2009.08.21 07:00 - Monolog

The Guardian for this meeting was quen Oh. The comments are by quen Oh.

Yakuzza Lethecus: hey there
Paul Namiboo: Good morning
Yakuzza Lethecus: you´ve been here before ?
--BELL--
Paul Namiboo: Just a couple of times -- I'm a beginner
Yakuzza Lethecus: everything said here will be logged on on the web
Yakuzza Lethecus: posted on the web
Yakuzza Lethecus: hello quen
quen Oh: hello Yakuzza and Paul
quen Oh: how are you both?
Paul Namiboo: good morning quen
Yakuzza Lethecus: fine thanks, ah ur the guardian :)
quen Oh: :-)
quen Oh: forget often to put on the grouptag
Paul Namiboo: what sorts of things do you discuss
quen Oh: everything we feel like
quen Oh: are you familiar with play as being Paul?
Yakuzza Lethecus: yeah it´s open discussion most of the time and there are also theme sessions
Paul Namiboo: only slightly -- been here twice before briefly
quen Oh: you can find more information on http://playasbeing.wik.is/
Yakuzza Lethecus: http://playasbeing.wik.is/PaB_Book
Paul Namiboo: But I can hear you
Yakuzza Lethecus: not anymore :)
quen Oh: hear me?
quen Oh: by voice you mean?
Yakuzza Lethecus: i swapped over to to voice when i heard you :)
quen Oh: hi doug
Paul Namiboo: Hi doug -- we were hearing each other
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey doug, i would even love talking here just to hear more different native pronounciations
doug Sosa: hm, let's see.
quen Oh: if you do I will not be able to hear you, as I got no equipment here
quen Oh: also it will stay out of the log
quen Oh: (you were aware these conversations are logged at the wiki Paul?)
Paul Namiboo: OK back to log?
Paul Namiboo: Yes
quen Oh: you can obviously talk on voice, then it will be a silent meditation for me and the log readers ;-)
Paul Namiboo: Doug are you alive?
quen Oh grins, Doug might have already begun silent meditation
Paul Namiboo: let's stay off voice
doug Sosa: trying voice, not getting it.
Paul Namiboo: Tried to talk to you Doug, but no luck -- let's stick to chat
doug Sosa: yes.
quen Oh smiles

And after voice conversation was ended we started to chat. Paul brings up a new abbreviation (new for me).

Paul Namiboo: OK shall we talk about the MAHB?
Yakuzza Lethecus: mahb ?
quen Oh: MAHB?
quen Oh: lol
Paul Namiboo: Millennium Assesment of Human Behavior -- Doug and I are involved in trying to start up a worldwide discussion of why, for instance, nothing gets done about climate disruption
doug Sosa: and the answer is..
quen Oh: yes what is it?
Paul Namiboo: that's what we want to find out -- the IPCC says we're in deep trouble, but social scientists can't explain why nothing gets done
Paul Namiboo: Got any ideas?
Yakuzza Lethecus: is it really that nothing gets done or the grows in the 2rd world ?
Yakuzza Lethecus: or india as on the edge to the 2nd world
quen Oh: shouldn't it be an assesment of human identity? what we feel responsible for and how we identify ourselves and humanity and the relationship between both?
--BELL--
Paul Namiboo: welll, the issue of how much developing economies should do is a live one, since the rich countries have added most of the greenhouse gases -- but if we don't all cooperate to greatly redux the flux, it looks pretty grim
Paul Namiboo: Yes the identity issues are there too -- including "what are human beings for?"
doug Sosa: I like the dea that it may be identity rather than behavior that is the leverage point.
doug Sosa: *idea
quen Oh: if humans are individuals which mainly fight and compete each other in 'the struggle for life' nothing will be done, we will remain in our small individual or - depending where you live more or less privileged - 'worlds' we live in, which compete with the ones who threaten us
Paul Namiboo: Yes, but we now know that empathy is coded into our nervous systems -- so if we can only get that to extend beyond our various "families" we might have a chance....
quen Oh: if we would consider us integral part of a unity called humanity, like a family or a complex organism, we would probably have the health of the globe among the top of our to do list
doug Sosa: lets say that several things have to happen at the same time, like identity, local measurements of energy use, seeing how a behavior can make a difference. we could make a kind of map of necessary and suffecient conditions..
Paul Namiboo: I agree -- the biggest challenge is to extend our most extended family to include everybody -- as some people already do. But if you look in the blogsphere in the US. that's a "communist idea"
quen Oh: I think reason works more effective even than empathy
Paul Namiboo: You need both -- without emotion decision making is impossible
doug Sosa: so the model includes both reason and empathy, not either or.
quen Oh: as it is for humans reason that directs and control their behaviour and even emotions
Yakuzza Lethecus: hmm reason? i grow up and knew from elementary school that we are destroying the world but i am still alienated from saving the environment, it´s still just something in the media and nothing i really do something about
quen Oh: emotion is just an indicator*, a piece of information we cannot ignore, but finally reason will really direct actions, provided capacity for reasoning is well developed

(*a very refined one)

Yakuzza Lethecus: so i knew all my life and understood the problems but somehow i don´t do anything and even most who ,,seem" to do something just use the hype
quen Oh: Yak, is the outside world responsible for you not doing anything, or are you yourself responsible?
Yakuzza Lethecus: like ,,gas from plants" they are threatening the climate even more then fossil energy
Paul Namiboo: Quen -- that's the enlightenment view that I once agreed with -- but brain research doesn't really support it any more -- sadly
doug Sosa: As Yak says, many are learning about it in elementary school. i sometimes think that the great irony is that teachers got back at the system by teaching environmentalism. I think around the world young people get it.
quen Oh: should there be some unnamed impulse that enforces you to do something you find apparently important?
doug Sosa: It has to seem important, feel important and be something one can do ..
quen Oh: excuse me Paul? you seem to say that brain research proofs that reason is not able to act upon emotions but it is the other way?
quen Oh: that we are nothing more than animals?
quen Oh: with just a wider scope of possible actions, but all determined by emotions?
Paul Namiboo: It's really hard to take effective actions an individual on the biggest environmental problems -- always gets back to politics. Are some of you in a nite part of the world -- I hear an owl??
quen Oh: well doug do you judge environmental global health as important?
doug Sosa: there is always an emotional basis for an action, otherwise the thought has no energy. what reason does is allow us to chose which emotions we want to flow into our actions through our thoughts.
Yakuzza Lethecus: ah missed ur question quen: i don´t do anything but i don´t fly, don´t consume that much for fun, don´t have a motorbike or something, i think i am very environmental friendly even while i am not doing something actively
doug Sosa: Global environment to me is a great challenge. how to put the species and nature together in an attractive way.
quen Oh: if we think about 2 and 2 which makes 4, what is the energising emotion in that thought?
doug Sosa: nobody says 2 plus 2 except to make a point in a discussion. the motion is in why they want to make the point.
doug Sosa: motion=emotion
Paul Namiboo: Studying people with brain lesions in the emotional area shows that, for example, while they can list the menus of all the local restaurants, they can't decide where to go for dinner.
quen Oh: I'd say reason allows us to evaluate emotions, and not only to how much to take them in account, but also whether we take them in account
quen Oh: Paul, doesn't that merely proof that reason needs information upon which to decide? reason is not 'natural law' or supernatural inspiration
doug Sosa: 2+2 is never found in isolation.
Paul Namiboo: Well, at least I bored the owl into silence
doug Sosa: no, dawn came!
quen Oh: so what will be the difference for the outcome in an unisolated 2 and 2 situation, what emotions could influence it?
doug Sosa: I need to go at the 7:30 bell.
quen Oh: too bad doug
quen Oh: but nice you were here
Paul Namiboo: Me too -- Doug, I may not make 9a, but will see you at 1:30p
doug Sosa: been productive. thanks.
--BELL--
Paul Namiboo: Nice chatting with you -- hpe we can do it again. Bye
quen Oh: bye Paul
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye paul

Now we are only two sitting at the point...

quen Oh: and we are left ;-)
Yakuzza Lethecus: yeah
Yakuzza Lethecus: very interesting
quen Oh: you are doing something Yak, you value the environment as important
quen Oh: and you take that value into account when you do things
Yakuzza Lethecus: sure i do, but i don´t do anything actively, like volunteer for collecting garbage at the roads
Yakuzza Lethecus: or the isolation on our house is still terrible
Yakuzza Lethecus: i drive an 17 years old car
quen Oh: that is a major difference compared to validating it as important, but claiming that one individual cannot really do anything, hence don't take it into account in your individual actions
Yakuzza Lethecus: a question for me that came up is ,,how much pollution is created by the production of a new car"
quen Oh: the idea that it is to big for one human and to leave it to the others to in some miraculous way solve it is very risky
Yakuzza Lethecus: you might buy an ,,environmental friendly car" but if you don´t drive enough you might have saved more with ur old car which created more pollution
quen Oh: if this matter will be addressed it is precisely because a lot of individuals deem it as highly and crucially important
quen Oh: and even doing small things confirm others that you do find it important
quen Oh: as your actions are in line with your values
quen Oh grins (nice about the car)
Yakuzza Lethecus: i think the incentives have to be set right
quen Oh: I often thought how efficient a white car plan would be, where we own cars in communities, with a payment system per use, perhaps we could even afford chauffeurs when we use every car the majority of the day
Yakuzza Lethecus: i have to be afk for 30 minutes :(
quen Oh: most are just waiting the big part of the day
quen Oh: taking precious space, which could be green
quen Oh: too bad Yak

And I wave goodbye to the spirit behind the now deserted Yak-ava... And we are one..

quen Oh: the idea that a company which has now a huge parking terrain next to its building with 8 hours a day cars standing there, compared to a view where there are some buses and a lot of green and the money and space that go into the expensive cars (buying, feeding, maintaining and parking them) goes into a very nice building where we have more room to work, nice views on the green, perhaps a company pond etc
quen Oh: the company building could easily provide its own power, heating, cooling and water purification
quen Oh: but well, I am a dreamer :-)
quen Oh: as an architect I did build a self-sustaining houseboat, so I know it is possible
quen Oh: ... this seems to become a dreamy monologue..
--BELL--
quen Oh: I just took my time and have read back the conversation
quen Oh: it worries me that apparently emotions, as a natural reaction beyond our control are getting accepted as more important than our reasoning..
quen Oh: what I find remarkable too is that to answer questions on how to get us humans address the environmental problems we study human behaviour or the biological system of our brains
quen Oh: human behaviour is the consequence of our values and our identity, it is what we value and reason as important that will direct our actions
quen Oh: why would the biological system of our brains give us answers, all that is cause and effect and biological is not causing the problem of global environmental problems
quen Oh: it seems that if human evolution had stopped to further develop, the problem would probably not exist; it is not animal or plants or matter kingdom that is responsible for the problems, it is the human
quen Oh: because we humans had the mind to think, to steer the world around us into a different direction
quen Oh: a mind that can reason, is free to place thoughts between what we perceive (senses, emotions, former experiences) and how we interpret that
quen Oh: even though it makes sense to connect thinking into a non-contradictory whole
quen Oh: it is possible to not think things through that way, if we want
quen Oh: it is also possible to act or speak not in line with our thoughts
quen Oh: not in line with our values or motives
quen Oh: so what is the use of studying our biological system, or our behaviour, when the real problem is what we value, and whether we act and speak in line with that validation?
quen Oh: I think Yak is doing something only by speaking about it already, that is an action to share that he thinks environment is important
quen Oh: it is even more powerful when it shows in small things he does not or ones he does and could easily do different and less environmentally friendly
quen Oh: actions and speaking will encourage others to express themselves too
quen Oh: and it seems unlikely that others will respond as proof that they disagree, since it seems unlikely a rational being will agree it is a good idea to leave global environmental problems unadressed

These seem to me the most necessary conditions which Doug was speaking about, actions and words that encourage the mind of others to validate the environment.

--BELL--
quen Oh: well.. too bad, I don't think Yakuzza is returning from his afk state soon, and I have to go... I'll wave goodbye to his avabody
quen Oh: bye Yak

:-) and his ava comes alive!

Yakuzza Lethecus: i am here
Yakuzza Lethecus: just came back with the 90 seconds silence
Yakuzza Lethecus: i was reading
Yakuzza Lethecus: since then
quen Oh: lol sorry I made a very long monologue
Yakuzza Lethecus: i guess for the log
quen Oh: monolog ;-)
Yakuzza Lethecus: yeah, that kind of a thought isn´t solvable in a few sentences anyway
quen Oh: not really
quen Oh: amazing how the first 30 minutes flew of this meeting
Yakuzza Lethecus: yeah, i really loved to follow doug and paul
quen Oh: it got me thinking
Yakuzza Lethecus: and doug had a very clear deep american voice so i could imagine that he does something in the public
quen Oh: ah nice, you have heard voice of course
Yakuzza Lethecus: i am a german native and the english language is also a reason why i am here
quen Oh: ah nice
quen Oh: I am dutch
quen Oh: can speak german too, but typing on us keyboard is hell
Yakuzza Lethecus: and i figured out that it´s more important to forget the ,,other language"
Yakuzza Lethecus: to learn it implicitly then to ,,i want to learn english,spanish..."
quen Oh: yep, that works best it seems
Yakuzza Lethecus: i am german
quen Oh: sl improved my english too
Yakuzza Lethecus: you guys in the NL grew up with english telly so it´s at least easier for most of the dutch people
quen Oh: true, it would make a difference if germans and french would too subtitle english television instead of voice-over
Yakuzza Lethecus: anyway, have a great evening
quen Oh: you too!
quen Oh: hope to see you another time here
Yakuzza Lethecus: i belief so :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye
quen Oh: bye Yakuzza