To Be Better at Getting Honey

You may remember me saying that each of us is both scientist and poet. I need to expand that thought. The poet is Third Nature, exploring new ideas creatively. The scientist is Second Nature, gathering evidence and making sense of things. 

I would add that First Nature is the busy worker doing the usual without much thought because the routine is settled and the tools are at hand. A beekeeper will tell you that getting honey is not that simple. 

A worker beekeeper may raise bees successfully for years until the bees all die because of varroa mites or chemicals used in agriculture. Then the old methods just don't work any more.

A poet beekeeper imagines putting a bluetooth speaker in the hive playing an audiobook of Ulysses by James Joyce at high volume. Should work. As I recall, when I listened, I was gone after the first chapter. The varroa mites might last two or three chapters. We could try some Tennyson between chapters to make sure the bees don't leave. Failing that, we will see what can be done with genetic engineering or ultrasound or magnetic fields or perfume or a ban on pesticides. The research is going to take some time during which we will be scientist beekeepers. We'll have to get funding and be bookkeeper beekeepers for awhile. Meanwhile we can grow something self-pollinating like beans and squash and get accustomed to breakfast without honey like wannabe beekeepers.

While the poet is busy thinking, she would be a good meal for a bear who would prefer honey but will enjoy a nice poet if there's nothing sweeter available. Poets should be aware that there is a time to stop thinking and run. 

Sorry if I'm rambling. 286 words so far.
I actually have an idea in mind. Just a few more words.

Working as usual is dandy
when things are good.
Otherwise, we do better
being poet and scientist as well as worker,
all of that and more
as the situation demands. 

****************

Beekeeper Looks for Answers: CBC News, July 2, 2024

Being is Becoming

I'm up to chapter 18 of "Waves in an Impossible Sea". Now we're into "miraculous capabilities beyond easy reach of our imaginations". Now, everything is wavicles. 

Is what?

While grandpa was getting used to new-fangled atoms, nuclei and electrons were news. Then quarks and antiquarks and gluons, bosons and fermions, baryons and leptons, until dark matter confounded the genius of another age. How now shall we cram a universe of wavicles into our tiny minds?

We knew what we knew,
until the wordless silence
drowned meaning in Mystery.

And still new mumbled metaphors
or whispered wisdoms
inform our ignorance,
invoking endless questions.

It's OK.
Don't fret.
Being is Becoming
and always was.

*******************

Models can never be complete: Big think

Being Cool

This morning, in the kitchen, when I gave Dorothy a hug, she complained that I felt cold. She wasn't wrong. I had finished my shower, as I do occasionally, with a full minute of cold, cold, cold, brrrrr, cold water. 

You're wondering why I would do that. I told you a couple of years ago. You just forgot.

This is how it goes. You do your usual cozy-dozy five minutes with the taps adjusted just right. Then you remember the bizarre doctrine (probably spread by a Russian troll) that finishing cold will give you a buzz, wake you up, and get you running right for the rest of the day. Sure it will. Putin is snickering all the way to the Kremlin.

But what if there is something to it? Then OK, you're going to do it; nah wait till tomorrow maybe; yah...nah...yah...nah, back and forth for a couple of minutes. Finally you remember that when you chicken out you feel like a slug until the next shower, and if you go ahead and do it, it only hurts for a little while. Then you go for it, shut the hot off and wait with your eyes squeezed tight for the chill to hit . When it comes, 288 muscles spasm in unison, including the iliacus, articularis genus, and flexor carpi radialis. Don't believe me? Ask Wikipedia. Then you start counting with your jaws clenched, one Mississippi, two Mississippi... on the way to sixty bloody Mississippi, which feels like it will never come because you are trapped in a relativistic time warp while you punish your belly and your back and your head, shifting position every ten Mississippis in case something was missed and is getting warm. 

Finally you arrive at the beautiful Mississippi delta and you turn off the tap and discover that you are alive and happy and a hug is waiting in the kitchen.

Trust me. I'm Canadian.
I know about this stuff.

Things go better
when you aren't hot all the time.

Better Than Special

If I stepped on your beliefs in the previous note, it could be that we both need a second look at the Mystery of reality and what we believe about it. I grew up thinking that believing was one's duty to the group. Now I think otherwise. Beliefs are better guides if we don't claim they are absolute and eternal, and instead keep working on improving them. They point the way until they get in the way. The duty of the group is to rethink its beliefs. Forever. Never done. That is something we can share.

Ideas come to mind through creative imagination, or inspiration. I call that Third Nature, a mode of thinking that looks beyond belief. Inspiration is something we can share, but since it is often unusual, it may leave us wondering. 

It is Second Nature to make sense of new ideas that leave us wondering, to make them fit with what we already know, or adjust what we know to fit the evidence. Second Nature is something we can share. 

If we make sense of ideas, they may become trusted beliefs. It is First Nature to use a belief as a handy tool that doesn't have to be reinvented every time it is needed. Belief is something we can share.

Years ago, when it became clear that my girlfriend and I had certain different beliefs, we agreed that our relationship didn't have a future, and we broke up. For a day or two. It turned out that love was more important than belief. Now married sixty years, neither of us believes all that we once believed. We have shared more than sixty years of rethinking beliefs which has kept us growing together as the world shifted around us. 

But there is more. An idea is itself a value-added reality with implications for the reality from which it emerged. We imagine a better future, and work to make it happen. Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out as planned, so we have to keep checking the Mystery and rethinking our ideas to do better. That is something we can share.

Once upon a time, an old man told a story about the genesis of things and people being special, which people readily believed. Then we got busy messing things up because we believed that being special gave us permission. That was the beginning of the end for a reality in which we get what we want while nature deals with the mess. Shall we take a another look at the Mystery and rethink creatively?

Consider this novel idea. We can be better than Special by Belonging, which means we get to clean up our mess. That too is something we can share. 

That's all for now. Time to do the vacuuming.

We Belong to the Earth: my song. 139 views on Youtube. I'm famous!

****************

Climate Dashboard: check out what's happening, CBC News

Survey of Abandoned Gas Wells in B. C.: Isaac Phan Nay, CBC News, June 22, 2024

Models can never be complete: Big Think

While the Children Play

I have arrived at chapter 15 of "Waves in an Impossible Sea". The title of this chapter is "Elementary Fields, a second humble look". I was already lost by chapter 13. Just now, I'm getting accustomed to being lost, and maybe being lost is the point. 

As it happens, even the one writing the book admits to being lost. If you don't admit to being lost, you are stuck in an imaginary world in which you know where you are and what you are doing. That is quite normal.  I mean, it's normal to be lost and not know it. Also normal is recruiting others to inhabit your fantasy with you. Ignorance craves certainty and certainty loves company. Together we must be right, since we can't all be wrong. 

As it happens, being wrong is the normal human condition. Whatever world we think we live in, it is not the real world but rather a model based on sensation, perception, received information and rational organization of accumulated thoughts. At every stage, the model is faulty and incomplete. 

Understand? "Understand" is such a friendly, reassuring word. I think it describes a mental state in which new information fits rather nicely with what we already know so the mental work appears to be done. But what if our perceptions have been subverted by biases? What if we aren't thinking logically? What if we are unaware of pertinent facts? What if our metaphors suggest parallels where none exist? Perhaps what we already know is wrong?

An elder in some tribe in antiquity told a story around the campfire that people were God's favourite creation. There was a warning in the story that being smart was dangerous. The story has been retold forever. We especially like the part about being God's favourites. It means the world is our garden and we get to use whatever we find there. We tend to ignore the warning about being so smart that we mess up the garden and the fun will be over.

Reality itself is complete and coherent. In the theology of Moses, IT IS what IT IS. Our thoughts are more or less useful guides as we grope our way through reality without being sure what it is. If we are humble, we will take a second look. If we are wise, we will respect the miracle that has spawned us, restrain our appetites, and work to make this garden last a bit longer...

while the children play.

*****************

Cat Stevens' song has been suggested as the sound track for this note: Where do the Children Play

Cosmic Evolution: Craig R. van der Maas

Shifting Gears

I made the porridge this morning. I wasn't performing at my best today as breakfast chef. When I went to dish it up, I found I had made oatmeal soup instead of porridge. Thinking back, I must have used one scoop of oatmeal instead of the usual two. I was probably thinking about writing this note when I should have been concentrating on cooking. I didn't shift gears.

In previous notes I drew attention to different modes of thinking which I called Second Nature and First Nature, raising a question. How many modes of thinking are there? Hold on. I promise not to write about 198 more human Natures. Three is quite enough for my tiny brain. Or maybe four if we count neutral.

So here we go. We're talking about different human Natures as if they were gears and we are learning to drive. If we always leave the shifting up to the automatic transmission, sometimes we wind up with soup when we want porridge. Excuse the mixed metaphors. Just now I am writing this note and I need to shift gears. So let's apply this metaphor to the climate emergency. How are we going to fix this mess?

Neutral is ignoring what's going on because we are distracted, or in denial, or happy making money off fossil fuels, or leaving it up to someone else to fix. While in neutral, we're going to coast.

First Gear is quick and intuitive action to counter immediate threats and supply urgent needs. We're not going to waste time thinking it over. We'll just trust our gut and maybe get things right, or not. If your house is on fire, get out. This isn't the time to write to the government about climate policy or shop online for a smoke alarm.

On the other hand, if your house is not on fire, you could write a letter promoting policies to reduce the chance of fire or check the smoke alarm to be ready in the event. Second Gear is slow but mighty, objective and rational, generating ideas which ripen into understanding and belief as they are proven in use. Use this gear when you need control. After you write the letter and check the smoke alarm, reconsider your landscaping which could be a fire hazard. 

Third Nature is imaginative, questioning, innovative, progressive. Better ideas may take time to develop and implement, but they will eventually get us up to speed when we need to go a distance. Don't use the lower gears on the highway. Wildfires are on the rise partly because of global GHG emissions. We need global action.

If we rely on the automatic transmission, we don't always get the gear we need.

It seems that when we are at leisure, prosperous and safe, we automatically shift up, which may be fine. But when we are busy, needy or threatened we shift down. Automatic shifting is a First Nature response requiring no thought. Like this.

As the climate emergency advances and we are more threatened and needy, we are seeing all over the world an automatic shift down to protect immediate interests and reduce commitment to serious solutions. Just when we need to be progressive and adapt to change, we insist on business as usual because things were better awhile ago. Of course, what was working awhile ago is the reason we are in trouble now, and business as usual means more trouble. 

To make things worse, just when we need coordinated action on a global level with everybody cutting emissions, we withdraw into national and partisan groups because those other guys are the problem. After all, there's just a few of us, so we don't do much damage... 

...unless we are alive; then we are part of the problem. In my opinion, if we can't get together and stop burning carbon, we're done. Automatic shifting isn't working. We need to take control and shift up. Let's do it.

When I saw the soup in the porridge pot, I didn't yell something unprintable, throw the soup in the garbage and have ice cream for breakfast. I added another scoop of oatmeal, and we waited until it cooked. It was worth the wait.

******************

Limits to Growth: Live Science, July 2021

Far Right Gains in EU: BBC, Katya Adler, June 10 2024.

Economic Case for Climate Action: David Suzuki and Ian Hanington

High Voltage Link Morocco to UK: Just Have a Think, June 9, 2024

GHG Emissions by Country: Wikipedia

GHG Emissions by Country: Our World in Data, 2022

Firewise Landscape Design: Logan Hailey, Epic Gardening

Carbon-calculator: TreeCanada

Wildfires: CTV News

Climate Change Fuels Wildfires Worldwide: David Suzuki, August 8, 2024

**************

Report on our rooftop solar array:
-installed March 2018
-in operation 75 months
-installation cost $29,774
-revenue to date  $20,581
-energy produced 71.5 Mwh
-electrical use       60.9 Mwh
14 years remaining on contract
projected 24 years of use remaining

When You Meet a Bear

Alan Wilson, CC BY-SA 3.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

In a recent note, I suggested that sapiens (wise) was Second Nature for us humans, our First Nature being insapiens (unwise). I recant. Defining our First Nature as what it is lacking isn't quite fair. Our First Nature is, after all, what kept us alive and thriving in a dangerous world while our Second Nature was taking a few million years to evolve.

So give a cheer for the part of us so essential we can't even settle on a good name for it: instinct, intuition, gut feeling, heart and soul, spirit. Daniel Kahneman called it "thinking fast", since it is effortless, simplistic, automatic, reflexive, and instantly ready. First Nature is that. Save it for when you meet a bear.

First Nature is also egoic, aimed at defense of the self, and by extension, protection of groups on which we depend: my family, my tribe, my religion, my country, my species. The in-group is treated with respect, generosity, compassion, trust, all the warm fuzzy stuff, simply because we are us. Nothing wrong with that. However, the outsiders get indifference, suspicion, exclusion, aggression, exploitation, all the nasty stuff, just because they are not us. Group-think is effortless, quick and easy. And useful if you meet a bear.

Thinking slow is Second Nature. It is Second Nature to gather more information, assess the situation, respond in an appropriate way to solve a problem, evaluate results and modify the plan. 

Also, it is Second Nature to direct our attention outward to the other. For example, if the stranger is a potential friend, the costs of conflict can be avoided by some congenial discussion maybe making us stronger together. That is Second Nature thinking, not much good on bears. For bears, you carry,...let me think,... a jar of honey, an air horn, a can of pepper spray, or a gun. I gotta go shopping. 

Grrrrrrrrr! 

Too late.

Also, growing the group is not without problems. Larger groups require more structure and regulation, which attracts and enables those who gravitate to positions of power and control. Control could get us stuck in habitual submission or disobedience. There may be yelling but no discussion because nobody is listening. That is First Nature, lots of yelling and no listening. Save it for when you meet a bear.

Second Nature in a group requires focusing on problem solving and finding consensus, a trading of information and opinions until there is some agreement. Don't use it on a bear. 

So, First Nature and Second Nature each have their domain. If a bear enters parliament, I suggest First Nature. Get under the desk or out the door or something. Don't send your concerns to a committee to find out who is responsible for inviting the bear. On the other hand, when scientists are saying we are approaching climate tipping points and if we don't stop burning carbon the world as we know it will collapse in a few decades, dont yell about taxes. The government isn't going to fix this even if they try. When they try, we voters get all First Nature and vote in a new government that won't tax carbon. The new government just wants the power and glory, and will do nothing about climate until everything collapses. When that happens, First Nature will be back in style. Well, there won't be bears. They will be extinct. But there will be people with guns...maybe...for awhile.

There are signs that the climate emergency might be solved by smaller groups whose leaders don't care about the next election. That's you and me. We've got work to do. Let's fix this. No, it isn't going to be easy. But this is a slow emergency. Maybe there's enough time. Fixing it is Second Nature or Third, and we're gonna try to get things right.

**********************

School Carbon Off-set Project: What on Earth, June 6, 2024

Oil and Gas Ads: CBC News, Christian Paas-Lang, June 8, 2024

Financial Risk of Carbon Capture Tech: Amanda Stephenson, CBC News, June 4, 2024

Ottawa Abolishes Green Fund: Daniel Leblanc, June 4, 2024, CBC News

Remain Sapiens

So far there are no comments on the previous note. Nobody wants to suggest a moral to the story of Flavius and the Gulls. My girl and I talked it over this morning. There is an obvious point to be made: the importance of restraint so we don't destroy what sustains us. However, thinking through the fable, we are left wondering. Some things don't feel right. We aren't sure about exploiting people's instincts such as their desire for fashion and novelty; that seems manipulative and self-serving.  Also we don't admire making wisdom into a business. We have this instinct for altruism; it can't be good unless it costs you something to benefit others, as if sacrifice is admirable and profiteering is evil. We wonder.

Perhaps wondering is the point of the story and has been the point forever in myths about the antics of the gods with their very human peccadillos. We wonder about them and learn something about ourselves. We learn that our motives are conflicted, that selfishness and altruism must coexist, that sacrifice and profit are complementary rather than antagonistic. The task of wisdom is to find a way that honours all the competing imperatives, a thoughtful yet tentative way into a better future even if the best is out of reach.

So my object here is to leave you wondering about politics and business, rights and duties, faith and doubt, whatever comes to mind in an unravelling world. Those who insist they know the right answers may not have asked the right questions. 

Those who wonder remain sapiens.

**************

Ignoring Climate Crisis Wont Make it Disappear: David Suzuki Foundation, June 2024

Call For Fossil Fuel Ads to be Banned: Benjamin Shingler, CBC News, June 6, 2024

The Pros and Cons of Carbon Tax: TVO podcast, The Agenda, May 2024. 

The Collapse is Coming: Nautilus interview with Dan Brooks, coauthor with Sal Agosta of "A Darwinian Survival Guide"

Dropping In

Searching for a title for this note, I wanted a more accurate name to replace homo sapiens. Of course, sapiens means wise. Wisdom is second nature for our species. Our first nature is to ignore or suppress inconvenient information to secure an advantage now even risking trouble later. At least one neurologist has spoken of an epidemic of stupidity, meaning that when reason contradicts intuition, we tend to trust our gut rather than our wit. We are sometimes homo stupidus. Since that sounds a bit quarrelsome, let's settle for homo insapiens (unwise).

What follows is the fable of Flavius Insapiens and the Gulls; apologies to the gods of Rome who never took part in this story. Any resemblance to gods living or dead is purely coincidental.

Flavius, yellow, as we say in English, was the colour of this young man's hair. Flavius Insapiens was a blond youth who was often unwise and therefore often in trouble, which the girls found interesting. Since I was once a blond youth who was often in trouble, I can tell you that the part about the girls is pure fiction. I know for a fact that only the most imaginative and wise girl can appreciate the potential of a dumb blond boy. And I found her first. She's mine. But this is only a fable, after all. 

Anyway, after some particularly unwise behaviour, Flavius found himself in court. The magistratus reasoned (without proof) that Flavius wouldn't cause much trouble if he were alone, so he was exiled to Gull Island, Insula Larum as they say in Rome. Flavius became a drop-out from civil society.

Gull Island was home to thousands of gulls who were well-fed on sardines (pisciculi). Since Flavius was the only hungry top-predator around, he found gull eggs easy pickings. He ate more than he needed and grew fat and lazy (pinguis et piger). But then the gull population began to decline. Flavius saw what was happening and knew why, but true to his nature he continued eating his fill until there were few gulls left and nothing much to eat but gramen, or grass as we say in Canada.

One day, the wind blew a small boat to the shore of the island. An exceptionally imaginative, wise and lovely girl named Minerva stepped out onto the shore and into the solitude of Flavius. She noted that he was blond, but wisely didn't blame him for that because it wasn't his fault. Besides, his diet of gramen had left him trim and handsome. All considered, she was pleased to have dropped in.

For his part, Flavius was glad of the company and invited Minerva to stay for dinner. Doing his best to be a good host, he hunted around until he found a nest, which supplied four nice eggs. After dinner they relaxed with a cup of gramen tea and enjoyed conversation. Being exceptionally alert as well as imaginative and wise, Minerva asked Flavius why there were so few gulls when seashores were typically crowded with nesting birds. He confessed that it was his habit to eat all the eggs he could find, which was likely a problem for the gulls. She wisely suggested that it would be good to take no more than one egg from a nest. Restraint would allow the gulls to flourish once again. 

Flavius did as she said, and as time passed the gulls flourished. So also did Flavius and Minerva. They lived happily ever after as the Sapiens family, dropping "in" from his surname in remembrance of the day she dropped in at Gull Island and encouraged him to be wise. Their children were named Harum Insapiens and Scarum Insapiens. They took after their father and would have to prove themselves before dropping "in" to be wise.

Harum and Scarum took the family myth seriously and went to work on the drop-in theme. They talked Dad into opening a drop-in hair salon where visitors to Gull Island could have their hair bleached. Before long, blond became the new IN. From then on, dropping IN meant switching to the new green or pink or bald or whatever looked new. Nobody wanted last season's IN hairstyle, and Flavius was ready to help them drop it...for a price.

The kids knew their Mum had the brains in the family and put some thought into making that pay. They advertised on the Rome omnibus: "Drop IN from MINERVA". Catchy. When you drop "in" from Minerva you get MERVA which they explained was an acronym for Maximizing Every Rational Value Asset, exactly Minerva's skill set. The gossip began to spread: "after a drop-in home visit from life-coach Minerva, your prospects begin to look amazing" (or mirabile, as they say). The kids arranged a few interviews at the forum, and her calendar was soon booked solid.

As for Harum and Scarum, after they dropped "in" and adopted the family name, they became the wisest marketing firm in the empire. 

Following the tradition of fable writers, I leave the moral of the story up to you. Drop in your thoughts below, from the gut or the neocortex, your choice.

****************

Daniel Kahneman: on the conflicted motives of homo economicus.

Carbon Pricing Debate Getting Worse: Aaron Wherry, CBC News, June 5, 2024

MPs Grill Oil and Gas Execs: Benjamin Shingler, CBC News, June 6, 2024