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- Insights from geology on incomplete information, uncertainty, and problem solving
- Emma Marris’s new contribution to understanding wildness & wilderness, with a critique of the notion that landscapes can (or should) be returned to a baseline date or condition
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Category Archives: Effective Action
“toxic mix of individualism and fear”
A couple of weeks ago our Saturday morning discussion group in the hospital cafeteria talked about how the lack of care and medical treatment for pain and addiction patients seems to stem from a lack of empathy rooted in a … Continue reading
Insights from geology on incomplete information, uncertainty, and problem solving
Came across the following in the new issue of the Geological Society of America journal for members. A basic notion is that frequently a set of facts we know, or can know, are open to multiple interpretations, any or all … Continue reading
World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth: There is no conversation
Went through Google, Google News & the NY Times website looking for coverage and discussion of the climate conference recently hosted by Bolivia, the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. See the summary & … Continue reading
Posted in Effective Action
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The Dalai Lama’s martial artistry
Seeing him for the first time, on the video of his talk on ethics at UC Santa Barbara, I was surprised, though perhaps should not have been, to find that the Dalai Lama moves with the presence of a trained … Continue reading
Posted in Aikido, Effective Action
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Penetrating our most secure fortifications
Any genuine framework for effective action has to take into account the limits of rationality and go beyond them. How? Frank Rich’s column today points to the problem, but doesn’t provide answers: [The White House party gate-crashing] was a symbolic … Continue reading
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Consequences of choice of symbols: Framing and describing is more than an analytic tool
Framing and describing is more than an analytic tool. The words and concepts used are symbols that carry meanings, often multiple and easily unconscious, that have consequences and affect action. Writing the natural history of the Wrangell Mountains thus can … Continue reading
Posted in Effective Action, Natural History
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State of the art reasoned analysis of complex social-economic systems
Kauffman is saying that the following sort of analysis is useful, in fact essential, but also inherently incomplete and insufficient: From Ostrom, Elinor, Marco A Janssen, and John M Anderies. 2007. Going beyond panaceas. Proceedings of the National Academy of … Continue reading
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Why reasoned analysis is an insufficient foundation for effective action & leadership
In his Tillich lecture at Harvard this year, Stuart A . Kauffman says, “Reason is an insufficient guide to living our lives. … Therefore, we need all we’ve got. We need reason, emotion, intuition, imagination, story …” (Spoken at 48:20 … Continue reading
Posted in Effective Action
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“Sorting the relevant from the irrelevant, identifying salience, and directing decisions when uncertainty prevents definitive judgment.”
More support for bringing the Buddhist notion of “practice” into the practice of effective public leadership: from Feleppa, Robert. 2009. Zen, Emotion and Social Engagement. Philosophy East & West 59, no. 3 (July): 263-293. In the past two decades a … Continue reading
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Conze on perennial and sciential philosophies
The crux here is bringing the perennial and the sciential together, so they are both seen and experienced, though the distinctions are not blurred. Seems like the dichotomy is similar to (identical with?) the distinction between the ultimate and historical … Continue reading
Posted in Effective Action, Natural History
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