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Aporia - Praxis

I’ve chosen to write about three topics here – Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), climate change and war. The reason for choosing these three is that they relate so closely to matters already discussed in previous writings – Theoria, Poiesis and Polis. They are also considered to be amongst the most serious concerns for humanity in the current era. It’s not my intention to examine the three topics in detail – far less to offer solutions. Instead I’m looking to understand how these issues shine a light on how we all choose to live. Such existential threats can seem daunting and render us powerless in the face of difficulties too big to cope with. But if, rather than trying to solve the problems, we consider instead how they might inform and change our lives individually, then this offers us, in my view, a better approach. We have the opportunity of approaching the world differently rather than being burdened with guilt over being unable to change it. Turning first to AGI, it’s...
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Longing for the Commons

A good description of the Commons is given on one website: ‘The global commons is the set of natural resources, basic services, public spaces, cultural traditions and other essentials of life and society that are, or should be, part of a public trust to be enjoyed by all people and cherished for the public’s well-being. Another way to conceive of these assets is how it is said in Spanish: el bien común – the common good. Behind the commons is the fundamental idea that life, information, human relationships, popular culture and the earth’s riches are sacrosanct and not for sale.’ This essay looks at the shades of meaning implicit in the term ‘the Commons’. Perhaps in popular speech the term describes an area of land set aside for public use. Previously that use may have been pasture for cattle or space for food growing. Today, it is more likely to be for recreation – such as parks or beaches. The so-called ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ is based on a pamphlet by William Foster Lloyd w...
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Aporia: Polis

Some thoughts from Poiesis, to start this work: Value may be innate to the universe, but this does not lessen the problem of constructing pragmatic moral rules. Some moral principles seem to be derived from aesthetics – fairness and equality, for instance. These can be understood by our ‘mammalian’ brain. Some moral principles require rational thought – via the uniquely human aspect of the brain. This split between mammalian and human – body and rationality – causes quite a bit of confusion for us, as embodied agents. We will often hear the body’s response, but we will then try to rationalise with our minds – not noticing any contradictions. Our sense of the sacred – even for ‘unbelievers’ – also has an impact on our sense of right and wrong – not necessarily connected to our bodily or rational responses. Finally, there is our human fixation with power – as explored more fully in what follows. (It would be nice if people obsessed with power were also people who are less attuned to t...
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Deep Ecology

There is a spectrum of human response to the natural world, from seeing it a resource to be exploited for human benefit on the one hand through to seeing humanity as part of a single living system. From the Environmentalist point of view, the destruction of natural habitats, pollution and climate change are all primarily threats to human well-being and as such they are potential disasters. From an Ecology point of view, humans are almost the disease! The rest of Nature would recover and continue without us if we were gone. However, without bacteria, everything else would be dead within days if not hours. And what about the seas without plankton? And ‘…once the bees are gone, the humans have got ten years’. (Albert Einstein) A Deep Ecology point of view takes this a stage further and doesn’t really distinguish between humans and all other life. These ideas can be summarised by saying that there is a continuum from a ‘commodified’ (extrinsic) view of Nature to one which ascribe...
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Longing for Home

Let me start by saying that I think, as people, we are always longing for home, but that actually we never quite reach it. Life’s a quest for home that’s never accomplished. I think that this should inform our living and our building in some way, but at the moment I’m not sure how. Should we, for instance, try to build for eternity in order to defy the contingencies that life throws at us? Or should we accept the precarity of our existence and build with only the lightest of touches on the Earth? At the moment I am leaning more towards this lightness of touch option. Our homes are the physical manifestation of who we believe ourselves to be and what is important in our lives. They are also the means by which we achieve some of the key things in our lives such as raising a family, or perhaps running a business from home or simply having a safe refuge from a busy life lived in the outside world. So, I have taken to describing this as ‘celebrating home’. Just as, hopefully, in oth...
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Longing for Community

Deep Ecologist writer Joanna Macey says that our starting point in relating to the Universe should be Gratitude. The Earth has given us life and hopefully also health. She provides our food and everything else we rely on for our continued existence. Perhaps you could stretch this and call it Providence – or even Grace. I think we can believe in Grace even without any religious affiliations. Somehow life exists and thrives despite all the odds stacked against it. Somehow too, especially when we are engaged in some creative activity (which is most of the time) – there is a strength that seems to come from beyond ourselves. I think it is not a good idea to presume to know the origin of this Grace. I think it is better if it is considered part of the Mystery of life – of which nothing can be said. However, I do believe that we can try to be the means of Grace in the world. This would be a true and pragmatic form of spirituality – not abstract and other-worldly, but rooted in the h...
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Aporia: Poiesis

From Theoria, a summary of thoughts thus far: The universe, viewed from the ‘outside’ – as a ‘thing-in-itself’ is fundamentally mysterious. It might be that the universe is no more than the sum of its parts – in which case, it might be known from the inside and knowing it from the outside is not a problem. But it may be that it’s more than the sum of its parts. ‘The One’ suggests this second alternative. From ‘the One’ there is a cascade of emergence. Order emerges from chaos – creates ‘the Many’. Part of order is quantum potential, from which particles emerge. From particles, the chemical elements. From elements, chemical compounds. From chemical compounds, life. From life, consciousness. There may be further stages of emergence, in a way leading right back to ‘the One’. It might be that all of this is within the bounds of our science – that every stage is a purely natural process. Or it may be something we choose to describe as ‘supernatural’ is going on. Or it might be th...
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