beliefs in the Society of Friends, in the tradition of seeking truth among friends. Nontheism among Quakers probably dates to the 1930s, when some Quakers in California branched off to form the Humanist Society of Friends (today part of the American Humanist Association), and when Henry Cadbury professed agnosticism in a 1936 lecture to Harvard Divinity School students. The term "non-theistic" was first written in a Quaker publication in 1952 on conscientious objection. As early as 1976, Friends General Conference Gathering hosted a well-attended Workshop for Nontheistic Friends (Quakers).

The main nontheist Friends' website is one significant site for this conversation, as are nontheist Quaker study groups. Os Cresson began a recent consideration of this issue from behaviorist, natural history, materialist and environmentalist perspectives. See Roots and Flowers of Quaker Nontheism for one history. Friendly nontheism also draws on Quaker humanist and universalist traditions. The book Godless for God's Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism offers recent, critical contributions by Quakers. Some Friends are not only actively engaging the implications of human evolution, cognitive anthropology, evolutionary psychology, bodymind questions (esp. the 'relaxation response'), primatology, evolutionary history, evolutionary biology and biology in terms of Quaker nontheism, but also consensus decision-making.

Nontheist Friends are a group of individuals, many of whom are affiliated or actively involved in the unprogrammed tradition in Quakerism. Friendly nontheists are attempting sympathetically to generate conversation with others who are more comfortable with the traditional and often reiterated language of Quakerism. Questioning theism, they wish to examine whether the experience of the reality of direct and ongoing inspiration from God ("waiting in the Light") - "So wait upon God in that which is pure. ..." - which some Quaker traditions see as informing Silent Meeting and Meeting for Business, for example, might be understood and embraced with different metaphors, language and discourse.

[edit] External links

* Nontheist Friends

[edit] References



Atran, Scott. 2004. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (Evolution and Cognition Series). Oxford. ISBN 0195178033

Benson MD, Herbert and Miriam Z. Klipper. 2000 [1972]. The Relaxation Response. Expanded updated edition. Harper. ISBN 0380815958

Benson MD, Herbert. 1976. Steps to Elicit the Relaxation Response. RelaxationResponse.org. From "The Relaxation Response." HarperTorch. http://www.relaxationresponse.org/steps/

Boulton, David (ed.). 2006. Godless for God's Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism. Dales Historical Monographs. ISBN 0951157868

Cadbury, Henry, 1936. My Personal Religion. Accessed online: July 17, 2007. Unpublished manuscript in the Quaker Collection at Haverford College; lecture given to Harvard divinity students in 1936. http://www.universalistfriends.org/UF035.html#Cadbury

Cresson, Os. 2007. Roots and Flowers of Quaker Nontheism. [http://www.nontheistfriends.org/article/roots-and-flowers-of-quaker-nontheism/] NontheistFriends.org. Jan 23. Accessed online: Dec 30, 2008. http://nontheistfriends.org.

Dawkins, Richard. 2002. An Atheist's Call to Arms. Accessed online video: July 17, 2007. Monterey, CA: Ted Talks. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html

Dennett, Daniel. 2006. A Secular, Scientific Rebuttal to Pastor Rick Warren. Accessed online video: July 17, 2007. Monterey, CA: Ted Talks. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_dennett_s_response_to_rick_warren.html

Foucault, Michel. 2002. Archaeology of Knowledge. (2nd ed.) Routledge. ISBN 0415287537

Foucault, Michel. 2005. 'Course Summary' in "The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de France, 1981—1982." Picador.

Jackson, Kenneth T. 2007. A Colony with a Conscience: This republic owes its enduring strength to a fragile, scorched and little-known document known as the Flushing Remonstrance. Dec. 27, 2007. Accessed online: December 27, 2007. New York: New York Times online. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/opinion/27jackson.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

Morgan, Robert. 1976. 'Report from the Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends - Friends General Conference, Ithaca, NY, June, 1976.' (Note at end of report reads: "The author of this report is "Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends". The workshop was led by Robert Morgan (1916-1993), a Friend from Pittsburgh PA." Morgan was therefore 'recording clerk' for this report).

Riemermann, James. 2006. What is a Nontheist? Sep 20. Accessed online: July 17, 2007. http://nontheistfriends.org. http://www.nontheistfriends.org/article/what-is-a-nontheist/

Royce, Josiah. 1913. George Fox as a Mystic. The Harvard Theological Review. 6:1:31-59. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0017-8160%28191301%296%3A1%3C31%3AGFAAM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N.

Russell, Bertrand (E. Haldeman-Julius, ed.). 1927. On Why I Am Not a Christian: An Examination of the God-Idea and Christianity. Accessed online: July 17, 2007. Little Blue Book No. 1372. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell0.htm

Tatum, Lyle (ed.). 1952. "Handbook for Conscientious Objectors." Philadelphia, PA: Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.

Williams, Jonathan. 1975. My Quaker-atheist friend (who has come to this meeting-house since 1913) smokes & looks out over the Rawthey to Holme Fell. Larry and Ruby Wallrich Publishing. ASIN: B0007AHBQO




***

Here's the Wikipedia entry as of December 30, 2008. I re-integrated above most of the references with each other, and added Michel Foucault's 'Course Summary' from his "Hermeneutics of the Subject," to round this out further.



Nontheist Friend
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A nontheist Friend or atheist Quaker is someone who affiliates with, identifies with, engages in and/or affirms Quaker practices and processes, but who does not accept a belief in a theistic understanding of God, a Supreme Being, the divine, the soul or the supernatural. Like theistic Friends, nontheist Friends are actively interested in realizing centered peace, simplicity, integrity, community, equality, love, happiness and justice in the Society of Friends and beyond.

Friends have recently begun to examine actively the significance of nontheistic beliefs in the Society of Friends, in the tradition of seeking truth among friends. Nontheism among Quakers probably dates to the 1930s, when some Quakers in California branched off to form the Humanist Society of Friends (today part of the American Humanist Association), and when Henry Cadbury professed agnosticism in a 1936 lecture to Harvard Divinity School students [1]. The term "non-theistic" was first written in a Quaker publication in 1952 on conscientious objection [2]. As early as 1976, Friends General Conference Gathering hosted a well-attended Workshop for Nontheistic Friends (Quakers). [3]

The main nontheist Friends' website [1] is one significant site for this conversation, as are nontheist Quaker study groups. Os Cresson began a recent consideration of this issue from behaviorist, natural history, materialist and environmentalist perspectives. See Roots and Flowers of Quaker Nontheism [2] for one history. Friendly nontheism also draws on Quaker humanist and universalist traditions. The book Godless for God's Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism [4] offers recent, critical contributions by Quakers. Some Friends are not only actively engaging the implications of human evolution, cognitive anthropology, evolutionary psychology, bodymind questions (esp. the 'relaxation response' [5][6]), primatology, evolutionary history, evolutionary biology and biology in terms of Quaker nontheism, but also consensus decision-making.

Nontheist Friends are a group of individuals, many of whom are affiliated or actively involved in the unprogrammed tradition in Quakerism. Friendly nontheists are attempting sympathetically to generate conversation with others who are more comfortable with the traditional and often reiterated language of Quakerism. Questioning theism, they wish to examine whether the experience of the reality of direct and ongoing inspiration from God ("waiting in the Light") - "So wait upon God in that which is pure. ..." [7] - which some Quaker traditions see as informing Silent Meeting and Meeting for Business, for example, might be understood and embraced with different metaphors, language and discourse.

[edit] External links

* Nontheist Friends

[edit] References

1. ^ Cadbury, Henry, 1936. My Personal Religion. Accessed online: July 17, 2007. Unpublished manuscript in the Quaker Collection at Haverford College; lecture given to Harvard divinity students in 1936.
2. ^ Tatum, Lyle (ed.). 1952. "Handbook for Conscientious Objectors." Philadelphia, PA: Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.
3. ^ Morgan, Robert. 1976. 'Report from the Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends - Friends General Conference, Ithaca, NY, June, 1976.' (Note at end of report reads: "The author of this report is "Workshop for Non-Theistic Friends". The workshop was led by Robert Morgan (1916-1993), a Friend from Pittsburgh PA." Morgan was therefore 'recording clerk' for this report).
4. ^ Boulton, David (ed.). 2006. Godless for God's Sake: Nontheism in Contemporary Quakerism. Dales Historical Monographs. ISBN 0951157868
5. ^ Benson MD, Herbert and Miriam Z. Klipper. 2000 [1972]. The Relaxation Response. Expanded updated edition. Harper. ISBN 0380815958
6. ^ Benson MD, Herbert. 1976. Steps to Elicit the Relaxation Response. RelaxationResponse.org. From "The Relaxation Response." HarperTorch.
7. ^ Royce, Josiah. 1913. George Fox as a Mystic. The Harvard Theological Review. 6:1:31-59. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0017-8160%28191301%296%3A1%3C31%3AGFAAM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N.

* Atran, Scott. 2004. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (Evolution and Cognition Series). Oxford. ISBN 0195178033
*Cresson, Os. 2007. Roots and Flowers of Quaker Nontheism. [http://www.nontheistfriends.org/article/roots-and-flowers-of-quaker-nontheism/] NontheistFriends.org. Jan 23. Accessed online: Dec 30, 2008. http://nontheistfriends.org.
* Dawkins, Richard. 2002. An Atheist's Call to Arms. Accessed online video: July 17, 2007. Monterey, CA: Ted Talks.
* Dennett, Daniel. 2006. A Secular, Scientific Rebuttal to Pastor Rick Warren. Accessed online video: July 17, 2007. Monterey, CA: Ted Talks.
* Foucault, Michel. 2002. Archaeology of Knowledge. (2nd ed.) Routledge. ISBN 0415287537
* Jackson, Kenneth T. 2007. A Colony with a Conscience: This republic owes its enduring strength to a fragile, scorched and little-known document known as the Flushing Remonstrance. Dec. 27, 2007. Accessed online: December 27, 2007. New York: New York Times online.
* Riemermann, James. 2006. What is a Nontheist? Sep 20. Accessed online: July 17, 2007. http://nontheistfriends.org.
* Russell, Bertrand (E. Haldeman-Julius, ed.). 1927. On Why I Am Not a Christian: An Examination of the God-Idea and Christianity. Accessed online: July 17, 2007. Little Blue Book No. 1372.
* Williams, Jonathan. 1975. My Quaker-atheist friend (who has come to this meeting-house since 1913) smokes & looks out over the Rawthey to Holme Fell. Larry and Ruby Wallrich Publishing. ASIN: B0007AHBQO

This Quaker-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheist_Friend"
Categories: Agnosticism | Atheism | Disengagement from religion | Freethought | Humanism | Nontheism | Quakerism | Quakerism stubs


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheist_Friend







***


Exploring the variety of neurophysiological responses one can elicit, in addition to the relaxation response, can be fascinating. And I'm a little bit of a loving bliss {scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissPractices.htm} friend. :)

Hibiscus: Learning, Passive House, Wind-to-Battery Energy Storage

Learning

Would World University and School's innovation focus help reshape how people learn, and help to facilitate a culture of learning, if learning becomes very fun, and people find avenues to share ideas richly? Add or take a course in any language and subject. (Here's World University and School's Facebook Group).

How might this and the World Wide Web help people learn? (I take learning in this context to mean the knowledge and approaches to learning that lead to what faculty members know in great universities, such as at MIT, the Ivy League Schools, Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, Oxford, Munich Technical University., Sorbonne, University of Munich, Juilliard, Cambridge, Caltech, University of Chicago, Berlin Technical University).



I'm particularly curious about learning how to elicit great neurophysiological states of mind, such as loving bliss. While relatively unexplored and un-taught, how might idea-exchange in World University and School facilitate this?


***

Passive House


December 27, 2008 - New York Times
The Energy Challenge
No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in ‘Passive Houses’
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

DARMSTADT, Germany — From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the stylish new gray and orange row houses in the Kranichstein District, with wreaths on the doors and Christmas lights twinkling through a freezing drizzle. But these houses are part of a revolution in building design: There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in. There is, in fact, no furnace.

In Berthold Kaufmann’s home, there is, to be fair, one radiator for emergency backup in the living room — but it is not in use. Even on the coldest nights in central Germany, Mr. Kaufmann’s new “passive house” and others of this design get all the heat and hot water they need from the amount of energy that would be needed to run a hair dryer.

“You don’t think about temperature — the house just adjusts,” said Mr. Kaufmann, watching his 2-year-old daughter, dressed in a T-shirt, tuck into her sausage in the spacious living room, whose glass doors open to a patio. His new home uses about one-twentieth the heating energy of his parents’ home of roughly the same size, he said.

Architects in many countries, in attempts to meet new energy efficiency standards like the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standard in the United States, are designing homes with better insulation and high-efficiency appliances, as well as tapping into alternative sources of power, like solar panels and wind turbines.

The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies.

And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.

Decades ago, attempts at creating sealed solar-heated homes failed, because of stagnant air and mold. But new passive houses use an ingenious central ventilation system. The warm air going out passes side by side with clean, cold air coming in, exchanging heat with 90 percent efficiency.

“The myth before was that to be warm you had to have heating. Our goal is to create a warm house without energy demand,” said Wolfgang Hasper, an engineer at the Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt. “This is not about wearing thick pullovers, turning the thermostat down and putting up with drafts. It’s about being comfortable with less energy input, and we do this by recycling heating.”

There are now an estimated 15,000 passive houses around the world, the vast majority built in the past few years in German-speaking countries or Scandinavia.

The first passive home was built here in 1991 by Wolfgang Feist, a local physicist, but diffusion of the idea was slowed by language. The courses and literature were mostly in German, and even now the components are mass-produced only in this part of the world.

The industry is thriving in Germany, however — for example, schools in Frankfurt are built with the technique.

Moreover, its popularity is spreading. The European Commission is promoting passive-house building, and the European Parliament has proposed that new buildings meet passive-house standards by 2011.

The United States Army, long a presence in this part of Germany, is considering passive-house barracks.

“Awareness is skyrocketing; it’s hard for us to keep up with requests,” Mr. Hasper said.

Nabih Tahan, a California architect who worked in Austria for 11 years, is completing one of the first passive houses in the United States for his family in Berkeley. He heads a group of 70 Bay Area architects and engineers working to encourage wider acceptance of the standards. “This is a recipe for energy that makes sense to people,” Mr. Tahan said. “Why not reuse this heat you get for free?”

Ironically, however, when California inspectors were examining the Berkeley home to determine whether it met “green” building codes (it did), he could not get credit for the heat exchanger, a device that is still uncommon in the United States. “When you think about passive-house standards, you start looking at buildings in a different way,” he said.

Buildings that are certified hermetically sealed may sound suffocating. (To meet the standard, a building must pass a “blow test” showing that it loses minimal air under pressure.) In fact, passive houses have plenty of windows — though far more face south than north — and all can be opened.

Inside, a passive home does have a slightly different gestalt from conventional houses, just as an electric car drives differently from its gas-using cousin. There is a kind of spaceship-like uniformity of air and temperature. The air from outside all goes through HEPA filters before entering the rooms. The cement floor of the basement isn’t cold. The walls and the air are basically the same temperature.

Look closer and there are technical differences: When the windows are swung open, you see their layers of glass and gas, as well as the elaborate seals around the edges. A small, grated duct near the ceiling in the living room brings in clean air. In the basement there is no furnace, but instead what looks like a giant Styrofoam cooler, containing the heat exchanger.

Passive houses need no human tinkering, but most architects put in a switch with three settings, which can be turned down for vacations, or up to circulate air for a party (though you can also just open the windows). “We’ve found it’s very important to people that they feel they can influence the system,” Mr. Hasper said.

The houses may be too radical for those who treasure an experience like drinking hot chocolate in a cold kitchen. But not for others. “I grew up in a great old house that was always 10 degrees too cold, so I knew I wanted to make something different,” said Georg W. Zielke, who built his first passive house here, for his family, in 2003 and now designs no other kinds of buildings.

In Germany the added construction costs of passive houses are modest and, because of their growing popularity and an ever larger array of attractive off-the-shelf components, are shrinking.

But the sophisticated windows and heat-exchange ventilation systems needed to make passive houses work properly are not readily available in the United States. So the construction of passive houses in the United States, at least initially, is likely to entail a higher price differential.

Moreover, the kinds of home construction popular in the United States are more difficult to adapt to the standard: residential buildings tend not to have built-in ventilation systems of any kind, and sliding windows are hard to seal.

Dr. Feist’s original passive house — a boxy white building with four apartments — looks like the science project that it was intended to be. But new passive houses come in many shapes and styles. The Passivhaus Institut, which he founded a decade ago, continues to conduct research, teaches architects, and tests homes to make sure they meet standards. It now has affiliates in Britain and the United States.

Still, there are challenges to broader adoption even in Europe.

Because a successful passive house requires the interplay of the building, the sun and the climate, architects need to be careful about site selection. Passive-house heating might not work in a shady valley in Switzerland, or on an urban street with no south-facing wall. Researchers are looking into whether the concept will work in warmer climates — where a heat exchanger could be used in reverse, to keep cool air in and warm air out.

And those who want passive-house mansions may be disappointed. Compact shapes are simpler to seal, while sprawling homes are difficult to insulate and heat.

Most passive houses allow about 500 square feet per person, a comfortable though not expansive living space. Mr. Hasper said people who wanted thousands of square feet per person should look for another design.

“Anyone who feels they need that much space to live,” he said, “well, that’s a different discussion.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/europe/27house.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print



Passive House in Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house



***


Wind-to-Battery Energy Storage

News Releases
02/28/2008

Xcel Energy launches groundbreaking wind-to-battery project

MINNEAPOLIS - Xcel Energy soon will begin testing a cutting-edge technology to store wind energy in batteries. It will be the first use of the technology in the United States for direct wind energy storage.

Integrating variable wind and solar power production with the needs of the power grid is an ongoing issue for the utility industry. Xcel Energy will begin testing a one-megawatt battery-storage technology to demonstrate its ability to store wind energy and move it to the electricity grid when needed. Fully charged, the battery could power 500 homes for over 7 hours.

“Energy storage is key to expanding the use of renewable energy,” said Dick Kelly, Xcel Energy Chairman, President and CEO. “This technology has the potential to reduce the impact caused by the variability and limited predictability of wind energy generation. As the nation’s leader in distributing wind energy, this will be very important to both us and our customers.”

Xcel Energy has signed a contract to purchase a battery from NGK Insulators Ltd. that will be an integral part of a project. The sodium-sulfur battery is commercially available and versions of this technology are already being used in Japan and in a few US applications, but this is the first U.S. application of the battery as a direct wind energy storage device.

The 20 50-kilowatt battery modules will be roughly the size of two semi trailers and weigh approximately 80 tons. They will be able to store about 7.2 megawatt-hours of electricity, with a charge/discharge capacity of one megawatt. When the wind blows, the batteries are charged. When the wind calms down, the batteries supplement the power flow.

The project will take place in Luverne, Minn., about 30 miles east of Sioux Falls, S.D., with the battery installation beginning this spring adjacent and connected to a nearby 11-megawatt wind farm owned by Minwind Energy, LLC. S&C Electric Company will install the battery and all associated interconnection components. The battery is expected to go on-line in October 2008.

Partners in the project with Xcel Energy include the University of Minnesota, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Great Plains Institute and Minwind Energy, LLC. Xcel Energy is testing emerging technology and energy storage devices as part of its overall Smart Grid strategy, which modernizes and upgrades the grid to allow for easier integration of renewable energy sources.

The project has been selected to receive a $1 million grant from Minnesota’s Renewable Development Fund, pending Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approval this spring.

Xcel Energy (NYSE: XEL) is a major U.S. electricity and natural gas company with regulated operations in eight Western and Midwestern states. Xcel Energy provides a comprehensive portfolio of energy-related products and services to 3.3 million electricity customers and 1.8 million natural gas customers through its regulated operating companies. Company headquarters are located in Minneapolis. More information is available at www.xcelenergy.com.


http://www.xcelenergy.com/Company/Newsroom/News%20Releases/Pages/Xcel_Energy_launches_groundbreaking_wind_to_battery_project.aspx

Monday, December 29, 2008

Volcano: World University and School Group in Facebook

The open World University and School Facebook group - facebook.com/group.php?gid=48753608141&ref=ts - now has 149 members. These are the things people have written there so far:

World University and School
Global
Basic Info
Type:
Student Groups - Academic Groups
Description:
World University & School
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University

A Global, Virtual, Open, Free-to-Students, Multilingual University
{potentially Degree-Granting, with Great Universities as Key Players}
and School,
using a Wikipedia model,
for the Developing World {OLPC countries to begin with}
and Everyone

Add your course or class here now
{and take any course or class you want,
and talk about ideas ~ learning as conversation,
digitally mediated}

With your webcam,
record what you'd like to teach, and
post it to youtube.com, then,
post the link to the
'World University and School' Wiki (editable web pages)

but be creative ~
teach what you want in the way you'd like to,
academically, too.

And here you can start taking MIT Open Course Ware classes now - ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
Contact Info
Email:
Office:
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University
Recent News
Start adding or taking classes or courses today - in any subject and language. Interactivity can be through OpenSim, Second Life (slurl.com/secondlife/Gardens%20Of%20Bliss/202/232/232), Moodle, Wikis, or on YouTube, etc.,

- via your video-capable handheld device (in development) and One Laptop Per Child {OLPC}.


Be creative.

Invite your friends who have unique knowledge to participate.
Members
Displaying 8 of 149 membersSee All
Emma Juniper

David Barnass Schwartz

Vince Perri

Meghan Rosa

Jon Stevens

Lisette Schwab

Rocknrol-ltrouble Lezak

Kenny Card

Discussion Board
Displaying 1 discussion topicStart New Topic|See All
Eliciting Loving Bliss, when and as we want
1 post by 1 person. Updated on December 8, 2008 at 3:14pm
The Wall
Displaying 5 of 14 wall posts.See All

max 1,000 characters

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 7:58pm on December 17th, 2008
World University and School Wiki main page:
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University

World University and School Wiki courses' page:
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses

World University and School Wiki subjects' page:
worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects

Languages and Nation States' pages soon...
Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 3:35pm on December 16th, 2008
Seeking moderators for subject areas - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University
Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 3:34pm on December 16th, 2008
A page per course, perhaps. A Wikipedia model is what I'd like
to develop. Facebook may facilitate the Wiki approach, as well as
become a de facto "You at World University," if someone can add a FB
box. Getting moderators (Wikipedia, GlobalVoicesOnline.org) to focus
on specific areas is something I'd like to facilitate, too. What would add to these approaches to make learning and teaching really fun?
Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 3:17pm on December 16th, 2008
Here's Open Culture's courses! - oculture.com/2006/10/university_podc.html - Cool ...
Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 3:12pm on December 16th, 2008
Wikis are easy to edit. Post courses you find, as well as ones you wish to teach - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University


Scott MacLeod wrote
at 6:17pm on December 15th, 2008
Added a 20 lecture Macroeconomic's course taught by Professor Theodore Kariotis to World University and School Wiki's subject page - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subject/headline
Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 4:49pm on December 15th, 2008
I just posted these useful uTube tutorials to the Wiki:

Calculus, Pre-calculus, Trigonometry, Algebra, Banking and Money, Credit Crisis, Finance, Pre-Algebra, Arithmetic, Geometry, Probability, Singapore Math, Physics, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Please post interesting subject areas you find to World University and School's Wiki:
http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University
Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 10:35pm on December 11th, 2008
Nicholas Negroponte wrote:

Need your help getting the word out. You know about One Laptop per Child. You don’t know nearly 500,000 children now learn, play, read, compose, program and connect in poor, remote places from Ghana to Mongolia. Visit http://www.laptop.org Tell others. Thanks

Brand Video Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-M77C2ejTw
Brand Video Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMeX2D4AOjM
Skills 30: http://flickr.com/photos/olpc/3092733393/
Zimi 60: http://flickr.com/photos/olpc/3093861318/
Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 10:29pm on December 10th, 2008
Here's ARS Synthetica - http://www.ars-synthetica.net/ - created by two UC Berkeley social scientists studying biology as a discipline.
Delete

Mallory Parks (University of San Francisco) wrote
at 5:53pm on December 9th, 2008
This is quite an amazing fusion of media and education. Not sure I can be a big contributor yet, but this a great opportunity for everyone.
Report - Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 5:50pm on December 9th, 2008
I'm also regularly posting to my blog about World University and School - e.g. http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/12/world-university-and-school-group-in.html
Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 3:52pm on December 9th, 2008
Another UC Berkeley course posting resource - http://decal.org/
Delete

Scott MacLeod wrote
at 6:11pm on December 8th, 2008
This is a creative opportunity to teach and learn about anything and everything, for generations. Have fun.
Delete

Theodore Kariotis (Washington, DC) wrote
at 11:40pm on December 7th, 2008
Take my course in Macroeconomics:
http://mediasite2.towson.edu/mediasite/Catalog/front.aspx?cid=5af5299c-d461-4792-b902-c03e7b1fe1fe



Photos

Post a link:
Welcome to Cyberlandia Metaverso Italiano 3d
Source: www.cyberlandia.net
Cyberlandia e' un mondo virtuale. Su Cyberlandiapuoi creare un un tuo alter ego (avatar) ed interagire con gli altri utenti.In questo metaverso puoi costruire oggetti su aree pubbliche (sandbox)o ...
cyberlandia is opensim based virtual world, anyone create personal simulatori, totally free
Posted by Carlos Roundel


Videos

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Green Turtle Beetle: Loving Bliss, Northeastern U.S. City, How?, Relaxation Response

How to elicit the neurophysiology of loving bliss {think MDMA, naturally} in the context of a northeastern U.S. city in winter, without clothing-optional, warm pools, is interesting to explore.

How to do this? Begin with the relaxation response?

Friday, December 26, 2008

Cavern: 'To the Queen's Chamber' Poem, Green Tortoise, Harbin "Walk In" Pass


I found a poem which a French friend and I wrote at Carlsbad Caverns on a Green Tortoise trip in around 1995.


To the Queen's Chamber

We walked down, down into the earth.
The hole invited us, the dark surrounded us.
Hush.

C'est alors que le monde obscur que l'on croit endormi
s'est éveillé peu à peu sous nos pas.

{Then this dark world, seemingly asleep,
little by little woke up under our steps}.

Vast ceilings, moist world,
haunted, enchanted,
stalactite invite, stalagmite unite,
top and bottom merge
in the space underground.

Le silence n'est pas silence
son cristallin des gouttes d'eau
la roche millénaire respire ou pleure doucement.

{Silence is not silence
The crystallized sound of dripping water,
which stokes ancient breath,
or perhaps they cry softly}.

This cave, a sponge, collapsing from the inside
to create space, and silence, which sings internally,
absorbs water, makes shapes, lives, breathes.

We walked down into the living, breathing earth
and saw beauty.

We drank it in.



*

And I also found today a Harbin Hot Springs holistic retreat pass, from 1995, which I've scanned and posted here:







To the Harbin pools again . . .

















*




...





(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/12/poem-green-tortoise-pass.html - December 26, 2008)

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Blue Spruce: Candles on Tree, Carols, Presents, Friends

We lit the candles on the tree today, and yesterday, while singing carols. Under the tree were gifts that we later shared. The tree was beautiful, both alit and not, ~ with ornaments, like art, from so many different times in our lives. We also shared meals with friends, and very good food. Ah, family and friends :) ...


But I'd like to return now to eating a delicious, very low-fat, ovo-lacto vegetarian-oriented diet (with a multi-vitamin for iron and vitamin B12), which I usually eat, as well as practicing yoga poses, as expressions of non-harming, ~ leading to good health. {How might these practices have a beneficial effect on the fabric of life?}


So these are cultural expressions, that are integrating, and express latent values {an idiosyncratic code, vis-a-vis TCP/IP - (transmission control protocol / internet protocol - the language of internet packet switching) as metaphors for cultural communication processes?}.

And this holiday is widely practiced in the United States, and yet not everyone, by any means, celebrates it.

How does culture work {thought about from the 'inside'}?


And the economy continues to be important. The Enlightenment vis-a-vis industrialization, with all their challenges, are processes that societies continue to engage.


Index, mutual funds {socially conscious ones?} seem to me to continue to offer the best potential returns - scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/12/american-dipper-nontheist-friends.html - of any possible investment choice.


And what might offer hope - in the fabric of life - through great vision, and materially, originating in the 1960s (with possibly 7000 generations, plus, ahead) especially for people with little opportunity? Solar energy? {http://www.barefootcollege.org?} World University and School, where anyone can post or take a class - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University and which focuses, in part, on questions of flourishing?



And how can we elicit the neurophysiology of loving bliss, naturally, easily, and freely, as a kind of musical form?

scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingLovingBlissvavMusicalInstrument.htm


scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/09/beautiful-weather-loving-bliss.html

Ah, the relaxation response ... and to the Harbin pools, soon.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Dodecatheon {Shooting Star}: Group Vision in the 1960s

The group vision of the 1960s fascinates me. How did so many people come to see the world anew, and try to change it for the better, as a group? That the 1960s and early 1970s was a group hallucination, in some ways, is wild, and mostly on the left, but with so many positive attempts at making the world a better place, as well as such interesting expressions of freedom-oriented thinking.

How can this group envisioning process be complemented, and richly developed/improvised on {or even orchestrated?}, now, and on such a wide-spread scale as that time was?

Might we start with loving bliss ~ Loving Bliss Practices ~ and warm pools, and just be there?


Be here


Merry, Merry :)

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Laughter: Music, Friends and Milieu ~ Communitas

Music, friends and milieu in the holidays can change the experience of life dramatically. Humans have done this a lot throughout history through art, etc., at special times of the year.

In a similar yet unique way, this can happen in the warm pool at Harbin.

Is communitas the word?

Monday, December 22, 2008

Solar Power, and the Granola Funk Theatre at the Rainbow Gathering, Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming (2008)



The Granola Funk Theatre at the Rainbow Gathering in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming in early July 2008 was powered solely by solar power.

Granola Funk Theatre folks used a solar panel, an inverter, and a battery. They also used a meter, and lights, of course. They wheeled in this system about 2 miles, and it worked very reliably, giving enough light for night performances. Solar power is here, and it works.

From Rainbow Family Gathering of Living Light 2008 Wyoming - Scott MacLeod


All of the equipment is easy to get, and relatively inexpensive.


Here's "How to Make a Solar Power Generator" ~ 
formerly - rain.org/~philfear/how2solar.html

Solar energy can't easily heat a warm pool to 98 degrees Farhenheit to soak in, yet, in northern climes, but given improvements in efficiency ... ~ to a solar-heated, warm pool, everywhere, soon.






formerly in title link - 



























...



Sunday, December 21, 2008

Pan Paniscus: A Communicative Species' Science, and Loving Bliss

A communicative species' science? How would this work? What would it help to understand that isn't fully understood in all the different, academic disciplines that study communication in different species? Terrence Deacon's "The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of the Brain and Language" would be key for understanding human communication here. A communicative species' academic discipline would include the human sciences (anthropology, sociology, political science, etc.), but also privilege the communication process, thus including Bonobo chimps, common chimps, {the genera Pan (chimpanzee: paniscus & troglodytes)}, Pongo (orangutan: pygmaeus & abelii), Gorilla (gorilla: gorilla & beringei), as well as Homos' (homo: homo sapien ~ human), and dolphins, whales, ants, and bees, etc. I'm particularly interested in what we might learn about thinking from higher primates' communication, {including us}.

I'm also interested in questions of how loving bliss {with ecstasy, MDMA, naturally, as a reference experience} might operate communicatively, and for individual bodyminds {organisms} among each of these species, including us, and how one might thoughtfully draw comparisons and contrasts. How might one examine the neurophysiology of loving bliss among communicative species, and also study the related neurophysiology? How might we, with this knowledge, then, begin to elicit loving bliss fully among humans, and potentially in conjunction with other species?

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Clay: Amazing, Creative House, Canyon, Kids of Hippies

I saw an amazing, creative, house-invention this evening, with wonderful decks and porches, as well, ~ perched in a forest with an incredible view. It may have been an artistic project in progress over many years, - in Canyon, California. There was so much wood, and so many unique spaces, windows and roof lines. It must have been very fun to build.

The new friends whom I met this evening were, in large part, the children of hippies, and they weren't doing the hippie thing. It's fascinating. They're mostly engaging 'normative' greater-San Francisco Bay Area, California, behavior, instead of questioning it and making the questioning practice or 'normative,' while living in a beautiful, fascinating house, in a community which most people from 'outside' would consider hippie.

I found out this evening that Janis Joplin and Country Joe MacDonald {"And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?"} had lived in or near Canyon.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Underwater: Dancing in the Pools

He was dancing free-form in the warm pool. I met him first this past summer. He comes from near Santa Cruz, has a small computer business, is probably around 60, and was shaped by the 60s. He comes to Harbin with his wife, is a very sweet guy, and free. He's tall, and seems like an oversized, gangly, very friendly, furry, white-long-hair dog. His plump wife was carrying a blue, Unitarian Universalist water bottle in the warm pool. He seemed like he would go readily to a dancing mode, wherever. His freedom of spirit was inspiring. Hippie-like, without regard to who is around, and completely inoffensively, he danced. He was listening not to the 'code' of norms in modernity, but to the 'music' of counterculture ~ doing what he wanted, happily. He started dancing with me in the pools, in a friendly way, hand-to-hand and we explored this free-form water dancing together ~ how fun and inspiring. Later I saw him and his wife, naked, embracing fully and affectionately in the pools. It made me wonder about coming back to UC Berkeley, where I'm based, and just dancing happily around the campus. Why isn't anyone doing this now, whereas a lot of people would have done this in the 1960s? So, why not do it . . . sounds good.

Back to the Harbin pools, in a week or so . .

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Foucault's Care of the Self and Harbin Hot Springs

Foucault's Care of the Self and Harbin Hot Springs


In examining how caring for the self functions, Michel Foucault, in the 'Course Summary' in his "Hermeneutics of the Subject," problematizes how caring works. For Foucault, care of the self - epimeleia heautou and cura sui (491) - refers philosophically to taking care of oneself and being concerned about oneself. For Foucault, this involves a kind of therapeutic practice, and also having free time to further this. For Foucault, even as a philosophical activity, it's “a form of activity, where the term epimeleia itself refers not just to an attitude of awareness or a form of attention focused on oneself; it designates a regular occupation, a work with its methods and objectives" (493). So the questions I'll problematize in this essay are: “How would care of the self 'function' on-the-ground at Harbin Hot Springs?” What does the concept of self-knowledge (494), in caring for the self, refer to for Foucault, using Harbin as a site of inquiry? And what does the concept of askesis (498) refer to, also in relation to Harbin. Lastly, what are examples of practices of care of the self at Harbin? Harbin is significant as a site of inquiry because it's an unique assemblage that may make possible specific ways to care for the self.

Foucault uses the metaphor of a farm as his first example of how caring for the self would function, presumably referring to farming practices - caring for and raising plants and animals, presumably as one would oneself. Engaging this metaphor, the aspect of how caring for the self 'functions' that I'm most interested in, vis-a-vis Foucault, has to do with the flourishing and effortlessness that farms at certain times of the year exhibit, to which the practice of farming as a form of caring would give rise.

Foucault's starting point is the Alcibiades, concerning the care of the self, in relation to politics, pedagogy, and self-knowledge. With regard to pedagogy, engaging the practice of philosophy – thinking as an activity - provides a method for caring of the self at all ages. For Foucault, this consists of three functions: 1) a critical function (unlearning), 2) struggle (engagement) and 3) the culture of the self which is therapeutic and curative (495-496).

For Foucault, care of the self occurs through askesis (self-formation) – training as an athlete would (498). For Foucault this includes 1) listening, 2) writing, and 3) taking stock of oneself (500). These activities of self-formation engage then the activity of thinking – the practice of philosophy. The purpose of these care of the self techniques, through askesis, is to link together the truth and the subject.

So, the problematization that interests me most, in terms of caring for the self, vis-a-vis the metaphor of the farm, and the practices of self-learning and askesis (self-formation), is how one might cultivate this flourishing that a farm exhibits, through pedagogy and askesis, informed by philosophy, as a set of practices, in relation to Harbin.

As a farmer can help a farm to flourish through practices that shape it, caring for the self at Harbin Hot Springs, a hot springs' retreat center in northern California that emerged from counterculture in the early 1970s, occurs in a specific assemblage of practices for caring of the self. Fieldwork is one important approach to understanding this assemblage. In addition to examining Harbin ethnographically as a field site, I'd like to problematize the care of the self vis-a-vis Harbin additionally by creating a virtual Harbin - an interactive assemblage - in the form of a field (farm) or even field site. Creating a virtual Harbin Hot Springs might then even make possible a cultivation of comparable assemblages - actual and virtual Harbins - both of which might lead to an understanding of the care of the self vis-a-vis flourishing, in the ongoing examination of how caring for the self functions.

To further this problematization, and in conclusion, if one constructed a virtual Harbin using OpenSim (using open access virtual world software that engages the Second Life library of resources) as open equipment (Koopman et al 2007), how would care of the self function, in terms of pedagogy and askesis in this context. Both writing (ethnography) and programming (virtual world building) as practices could then contribute to problematizing the care of the self in new ways.


I'd like to suggest that reading Foucault's 'Course Summary' in “Hermeneutics of the Subject” provides ways to philosophically analyze how 'care of the self' might 'work,' in the present, at Harbin Hot Springs. Harbin Hot Springs is a hot springs retreat center in northern California. By examining how Foucault develops a reading of the terms 'askesis' and 'pedagogy,' in particular, - terms which both connote learning - I'll develop and articulate a Foucauldian conception of 'care of the self,' as a category with which to interpret Harbin Hot Springs ethnographically. In doing so, I'll engage fieldwork as a key method for this ethnography of the present, thus engaging questions of process and temporality in examining how 'care of the self' at Harbin works. As part of my Harbin Hot Springs' ethnographic project to model Harbin Hot Springs in a virtual world as ethnographic representation, and to create a virtual field site for comparison with actual Harbin, I'll also examine questions of ways in which 'care of the self' as practices may and do emerge in Harbin.






Motivation in Actual and Virtual Harbin

In terms of the question of motivation vis-a-vis Foucault's 'care of the self,' my actual–virtual Harbin project offers ways to engage and represent Harbin discursively in new ways, anthropologically and in the present. With respect to Socrates' offer of friendship and eros, Harbin's milieu – especially people at Harbin {the visitors and residents I'm 'studying'} in the pool area - generates multiple ways to examine and engage these practices. With respect to Socrates' relationship with Alcibiades, the generation of a Harbin discourse, through representing Harbin, makes possible a developing dialog, leading to a reflexive examination of 'care of the self' at Harbin, especially in terms of method, memory and meditation.


The textual representation of Harbin-emerging-from-counterculture, as ethnography, makes possible a discursive engagement, in academic spaces, with questions of friendship and eros. The generation of virtual Harbin (in Second Life / Open Sim), not only makes possible the representation of an ethnographic field and interactive space for avatars as guests to visit Harbin, but also avatar-mediated human communication within the now-virtual Harbin milieu. Improvisational emergence of avatar-friendships and possible avatar-eros as generative discursive practice make possible new opportunities for Harbin residents, as well as guests, and give new form to ethnographic interview. [In an academic space, people who study 'care of the self,' ethnographic discourse, as well as virtual processes, can engage themselves in this developing communication process in new ways - academically. In mediating between both Harbin visitors and residents, actual and virtual (avatars), a wide variety of new 'practices' – including lending a hand, critique, eros, friendship, curiosity, listening, therapy, - in the field may emerge, in addition to those that have already taken form at Harbin.


Entering into a 1) discursive process – so, teaching about Harbin dialogically as site of ethnography, as well as 2) examining philosophically questions of governing – in a positive sense - i.e. care of the self, also emerge in new ways, vis-a-vis this actual-virtual Harbin project.





Problem and Venue in Actual and Virtual Harbin


Problem

The site, space, or discourse that is Harbin Hot Springs emerges into the present out of a blockage, difficulty, or breakdown that was the late 1960s and early 1970s, (as well as modernity) where widespread expressions of counterculture found form. Harbin's ongoing expression as site, space, or discourse requires both the conceptual work of understanding this unique assemblage, as well as the narratives that emerge there which inform the Harbin experience. The parallel practical work which my fieldwork as well as my creation of virtual Harbin Hot Springs in Second Life / OpenSim gives rise to, as problem, concerns the disjunctions that develop in the actual-virtual space.

The blockage that is Harbin vis-a-vis modernity, and as an organization - in the present - becomes the platform for the elaboration of tensions, where the people, actors and organizations that are my informants, and Harbin, Heart Consciousness Church, New Age Church of Being, and the Watsu Center, etc., both give rise to breakdowns, as well as shape practices in an ongoing way that make up the 'Harbin experience.' Additionally, in examining these breakdowns that occur 1) in studying actual Harbin ethnographically, 2) in creating a virtual Harbin, and 3) in giving form to these blockages vis-a-vis both the 'actual' and the 'virtual,' the disjunctions that emerge between these two aspects give new form to this study of Harbin.


Venue

Two venues, then, emerge from this problem. 'Actual' Harbin becomes the venue that shapes both the narratives and the objects of inquiry, including the pools, the pool area, etc., explicit understandings of the present, questions of embodiment, and the Harbin experience.

And 'virtual' Harbin, as information technology in the form of virtual world building, and then avatar interaction in what will become a comparative in-world, field site, which then gives expression to new forms of narrativity. So, venue includes here a new form of 'textual' generation.

In addition to the venue of actual Harbin, the venue here becomes both literally a kind of informational technological equipment – virtual Harbin, as well as the generation of this as ethnographic practice – in the present.








Venue, Problem, Flourishing

How does venue as 'scene' function to give rise to flourishing, in the present, vis-a-vis Michel Foucault's 'care of the self' in his “Hermeneutic of the Subject”? Flourishing in James' project on meditation may be 'accessible' through meditation, where the integrative and releasing aspects of meditation make possible a basis for flourishing. Scott would like to suggest that the venue (as scene or space), vis-a-vis Harbin, gives expression to practices, in response to the problematic as qualities of 'flow' experiences (Csikszentmihalyi), which are kinds of flourishing.

[Eudaimonia (can be translated from the Greek as 'good spirited,' or 'flourishing,' and literally means “having a good guardian spirit”) brings us to Aristotle's “Nichomachean Ethics.” For Aristotle, Eudaimonia is not a means to an end, but an end in itself. Aristotle thought of it as the ultimate goal of life (Nichomachean Ethics: Book I, Ch. 4). Happiness for Aristotle, is not a temporary state or a mood, but a state achieved through virtuous action over lifetime, together with some good fortune (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomachean_Ethics).

And Mihalyi Csikszentmihaly's research on enjoyment engages Aristotle explicitly as a basis for conceiving of and empirically studying flow experiences in his book "Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience".]

In Scott's project, ethnography shapes a 1st order interpretation of venue, in the present, which gives rise to forms of flourishing, unique to Harbin. But ethnography, which Foucault's “Course Summary” and his examination of 'care of the self' don't engage, is the method through which he examines and interpret the assemblage of Harbin. In terms of second order questions, Scott sees the venue-problem-flourishing question, in the present, in terms of scene, 'howness,' and then the biology-neurophysiology of bliss (with the drug ecstasy – MDMA as an imaginary, reference experience), which a nuanced ethnographic approach gives shape to, in the unfolding present, but where imagination and neurophysiology are significant. In terms of a kind of third order questions, it's possible to engage the representational qualities of virtual worlds, to shape a related-Harbin venue, and if people got into their bathtubs while they were in the virtual Harbin pool area, I think field work would show (interviews, conversation, and observation} that a related kind of flourishing emerges here, but more research is needed.


Multi-sited projects

In terms of comparison between Scott's and James projects vis-a-vis venue-problem-flourishing, actual~virtual Harbin Hot Springs is a multi-sited / -venued approach for examining questions of flourishing, as is James' project, which incorporates multiple sites where people are getting together in order to practice attention, as a form of meditation. But in Jame's formulation, the mediation practitioners “all do so believing that practicing attention in a certain way will help them to flourish.” So, here site is basically irrelevant, and venue is in people's minds vis-a-vis meditation. [Csikszentmihalyi's research confirms James' view that an absorbed mind is what people report as most enjoyable, so the act of attention or concentration allows for enjoyment, that gives rise to flourishing]. The scene for James, then, is in his project, which is, significantly, a study of meditation. The venue as scene for James is meditation, then. For Scott, however, his examination of flourishing emerges in relation to the assemblage of Harbin, where site is irrelevant for James. But, like James, Scott interprets the qualities of flourishing experienced at Harbin to be in visitors and residents' minds – as kinds of improvisational operas, to use one metaphor, but where site vis-a-vis venue is very significant..


Co-constitution

So, for Scott, the problem in terms of how flourishing emerges or functions in relation to the venue of Harbin - its "howness" as problematic – focuses partly on questions of co-constitution. How do people shape flourishing (in themselves) by going into the pools, for example, or by going to Harbin itself, and then how does Harbin, as scene, give rise to the “Harbin Experience” and related flourishing. And, in a related way, how might this function virtually? For James, the venue of the meditator, or his or her mind, may give rise to a problematic to which meditation is a practice. For James, the cultural, social, institutional and other frames within which meditation is practiced becomes less significant. And the "howness" is the practice, where the "scene" is the form or the mode, as meditation is key. For Scott, the venue (Harbin) is the form, and the howness, as problem, has to do with, also, how are qualities of flourishing (meditation is practiced at Harbin, as well) emerging in these contexts. So Scott is asking, why is Harbin constituting this particular form of subjectivity, vis-a-vis James' focus on the generalizability of the meditative practice, regardless of site.


Scott's thesis:

Scott would like to suggest that the venue (as scene or space), vis-a-vis Harbin, gives expression to practices, in response to the problematic as qualities of 'flow' experiences (Csikszentmihalyi), which are kinds of flourishing. Those qualities, which are in the present, have to do with an assemblage that is 'hippiness' or counterculture, which is a response to modernity. And Scott interprets this as happening in three ways, ethnographically,

1st first order observations:

1) Soaking in the clothing-optional Harbin pools emerges as a way of being naked together, and doing what people like and want to do at Harbin.

2) Being (emphasis mine) in the milieu of Harbin offers an experience of freedom, for the people who are on property, which is a form of flourishing.

3) Harbin and people there have developed a whole range of related practices that build on the above and generate new forms of flourishing, over 37 years, and which emerge from counterculture.

In a 2nd order sense, imagination and biology are integrated

1 Something akin to the relaxation response, a physiological response, occurs in relation to the pools, that then is further developed by the Harbin pool's clothing-optionalness, and the snuggling and sitting that occur there.

2 Some people find these Harbin practices to be a kind of invisible improvisational opera (my language), stimulating their imagination in flourishing ways - which generate, in turn, creative practices and freedoms in their own bodyminds (the far-reaching creative expressions and explorations in a countercultural sense – both for individuals and groups at Harbin).

3 These Harbin visitors achieve a kind of care of the self in the present, that is, people find these practices to yield a flourishing, so they return again and again to Harbin, as a kind of coming home.

4 Defining flourishing in terms of imagination vis-a-vis Harbin, in a myriad of ways - potentially without limit - opens further possibilities qualities of freedom at Harbin.



James' Meditation thesis

James' thesis statement: The practice of attention constitutes a venue, that is, a shared "space" that his project creates in order to do concept work, a "space linking multiple sites.” For James, the problem is "how to produce a sense of commensurability, stability, wholeness and belonging ('care of the self') out of a manifest (primarily phenomenological) incommensurability. In this context, a meditator might say "my thoughts are scattered and multi-tracked", "I have anxiety", a sense of "not fitting in," or the vagaries of Israeli history scatter me, or all the other things that my fellow meditators are dealing with are multitracking me. So, in order to resolve this problem and care for themselves, these people turn to meditation.


1st order:

Meditation allows them to do the following:

1. re-unify body and mind in new ways

2. create an "intentional community"

3. meditation allows meditators to develop a certain level of self-consciousness, an applied reflexivity, which gives them more "space" or "distance" on the problem i defined above, so there is already a first-order observation going on in meditation. To some extent, the reflexivity inherent in meditation practice becomes a second-order self-observation.


Scott observes that a different kind of subjectivity, or positionality, or even neurophysiology emerges vis-a-vis mediation.

In a 2nd order observations

In James' examination of meditation and thinking about this in 2nd order terms, James provides another level or order of observation because he is
1. comparing sites that are not in direct contact;
2.contextualizing them with reference to their broader national and cultural spaces;
3. participating in these practices, but as an intentional outsider

Scott: or as a participant observer, so, doing field work (see Cerwonka and Malkki's book "Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork" is helpful in terms of pragmatics of and 'theorizing' field work).


Actual and Virtual

Scott: Similarly,
1 I'll compare sites that don't have direct contact - actual and virtual,
2 contextualized both actually in terms of the 60s and 70s vis a vis modernity, and in terms of digital technologies, and the ability for the user to shape even ongoing building projects in-world and
3 where I can participate in them as ethnographer, and
4 where the virtual world itself generation, is a form of 2nd order representation, relative to the representation of the actual, as 1st order

Scott asks how will ethnographic field work, both actual and virtual, offer ways to understand how the practices that emerge at Harbin in the present, but since 1972, such as soaking, the Harbin Experience, the dances, the films, are shaped by venue/site. Also how do they express a problematic, to which flourishing is one emergence. Also, what blockages make it difficult to assure them?



To conclude, Scott suggests that Harbin's venue shapes the 'howness,' in which people find 'flow,' that is flourish, in unique-to-Harbin ways, but which are site related.

James situates venue apart from his three field sites, in the practice of meditation, which can lead to flourishing.




Foucault, Harbin and the Present

Care of the self occurs through cultivating the present, both in terms of askesis and pedagogy, and in actual and virtual Harbins.





References

Aristotle. 2003. Nichomachean Ethics. Penguin.

Cerwonka, Allaine, and Liisa Malkki. 2007. "Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork. Chicago.

Csikszentmihaly, Mihalyi. 1991. Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper.

Foucault, Michel. 2005. The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de France 1981—1982. Picador.

Koopman, Colin, Murrell, Mary and Schilling, Tom. 2007. A Diagnostic of Emerging Openness Equipment. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1069067

McGushin, Edward F. 2006. Foucault's Askesis: An Introduction to the Philosophical Life. Chicago, IL: Northwestern.

Rabinow, Paul. 2003. Anthropos Today: Reflections on Modern Equipment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

DNA: Hippie Darwinism, Peace and Love, and a New Philosophy

Hippie Darwinism ~ peace, love and happiness, with 'this is how life works' ~ a new {old} philosophy.


Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, and counterculture ~

evolutionary biology (tens of thousands of generations of a possible 8-100 million species, including us, replicating themselves through time - Darwin and Wallace theorized how this works for species), in combination with the 1960s and related freedom-seeking movements - peace, love, and happiness ... :)

Freedom biology ...


The relaxation response is so nice.

To the Harbin pools soon. . .

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Stem: Information Technology Revolution, World University

I teach a course in Second Life about the Information Technology Revolution, and we had the last class today. Aphilo Aarde is my avatar in 3-d virtual world of Second Life. An avatar seems like a 4 or 5 inch figure that represents people like you and me from anywhere in the world, in Second Life. Here are some key aspects of the IT revolution {thanks to Professor Manuel Castells}:


[15:49] Aphilo Aarde: A paradigm shift occurs due to the Information Technology Revolution
[15:50] Aphilo Aarde: which affects every aspect of socioeconomic life. Here are 5 key aspects:
[15:50] Aphilo Aarde: 1 INFORMATION GENERATION and PROCESSING is what this revolution is about.
[15:51] Aphilo Aarde: 2 It's PERVASIVE - it invades and influences every domain of socioeconomic activity.


Unique things have happened in the IT revolution; in most ways, it's been a series of accidents. For example, Tim Berners-Lee almost single-handedly started the World Wide Web:

[15:54] Aphilo Aarde: Berners-Lee wrote the protocols for http, html, url
[15:54] Aphilo Aarde: and posted these to a BBS (bulletin board system) in 1989
[15:55] Aphilo Aarde: and graduate students disseminated these through various networks.
[15:55] Aphilo Aarde: Tim Berners-Lee wrote these with Robert Cailliau
[15:55] Aphilo Aarde: Berners-Lee was British, living in Geneva, Switzerland, - and with these protocols and markup language, people could then begin to post information on the web. Http, html, and url led to the development of graphical user interface browsers (in the early 1990s)



[15:56] Aphilo Aarde: 3 It's characterized by NETWORKING - mentalities, companies, people - all network - and create synergies, based on these IT-related knowledge generation processes.
[15:57] Aphilo Aarde: 4 FLEXIBILITY is a key - the system is such that it reorganizes, and reprograms its components without disintegration.
[15:59] Aphilo Aarde: 5 It's INTEGRATING - The technological convergence that has occurred is an integrating system,
[16:01] Aphilo Aarde: and it's an open system, not closing, and it's bounded only by technological developments and innovations in ...




[16:04] Aphilo Aarde: Microelectronics
[16:04] Aphilo Aarde: Telecommunications
[16:04] Aphilo Aarde: Computing
[16:05] Aphilo Aarde: and in the genetic engineering revolution - which is also about information
[16:05] Aphilo Aarde: - the code of life


Here's another interesting, related innovation I'm working on:

[16:23] Aphilo Aarde: World University and School
[16:23] Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University
[16:23] Aphilo Aarde: It's a kind of Wikipedia approach to a Global, Virtual, Open, Free-to-Students, Multilingual University {potentially Degree-Granting, with Great Universities as Key Players} and School, for the Developing World {OLPC countries to begin with} and Everyone
[16:24] Aphilo Aarde: Wikis allow for group knowledge production
[16:24] Aphilo Aarde: because they're editable web pages, based on a distributed network - the Internet
[16:24] Aphilo Aarde: Wikipedia has
[16:24] Aphilo Aarde: 11 million entries
[16:25] Aphilo Aarde: and is in 70 languages. The following help the 'group' shape it:
[16:26] Aphilo Aarde: a neutral point of view
[16:26] Aphilo Aarde: Wikipedia's talk tab
[16:26] Aphilo Aarde: Wikipedia's history tab
[16:26] Aphilo Aarde: Wikipedia's opportunity to revert to previous edits, and people - you or I - can edit most any part of a wiki page
[16:27] Aphilo Aarde: thus changing knowledge generation - and thus shaping knowledge that develops
[16:27] Aphilo Aarde: which changes the idea of knowledge itself
[16:27] Aphilo Aarde: into something flexible, and not static
[16:27] Aphilo Aarde: World University and School - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University
[16:28] Aphilo Aarde: I first began talking about World University and School on Berkman Island (I'm not on Harvard's faculty) in a class I taught
[16:28] Aphilo Aarde: in Second Life
[16:28] Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects
[16:28] sundhi Joubert is Offline
[16:28] Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses
[16:30] Crazycatperson Sweetwater: i'm not sure maybe in econ [... in answer to a question I asked in class about what she might like to teach, if she posted a course to World University]
[16:31] Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects


There's lots of opportunity for individuals here to post what they want to teach to this Wiki on the World Wide Web.

Teach what you want, and take the courses that you want.

Share ideas. Learn. Let's make it fun.

Enjoy . . .

Monday, December 15, 2008

Harbin Hot Springs and Modernity in Progress

Harbin Hot Springs and Modernity

In this paper I'll examine how Harbin Hot Springs as {countercultural} place (Basso) that gives rise to an unique culture (Aubrey, Herder, Brothers Grimm) emerges as a response to modernity (Baumann & Briggs). By examining this binary relation vis-a-vis de Certeau, I'll examine ways in which Harbin as counterculture emerges as a form of tactic in relation to the techno-rational-bureaucratic-legal 'strategies' of modernity. To do this, I'll examine Harbin particularly as a construction of place in terms of Aubrey's, Herder's and Grimm's 'constructions' of traditionality vis-a-vis Romanticism, but also in terms of Harbin as a singularity (Kopytoff). Using interviews and textual analyses, I'll examine also how today's Harbin Hot Springs, emerging from the late 1960s and early 1970s (as counterculture), then, gives rise to place-related practices that instantiate, in an ongoing way, alternative practices in relation to modernity. I'll also examine questions of the poetics (Basso) of Harbin as place, where the experience of 'oneness' as part of the founder Ishvara's understanding of Harbin and New Age practices (and the relaxation response) - particularly in the pools, and uniquely mediated by Harbin's milieu - emerges in response to modernity; traditionality, vis-a-vis Native American practices, is similarly invoked by Harbin residents and in Harbin literature. As a response to modernity, Harbin and it's beautiful, natural setting – it's culture - thus makes possible a return to 'nature,' accentuated by the pools. I'll then examine ways in which Harbin as emerging from counterculture informs a reading of modernity as culture.

In my project to create a virtual Harbin in OpenSim / Second Life 3-D virtual world software, which is ethnographically comparable with actual Harbin, I'll explore ways that information technology and virtual world software emerge from the 'project' of modernity, and in which an 'alternative' virtual Harbin makes in-world (in a virtual 'space' or 'place') ethnographic fieldwork possible through the creation of a virtual field, thus giving rise to new instantiations of countercultural place, virtually. In so doing, however, I'll then examine ways in which people anthropologically might elicit similar virtual experiences {i.e. in-world, in their bathtubs} to those that people experience at Harbin actually {e.g. the relaxation response in the pools}, as well as related 'flow: the psychology of optimal experience' experiences (Csizszentmihalyi) in Harbin's milieu, thus engaging a virtual experience of 'actual' Harbin. As a virtual “field site,” I'll examine also ways in which a virtual Harbin may become a countercultural ‘destination’ or 'place' as field site unto itself, vis-a-vis modernity.

The pools and pool area, and Harbin itself, are central to the Harbin experience as a retreat (from modernity), and many people come to Harbin simply to soak in the pools and relax in the pool area, but also for its alternative culture. This going-to-natural-hot-springs took on unique (counter)cultural and historical expressions in the 1960s and 1970s, which I'll also use to contextualize Harbin's emergence. Methodologically, I'll use fieldwork and interviews to examine how through language (parole in de Certeau's usage) Harbin residents, in what is loosely a hippie commune, engage New Age, Astrology, the Human Potential Movement, wild man (Taussig), environmentalist, and communitarian ideas to cast modernity in an unique-to-Harbin way, that gives form to Harbin's milieu, both actually and in a virtual world.



My argument is that the possibility of virtual Harbin creates new possible articulations of culture technology, and ultimately, an expression of modernity, or something new vis-a-vis an Information Technology Revolution discourse, emerging from counterculture. I'd like to study if and how the far-reaching aspects of Harbin's culture can take shape in virtual Harbin.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Preying Mantis: One Straw Revolution, Abundance, Nonmarket Information Production, World University

Innovation on organic farms comes significantly through understanding nature and ecological processes. Preying mantises, ladybugs - an amazing variety of species - can be brought into the ecology of a farm and create abundance, without poisoning or harming the earth.

Masanobu Fukuoka, in "One Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming" (Rodale Press, 1978), explored 'natural farming' in very innovative ways. In his no-till, imitate-nature-closely, ground-always-covered~with-straw,-mulch-and-nitrogen-fixing-plants, innovative approach to farming, the tilth of the farm would be so rich, that the farmer could broadcast seeds and have them bear fruit without labor; ducks, for example, would fertilize and weed. The fruit trees and plants, so tended, would produce all year round (in the right climate), and very little work would be needed. Fukuoka's approach is also called "Do-Nothing" farming, {mu as 'non-action' in Zen, or similarly, wu wei in Lao Tzu's sense}. Fukuoka's vision emerged with counterculture and the 1960s, in this instance, from Japan.


Is nonmarket information production - Benkler's "The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom," (Yale University Press, 2006), which you can get here for free, - {read it:} now, as a consequence of the information technology revolution, a remarkable example of the abundance which emerges from Fukuokan, countercultural and 'natural farming' processes and understandings, or just a result of hacking and this distributive network technology called the internet?

How will World University and School generate an abundance of not-yet-explored classes and courses, and knowledge, and articulations between these, which emerge vis-a-vis information technology?

World University and School's Facebook page is here - facebook.com/group.php?gid=48753608141

And World University and School's Wiki is here - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University

Teach what you want, take the courses or classes you want.

Create, Enjoy, Flourish ... :)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

cloud mountains



cloud mountains


over the hills to the west, in the
silvery, cumulus-sleek, silhouetted sky,
two cloud mountains formed













*



...










(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/12/cloud-mountains.html - Saturday, December 13, 2010)


Friday, December 12, 2008

To Hear the Music, Harbin, Loving Bliss

To hear the 'music' in group idea-generation through conversation with smart people, when you're not hearing it, keep listening, ~ because it occurs, can perhaps change the group, and opens possibilities. ...

The Harbin pools attune people to a kind of group communication in unique ways, ~ through warm water, nakedness, cuddling~snuggling in the pools, and through Harbin's beautiful milieu. All of these transform the communication of being together.

To hear the 'music' when you're not hearing it, doing yoga can change your neurophysiology, beneficially. Chest-openers, for example, like shoulderstand and bridge pose help, as do restorative yoga positions. Yoga is one of the best ways to hear the 'music,' for a complex of reasons. ...

To hear the music of loving bliss, keep listening, {to Mozart's "Magic Flute";} ~ explore the relaxation response in your bathtub, to start. And here are some ways to explore, as well - scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissPractices.htm

Hear the music ~ "I agree" ...

to the Harbin pools soon.

MMmmm. ... :)

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Salmon: What is Consensus Decision-Making, Communities, Nontheist Friends, Alpha Farm

What is consensus decision-making {vis-a-vis nontheist friends}?

I've been thinking about consensus vis-a-vis Alpha Farm - http://www.pioneer.net/~alpha/index.htm - in the Oregon coast range, 50 miles west of Eugene, recently, in relation to nontheist friends. Consensus decision-making as process gives rise to a kind of unity or oneness in decision-making.

Alpha Farm has explicitly engaged Friendly, consensus, decision-making processes without the religious aspects of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), which has made decisions this way for 350 years.

Alpha Farm began when four friends involved in the Quaker world in Philadelphia moved west to Oregon in 1972 to set up an intentional community on a farm, using the consensus decision-making processes as a guiding approach for decisions. {Salmon still swim up the Deadwood creek in the Deadwood Valley there to spawn}.

Caroline Estes, one of the original four, still lives at Alpha, and continues to be one of its main spokespeople. Caroline leads workshops on consensus decision-making.

Alpha started out as an alternative, hippie, farm community (without {clothing-optional} hot pools), and it continues as a financially viable, sustainable community of 15 to 25 people. It began in 1972, the same year Ishvara bought the Harbin Hot Springs' property.

As a group who have lived situatedly in this place as kinds of nontheist friends, Alpha has centered consensus as key to the way they operate. Here's how they characterize consensus decision-making - http://www.pioneer.net/~alpha/consensus.html:



What Is Consensus?

Consensus decision making is a way for groups of people, any type of group, to arrive at solutions that work for all the members of the group. Although seemingly new in today's world, consensus decision making probably dates back to early tribal cultures and certainly to
about 350 years ago with the establishment of the Society Of Friends (also known as Quakers).

The essence of consensus decision making is the recognition that all members of a group are equal in their ability to bring a piece of the truth to the decision process; that all members have something--be it experience, perspective, etc.--of unique value to offer and are therefore honored and respected for what they bring. As a result, the group aims to arrive at solutions or decisions that reflect the input from all the members, not just the majority. It is important to be
clear that it arrives at a unity of opinion rather than a unanimous opinion. Unity here means that everyone in the group agrees with the essence of the decision and can support it, rather than agreeing with every last word of the decision.

What about Robert's Rules of Order? Consensus decision making is actually quite a bit different from Robert's. Under Robert's Rules of Order a decision is put forward from the very beginning, discussion is limited to the specifics of the topic, amendments may be proposed, and majority votes are taken on the amendments and the final decision itself. Under consensus decision making a proposal is put out in the beginning, input of a broader nature is sought from everyone in the group, the idea is gradually molded by this discussion into a unity of opinion, and a final consensus decision is synthesized reflecting all of the input.

What happens when people disagree? There are two options:" blocking" or "standing in the way" and "standing" or "stepping aside." Blocking occurs when a person cannot support a decision and believes that allowing the decision to pass would bring significant harm to the group. This implies that in this instant this particular individual has more wisdom about the overall ramifications or perhaps one very important overlooked aspect of the decision than the rest of the group collectively. Thus one person has the power to stop a decision. In some instances this may be final and the decision is laid down. Often, however, the reason for the block may be resolved and a better consensus decision than the earlier one may be reached.

The second option, "standing aside" or "stepping aside," occurs when a person cannot personally support a decision but does not see the need to block the decision as it would not harm the group in any important way. This person is specifically mentioned in the minutes of the decision as standing aside so that they will not bear any responsibility for the consequences of that decision. If, however, more than one person stands aside, it is often an indication that the present decision being offered may still be incomplete in some way and that perhaps discussion should continue in order to remove the concerns.

The last element of consensus decision making is a that of a facilitator. The facilitator as servant of the group, guides the process while group members focus on the content of the idea and the decision. The facilitator also continually summarizes all of the input provided into a unified body that gradually approaches a consensus as the process unfolds. Finally, the facilitator does not participate in the discussion of the content of the decision except to keep the process on track.

All in all, consensus decision making is a significant step forward for the entire culture as it fully empowers each and every individual who participates. It returns everyone to the decision making process, in contrast to present systems where power is concentrated in relatively few persons and majority opinions rule over the often valid concerns of minority opinions. It also builds trust and cooperation between the people participating, as opposed to fostering competition between the different elements of the group. And, most importantly, it honors each and every person for all they bring to the group.

http://www.pioneer.net/~alpha/consensus.html


Alpha Farm, like Harbin, is also situated in a very beautiful location. Both are kinds of quite remarkable, realized, alternative visions.