Sunday, May 29, 2005

Popular blogosphere blogger Joi Ito reports on a conversation with Dr. Roger Payne, the president of Ocean Alliance, a MacArthur-winning whale researcher. It turns out that Humpback whales riff off each other, remixing one another's songs, and developing trends and fashions in their singing over time:

"He explained to me that Humpback Whales sang beautiful songs. They copy from each other, remixing the songs and add to the songs. These songs evolve over time and riffs get passed from whale to whale across the world. The songs have lots of interesting variations and even have rhymes. He made an interesting observation that the whale songs of the 60's were much more beautiful than the whale songs these days." Posted at Joi Ito's Web

Also - link to Ocean Alliance's site.

So, why are the songs not as beautiful anymore: is the web of life becoming corrupted? Polluted? Singing, after all, reflects our happiness - like when we sing in the shower/bath... I hope our evolutionary shift is not losing it's beautiful song...




Saturday, May 21, 2005

There is an interesting article/website called 'Building the Noosphere Network'

- this belongs to the Noosphere website which has some interesting information on our evolutionary shift towards collaborative intelligence:

"The Noosphere is an image that describes the consciousness of people who are aware --at the highest possible level-- of the sense of life and existence, and of their vocation and active role within this process. An essential characteristic of this Noosphere is that de people who are part of it communicate with each other --by several means, but nowadays mostly by Internet--, thus enhancing each other's consciousness about this fundamental information, and strengthening their sense of responsability and active involvement in the global evolutionary process.

The notion "Noosphere Society" includes all people on earth that are wholly conscious of the meaning of cosmic evolution, and aware of the personal implications of this reality, this evolutionary vocation. Those people spontaneously interact with each other, widening this circle and bringing people with the same vision in contact with each other. They communicate spontaneously, on a local, direct physical basis, but most probably primarily by Internet. Their meetings and contacts can be organized, but due to their sense of a "maximal" responsability, an essential aspect of the universal constructive attitude, they most probably elaborate such a synergy without official structures. So, probably, it's better to speak about a Network than about a Society, because the latter implies specific structures."

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Washington Post writer Joel Garreau has an extract from his forthcoming book titled "Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human" in an article today called 'Inventing our Evolution'

It looks at some of the projects underway to affect the inner side of our evolution in terms of tampering with our metabolism and DNA. Again, a sign that science is asking the questions about the future but forgetting the central question: what it means to be human.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

News channel NBC is running an interesting report called: 'Fast Forward - The Future of Evolution' - one of the recent articles is entitled 'Human Evolution at the Crossroads: Genetics, cybernetics complicate forcast for species'

Extract: 'Some think the rapid rise of genetic modification could be just such a circumstance. Others believe we could blend ourselves with machines in unprecedented ways — turning natural-born humans into an endangered species.'

On this site there are links to such interactive reports as: 'Before and After Humans' will looks at the possible genetically modified human species.

Interesting read

Tuesday, May 03, 2005


This is an interesting, surprising little book (mentioned earlier on this site) which demonstrates, using crystalline photo images, the effects that words and environments have upon the crystal-structure of water. Gentle words and environments create beautiful, geometrical, and harmonious arrangments. Whereas, harsh words and disruptive environments result in blurry and fuzzy molecular blobs of water. A wonderful way to see how one's thoughts and actions are reflected, received, and absorbed into all living structures around us. Thus assuring us once again that separation is an anthropocentric illusion.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

The noosphere commentator and transhumanist Mark Pesce has created a wonderfully engaging full-length film called 'Becoming Transhuman' which runs for 1hr, 11 mins and is a free download from the site. It contains some wonderful cosmic images, as well as the thought-provoking narration.

If you have the time, Realplayer, and fancy a lesson in Transhumanist thought....
A new MA course has been set up by Andrew Cohen (founder of magazine 'What is Enlightenment) called: 'Master of Arts Degree in Conscious Evolution' - in conjunction with 'The Graduate Institute' in Milford, Connecticut, US. Interesting.....!

Although it does feature some of the authors previously mentioned on these pages, such as Duane Elgin, Elisabet Sahtouris, and Brian Swimme...

Is this another 'Mickey Mouse' education course, or is it a move in the right direction?

I have no experience of the course...so my judgment is in suspension.