Telling Who's Telephoning
Regular readers will have spotted that I highlight Rupert Sheldrake’s website on this blog, and I have written approvingly of some of his work.
Some years ago, when I still lived in the United Kingdom, we had a number of spirited discussions. We certainly did not agree on everything, but he always impressed me with his intelligence, insight, integrity and humanity. He thinks very quickly on his feet, and is also not lacking in courage and resilience: vital commodities when exploring areas that lie outside the academic mainstream.
Carol Kirshner just found an article that came out yesterday.
Rupert presented a paper at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. The fact that he was reporting on experiments looking at the phenomenon of a type of precognition – knowing who is on the line when the phone rings or knowing who sent an email – shows that Rupert has considerable intestinal fortitude.
The numbers in the trials were small, but he reported a hit rate of 45 percent, rather than the 25 percent you would have expected in these trials.
This is the latest report of a work in progress, and it is being done slowly and deliberately becaue if it is correct, the implications for all of us will be stunning.
The only unfortunate thing about Rupert’s work is the number of people who snipe at him instead of engaging in debate and futher research. The attitude of some academics is one of intense fundamentalist intolerance, a point made in a book that I recommend: Alternative Science, by Richard Milton.
I don’t agree with everything that he says either, but many of his points about scientific intolerance are right on target. The book was written over ten years ago, and little has changed.
Except for the worse.
Exploring the Web of Life
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
–John Muir (Scottish-born American Naturalist, Writer, Founder of the Sierra Club, and “The Father of the National Park System,” 1838-1914)
One of the most significant discoveries during my lifetime has been the gradual understanding that at the most basic levels we are all inextricably interlinked. Long thought to be nothing more than an occasional curiosity concerning the behavior of elementary particles, there is more and more evidence that this interconnectedness is constantly present in our lives.
The work of people like the late David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake, Dean Radin, Ervin Laszlo and many others has gradually begun to put these essential ideas on a much firmer footing. That’s not to say that every scientist in the world accepts these concepts: they certainly do not. But science grows by slow steps. Each observation adding to the one before, like grains of sand being heaped onto a giant ant heap. Sometimes things turn out to be wrong, and then it’s back to the drawing board. Or the ant heap gets re-arranged.
But rather than argue about the theory, I would like to suggest that you try an experiment. It is particularly effective if you are in a close relationship with another person.
If you are at work or away from the other person for some other reason, spend every free moment during the day thinking kind, loving thoughts about the other person. Feel a sense of gratitude that they are in your life. Do nothing else. Don’t specially call, email or IM them. Just do the thinking and feeling about them. And when next you see them, have a look at their initial reaction toward you. It’s extraordinary how often people find that when they next meet up, the person who’s been thought about in this way is particularly warm and loving.
I don’t recommend doing the converse, and thinking mean thoughts about someone and waiting for the fallout. But if the other person is tired, dispirited or distant when you meet, it’s a good idea to see if your thoughts about them may be factored into the equation.
Clearly there are a hundred things that will determine how people react toward each other. Is it a new relationship or a mature one? Are people tired or distracted by work or children? Has there been an argument, illness or trouble with relatives or neighbors? The list is almost endless.
But I would suggest that you try this experiment for yourself and see what you come up with. If you send them, I’ll publish any interesting observations, with the usual guarantee of anonymity.
And by the way, there are some rigorous scientific experiments being conducted right now to test this phenomenon.
“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality–not as we expect it to be but as it is–is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.”
— Frederick Buechner (American Presbyterian Minister and Writer, 1926-)
Blogging and the Tipping Point
The blogging phenomenon is well under five years old, though many of us were communicating online long before that. The question for many of us has been whether blogging is just going to remain a kind of online graffiti or political sounding board which will eventually go the way of the dodo, or whether it has now reached a level of maturity where it will be an important social, business and educational phenomenon?
Have we reached the Tipping Point? This forty-year-old term refers to a dramatic moment in time and space when something unique becomes common. The term was popularized and applied to daily life by Malcolm Gladwell in his book of the same name.
You will remember the impact of bloggers during the last Presidential election campaign, but some skeptics thought that was just a flash in the pan.
Several recent items have convinced me that blogs are indeed beginning to have a significant impact:
1. A white paper published by Market Sentinel, Onalytica and Immediate Future in December 2005 discussed the impact of bloggers on corporate reputation, after one individual named Jeff Jarvis had a significant negative impact on Dell Computers after relating his bad customer experience.
2. In April 2006, Custom Communications organized an event – I thin the first of its kind – on Blogging4Business. The aim was to discuss how blogs could potentially damage a brand.
3. In May of this year, traditional news producers, aggregators and distributors gathered at the We Media Global Forum to discuss the future of news in the light of the growth of blogging and what is becoming known as citizen journalism.
4. The Internet is moving rapidly from being a read-only or buy-only medium to an organic, participatory, interconnected and collaborative network. Just look at the burgeoning popularity not just of blogs, but also of sites like MySpace.com and the energy and eagerness that is creating Wikipedia.
5. The Internet is rapidly becoming a web of producers who are customizing their interaction, rather than passive consumers.
The BBC ran a nice discussion on some of the dynamics of what is now occurring.
How do you see all this developing?
Technorati tags: Blogs Blogging Tipping point Malcolm Gladwell
Turning One Hundred
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” –Chief Seattle (Native American Leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish Tribes who became a Roman Catholic and Cooperated in Creating Peaceful Relations with European Settlers, c. 1786-1866)
I know that the Chief was not talking about the Internet or the Blogosphere, but his comments could easily be applied to both.
I was astonished when Carol Kirshner, my web mistress (I’m STILL not sure if that’s politically correct term for her!?) told me that this was going to be my one hundredth post. I hadn’t realized that I was that garrulous, or that there was so much need for a balanced presentation of some of the issues that we’ve been discussing.
So I thought that it would be a good moment to look at blogs and their potential impact on our lives. In some ways they have recapitulated the early days of the Internet. Many blogs have been little more than graffiti, but with the passage of time, I think that we are seeing a rapid maturation of the Blogosphere.
If you have not yet read the book Naked Conversations, I think that it’s a must-read. There’s also an extremely interesting discussion about the ideas raised in the book here.
I’ve been particularly impressed with the way in which many individuals are using blogging to rapidly spread useful information. There are thousands of examples, but here’s one that I particularly like. And the recent attempts to explore blogging for medical purposes.
One of the fascinating things to someone who’s taught neurology for years, is the way in which links are developing in almost exactly the same way as occurs in the developing brain, and the same principles apply in the Blogosphere, and in the brain of mature individuals as they learn new information. As such, it tends to be an organic self- correcting system. When information is published that is wrong it us usually corrected very rapidly.
Because I am an integrated physician committed to empowering people to help themselves, I see blogs as one of the quickest and most efficient ways of achieving that aim. Using blogs has enabled me to disseminate interpretations of new insights and information. I think it is this: it is the interpretation that is crucial. Anyone can do a quick online search for information about an illness, a new health plan, or techniques for personal development. The trouble is that not many people have ever been taught how to interpret medical and scientific information: it is a skill that take s abit of time to learn.
My eclectic medical interests are well known, so I get a great many items in the mail that promise extraordinary benefits from eating this or doing that. There will often be some reference to a research paper. Yet when you check the reference, it often says something completely different! Let me give you an example of something that I cited in Healing, Meaning and Purpose.
“The precise amounts of a supplement are important, as is the combination. I want to give you an example of this. I have recently seen supplements being sold that claim to improve sexual performance. Some contain the amino acid L-arginine. That’s fine; L-arginine is a precursor for the vasodilator nitric oxide, which is involved in the mechanics of sexual arousal. There is just one problem. For L- arginine to work, you need to take about 9,000 milligrams. Most of the supplements give you only 200-500 milligrams. I have also seen supplements that contain mutually antagonistic vitamins, and others that are missing key components, for instance calcium supplements that do not contain magnesium.”
It seems to me that blogs, if they are done well, are an ideal medium for the rapid dissemination of interpreted information, correcting errors and helping people make rational decisions.
“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician, Writer, Poet and Speaker, 1809-1894)
The Web of Life
“According to Paracelsus, there is a deep connection between the human being and the entire universe that is hidden in the natural foundation of existence.”
–Rudolf Steiner (Croatian-born Austrian Mystic, Occultist, Social Philosopher, Architect and Founder of Anthroposophy, 1861-1925)
