Saturday, April 03, 2004

State of Humanity David C. Korten writes: We of the human species stand poised on the threshold of a choice between self-destruction and creative possibility. Able to imagine worlds yet to be, enquire into creation’s deepest mysteries, journey to the stars or into the world of sub-atomic particles, create great civilizations and systems of global communication, unlock the secrets of the physical building blocks of matter, and decipher and rearrange the genetic codes of life, we now confront a set of conditions new to the human experience.  § Our nuclear and biological technologies give us the capacity, by miscalculation or intent, for total self-annihilation.  § Our human demands on the life support system of our living planet exceed the planet’s limits of tolerance; increasingly overstressed sub-systems are going into decline and collapse with alarming speed. § On the positive side, we have ventured into space and looked back to see ourselves as one people sharing a single destiny on a living space ship hurtling through the vastness of dark space.  § Global institutions have been created that make it possible for representatives of all the world’s nations and peoples to resolve their issues and solve common problems through dialogue rather than force of arms.  § Our communications technologies give us the ability, should we choose to use it, to link every human on the planet into a seamless web of communication and to choose our future through a dialogue of the whole.  § Millions of people the world over are coming together to create a global social institution unlike any other in the human experience: a dynamic, self-directing social organism that transcends the boundaries of race, class, religion, and nationality to function as a shared conscience of the species. We call it global civil society and on February 15, 2003 it mobilized more than 10 million people around the globe in the cause of peace.  Each of these conditions has come to be within the lifetime of a single generation — the generation to which I was born. Together they present us with the opportunity and imperative to choose our common human future as a conscious and intentional collective act. It is time to renew the American Experiment in light of the distinctive needs and opportunities of this unique moment, because to meet the challenge we must bring to bear the full creative potential of our species. Unleashing this potential depends in turn on the full flowering of democratic institutions in America and beyond. That is what the still unfinished American Experiment is about. (04/03/04) Testing Einstein's Theories BBC Science -- A satellite that will put Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity to the test is ready to be launched. NASA hopes Gravity Probe B will lift off from California on 17 April. Now it is ready to test two of Einstein's theories about the nature of space and time, and how the Earth distorts them. The unmanned satellite will orbit 640km (400 miles) above Earth, measuring any slight changes in gravity. The satellite will carry four ping-pong-sized balls made from quartz and sealed in a vacuum. The scientists behind the project say they are the most perfect spheres ever made. To ensure accuracy, the balls must be kept chilled to near absolute zero, inside the largest vacuum flask ever flown in space, and isolated from any disturbances in the quietest environment ever produced, said Anne Kinney, director Nasa's division of astronomy and physics. Once in space the balls will be sent spinning. If Einstein is correct, there should be slight changes to the balls' orientation, or 'spin axis'. Scientists will carefully measure the expected tiny changes in the balls' movements. Einstein proposed in 1916 that space and time form a structure that can be curved by the presence of a body. Gravity Probe B will test how space and time are warped by the presence of the Earth, and how the Earth's rotation twists and drags space-time around with it. The warping effect has been measured before, but the twisting effect, called frame-dragging, has never been directly detected. The Nasa mission aims to examine both. Francis Everitt, the principal investigator of the project, said: "Aren't Einstein's theories all established and confirmed? After all it was 50 years ago that Einstein himself died and it's 100 years next year when he developed his first theory of relativity. Don't we already know it all? The answer is no." (04/03/04) Adversity, Neutrality and Synergy Timothy Wilken, MD writes: There are three ways that humans can get the help they need as an INTERdependent class of life. We can force others to help us. We can purchase help in the fair market. Or, we can help others and trust others to help us. These three ways have their basis in our biology. In 1921, Alfred Korzybski, a mathematician and scientist, classified Life with precise and accurate operational definitions of plants, animals, and humans. He defined the plants as energy-binders, the animals as space-binders, and we humans as time-binders. Korzybski explained that: The plants adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of energy. The animals adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of space. And we humans adapt to our environment through our awareness and control of time. ... Neutral relationships originate in the plant world. Sunlight provides unlimited energy for the plants. Each individual plant needs only the sun, and adequate water and minerals to survive. Plants are solar energy collectors. They use the sun's radiant energy in photosynthesis to manufacture glucose, carbohydrate and other plant cells. Individual plants do not relate to each other. They relate only to the earth and the sun. Plant survival does not require any relationship with other. The plants unique ability to utilize sunlight directly to synthesize organic tissue frees them from the need for others. This fact makes plants the independent class of life — independent of other. ... Adversary relationship originates on earth in the animal world. Earth supplies limited space for the animals. Space is finite. Good space is even more finite. Thus, it is very limited. There is only so much good water, so much good grazing land, so much good shelter, and so much good potential food. There is not enough to go around. The space-binders must compete for this limited amount of good space. They compete adversarily. They compete by fighting and flighting. They compete by attacking and killing other space-binders. They compete by devouring the energy-binders. Animal survival depends entirely on finding others to eat. The herbivores depend on finding plants to eat. The carnivores depend on finding other animals to eat. The animals inability to utilize sunlight to synthesize organic tissue means they must eat. Animals survive by eating either plants or animals. Animals are completely dependent on other for survival. This fact makes animals the dependent class of life — dependent on other. ... The synergic relationship originates in the human world. Universe provides unlimited time for humans. This is the sense of Time-binding. Human lives are finite, but human knowledge is not. Humans discovered control of fire ~1.5 million years ago,and it has been in daily use since then. Humans invent the wheel ~5500 years ago and its use is everywhere today. Because humans pass their knowledge to their descendants, in a sense, collective human life is not limited. Understanding is not limited. Knowledge is not limited. Technology is not limited. Quality of human life based on knowledge and technology is not limited. We first discover synergic relationship in the microscopic universe. It is the basis of human cellular organization. Each of us has approximately 40 trillion cells organized within our bodies. These cells are related synergically, each acting in a highly co-Operative way. Synergic relationship becomes available to human individuals because of Time-binding. Our ability to invent and to understand new ways of doing things creates a new possibility for co-Operation which does not exist in the world of the plants and animals. Co-OPERATION —def—> Operating together to insure that all parties win and no party loses. The negotiation to insure that all parties are helped and no party is hurt. This makes humans the INTERdependent class of Life — sometimes others depend on me and sometimes I depend on others.  (04/02/04) Tomorrow's God The world is going to get a new God, according to New York Times best-selling author Neale Donald Walsch. It's not question of whether this astounding prediction will come true, his new book asserts; it's a matter of when. And the "when," Walsch says, is soon, within the lifetime of most of us. This bold and stunning prediction -- including what this new God will look like and how it will inspire the human race -- is the basis of “Tomorrow's God: Our Greatest Spiritual Challenge”. Will we wake up and develop this life-transforming awareness of our new God now, the book asks, or will it take an unprecedented, earthshattering tragedy before those still left on Earth admit that the ideas of “yesterday’s God” no longer work? “Tomorrow's God” predicts we will face this choice imminently. How we respond will be up to us, the book says, but one of those prospects -- breakpoint or turning point -- will characterize life on this planet before long. In what he purports to be the dictation of an actual conversation with God, author Walsch quotes God as saying that the requirements, judgments and punishments now attributed to God will soon be gone. Gone too will be the perennial cycle of conflict and violence on Earth, which the book says is based on a misbelief that God practices, and therefore approves of and encourages, such conduct. In place of “Yesterday’s God” will be a deity “whose only emotion is total love for all of humanity and Life itself, and whose agenda includes no objective other than to empower Life to produce more Life, more abundantly and more gloriously in each moment,” Walsch says. While predicting the emergence of a “New Spirituality” among the world’s people, Walsch says this does not mean the creation of a new religion. Instead, he says, “Tomorrow's God” invites us to create a new view of the religions we now embrace. The idea is not that humanity will benefit from rejecting or abandoning its present spiritual beliefs, but, rather, from expanding them to include extraordinary new possibilities. While certain principles of this New Spirituality may seem heretical to some people today, they’ll become universal truths tomorrow, Walsch asserts. These New Spirituality principles include: • There is only One God and this One God doesn’t care whether we’re Catholic or Protestant, Jewish or Muslim, Hindu or Mormon, or have no religion at all. • We are one with God and with each other. • No one is better than anyone else. • Freedom is the essence of Life, not something we earn. • Love knows no condition or limitation. Striking in its theology and expansive in its cosmology, “Tomorrow's God” offers the world a path out of its unremitting despair and a just-in-time detour from what many agree could be our journey to self-destruction. (04/02/04) 8:09:03 AM

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