terça-feira, 3 de dezembro de 2013

The five pillars of Third Industrial Revolution of Jeremy Rifkin


Jeremy Rifkin wrote that the third industrial revolution has five pillars that are connected each other and need to come all together:
1 – Changing for renewable energy.
2 – Local micro generators of energy.
3 – Storing of energy in all buildings and constructions.
4 – Sharing of energy among those “small” generators.
5 – Change the transporting vehicles to a kind o energy source that can be exchanged in a net of energy.  

sábado, 30 de novembro de 2013

The Third Industrial Revolution of Jeremy Rifkin


Jeremy Rifkin wrote about a “third industrial revolution” that is coming in this time that we call “after-postmodern era”. Rifkin thinks that a “lateral power” is emerging in a “collaborative economy”. The current crisis is closing the strength of the second industrial revolution that achieved its apex in the postmodern end of the 20th century.
Creativity in Science can apply sustainability to obtain energy from other sources than the traditional ones. Computation can optimize this process and innovate most of all human activities. All of it together is going to lead to a new balance in politics and power beyond old polarizations. Decentralization and auto-sufficient micro-communities can establish new relations inside and outside the nations.
After-postmodern paradigms for society are under construction…     

sexta-feira, 25 de outubro de 2013

Why some (not so old) tools do not work anymore?


The cycles in nature, in history, are inevitable. Even now, that we know about it, we can discuss about it, it is inevitable. There are forces in nature, and even in human history, that are beyond rationality and predictability.
In true, emotionality rules the world. We think that Science is pure rationality and so we have the illusion that rationality puts Science on the highest level of knowledge; at the same time Science puts rationality on the highest level of knowledge, denying emocionality...
Maybe this concept could be an assertion in the apex of postmodern times, the nineties of the 20th century. The pragmatism of that assertion worked very well, apparently. But under a Jungian vision, human life and human person have light and shadow. Emotionality works more in the shadows of unconscious, mainly when we think that rationality is the only domain of conscious, and emotionality is restrained to fleeting and consumerist pleasures.
In true, emotionality ruled the world ever. The question is what people did or what we do with emotionality.  In postmodern times, pragmatism, efficacy, objectivity made subjectivity only a space of consumerism. As Guattari said, when anyone do not take care of its own subjectivity, another one will domain it.
But something happened in the first decade of the 21st century and still continues. We are all in a “Macro Shift”, as said Erwin Lazlo. The tools of economic globalization did not work very well anymore.  
In after-postmodern times, respect for subjectivity may recover or even start new models of economy. Objectivity is necessary but it is not sufficient to embrace all sides of human being and human life.  We hear that “the stock market is nervous” or things like that, but that emotionality is only saw as a kind of “economic thermometer”, and the subjective side does not receive attention, except for the investor when he gets a myocardial infarction…
So maybe it is necessary create or find new tools, new paradigms, new correlations between rationality and emotionality, objectivity and subjectivity, all of that among human needs and dreams.    
   

terça-feira, 24 de setembro de 2013

After-postmodern “Pax”

On the apex of the Roman Empire, it was created the expression “Pax Romana” meaning the roman way to establish world peace under roman rules, mixing army strength and some level of tolerance with the local cultures. Pax Romana built concrete and symbolic bridges among several European e beyond cultures that resulted in some roots for many modern states and nations.
After the Roman Empire, other models of world peace came under different historical moments. Now, when we live a transition from Postmodern to After-postmodern times, we do not know yet what is going to be the new model "of and for world peace".

It seems that the After-postmodern “Pax” configures a new pattern of tools, a new paradigm of relation among peoples; now the main tools are becoming the dialog and the courage to go back and forth all the times necessary to practice more dialogs and more understanding. It is not easy and simple because weapons are still roaring, but we see that it something new is happening between war and peace in the world…       

quinta-feira, 8 de agosto de 2013

Hypermodern times of Lipovetsky

Gilles Lipovetsky wrote about of what he considered a “third phase of modernity” that came after postmodernity. He calls it “hypermodernity”.
The Modern Period started at the beginning of 19th century, with Industrial Revolution, Modern Science and establishment of Modern State. At same time that it was an acceleration of history, “discipline”, in a general sense, became stronger. It was also a time of dream and hope about possibilities of science and appreciation of ideals. The countercurrent of the scientism was the Romantic Movement.  
In the second half of the 20th century the Postmodern Period was characterized by an accentuation on efficiency, results, individualism and less discipline.  The countercurrent of part of it was “the counterculture movement”.
Lipovetsky understands that in the last two decades of the 20th century some characteristics of modernity and postmodernity improved and it was starting the “hypermodern times”. Together with hypermodernity came “hyperconsumption” and “hypernarcisism”. Lipovetsky thinks that one important factor of all that is the “logic of fashion”. Fashion started in modern times inside the aristocratic class. Step by step it achieved some level of society. In after postmodern times it reached almost all social classes, mainly in occidental world. In hypermodern times the “logic of fashion” was universalized and everything, or even everyone, can be a “product to consume”. So, the consumption became a activity by itself, under the desire of the consumer “to consume”. To be “up to date” all the time became a need, a commandment. This kind of consumption came together with a new hedonism under a feeling of insatiable pleasure, or insatiable aims of consumer. So, the impression of more liberty to buy  and choose actually disguise new kinds of discipline…   
  

   

terça-feira, 9 de julho de 2013

Energy and waste in after-postmodern times

The unsustainable sources of energy are still working…
The sustainable ones are not enough…
Crisis is someway everywhere although sometimes it doesn’t seem too much.
The post-modern dream that hard technology could solve any problem doesn’t work so much.
We need new ways and new paradigms, creativity and initiative.
Maybe each one or each small community could take care of its own energy and waste.
It can be an “after-postmodern dream”, but we can see that step by step a kind of “delicate technology” is progressing in cybernetics or nanotechnology for example.
Maybe the power plants and the garbage solution can stay in the next corner ahead…


sábado, 22 de junho de 2013

Social network, noosphere and new “mycro-revolutions”

Before the French Revolution, the meaning of the word “revolution” was a kind of “mechanical movement” like that of the Galilean Mechanics.
After the French Revolution, this word got the social and political meaning that everyone knows.
In the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, children, teens and young people learned a new way of communication among them with and into the internet, mainly by social networks. That communication worked like a “neuronal network”. Each person made a new kind of exercise with fingers and muscles, with a new language that operated new “neuronal networks” inside each brain. At same time, all those brains, and fingers and screenings were connected by this new language.
At some point, all of those things started to work as a “big brain”, an “earth brain”, a “noosphere”. As any brain, this new “collective brain” activated “social muscles” to produce “movements”. So, through all the world appeared a new kind of “revolution”, maybe a “mycro-revolution”...
To understand “mycro-revolution” we need to find new tools…
Experts of politics and sociology try to apply old foundations to study new phenomena that are configured in new and unknown paradigms.
We cannot apply the word “revolution” to explain some social phenomena that happened before French Revolution, because that sense of the word did not exist. It could be an anachronism. Maybe we could say that “it seemed like a revolution”, but it was not quite the same thing. In that way, the “Scientific Revolution” of the 17th century was invented after that new meaning of the word. Was it a true revolution?  
Maybe the meaning of the word revolution used in the last two centuries is changing, or going to be more complex, adding new meanings…

In after-postmodern era we must apply new concepts and tools to read the signals of “mycro-revolutions” coming from the noosphere of the earth brain…      

domingo, 2 de junho de 2013

Big Data and Teilhard de Chardin

Big Data is, at same time, chaos and organized system. Apparently it is a paradox, but in a transdisciplinary vision it can be the both. The three pillars of transdisciplinarity can embrace that possibility: multiple levels of Reality, the logic of the included middle and complexity. The cyberspace has several “layers of Reality”, or we can even think that there are people behind machines and so we have the level of Reality of the machines and the level of Reality of people. In this way, each person can be a level of Reality. The logic of the included middle is logic beyond the traditional Aristotelian logic, and can embrace things that apparently don’t match, because the Reality is not reduced to just one level, the level where contradiction is present. Complexity implies that Big Data happens in an open field among disciplines and knowledges.

Teilhard de Chardin thought that evolution of humanity would achieve a level that he nominated as “noosphere”. At that level each human being could be like a kind of neuron and all mankind could be like a kind of brain; so they could be all connected in a new kind of link. The coming of the cyberspace could be the first step of something like noosphere. People, machines and Big Data can compound a new net, maybe a new collective thinking. The human mind is also at same time chaotic and organized, even continuing to be human mind. Big Data can be the current step for some kind of noosphere, even it is not quite the same as established by the French philosopher.  

quinta-feira, 25 de abril de 2013

GATTACA is after-postmodern mythology


In 1997, maybe the movie Gattaca could seem strange, or just Sci-Fi, or not real, but now, in the after-postmodern times, it seems more and more real.
In the beginning of the picture, the couple that wants to have a child in the “natural way” is featured as a kind of “old fashioned people”, dressed in a kind of “pre-2WWar way”, or in a “modern”, or yet “old modern” fashion.
So, we can see that Gattaca is pointing to what comes next to that “old fashioned couple”, it is pointing to a “postmodern dream”: control and efficiency.
But the “postmodern dream” came in the “after-postmodern times”, and so it comes with failure in control and efficiency.
Gattaca shows an “after-postmodern mythology”, in a Jungian sense where “mythology” is something deeper than the apparent reality. The Greek myth of Procrustes is represented in an opposite way: the main character make some kind of surgery to stretch his legs, instead of cut it. That main character is a symbol of someone that trespass time and space, he comes from modern, trespass postmodern and arrives at post-modern times achieving his own dream of freedom, despite the supposed control and efficiency of a world dominated by gene-owners, gene-rulers, gene-power.

quinta-feira, 11 de abril de 2013

Innovation in after-postmodern times


Thomas L. Friedman, at The New York Times, March 30, 2013, wrote about Tony Wagner ideas. Wagner is a Harvard education specialist that said about his job today that is to be a “translator between two hostile tribes”, the education world and the business world. He said also that young people still need basic or academic knowledge, but also skills and motivation. “Of these three education goals motivation is the most critical”, If someone have motivation, he can get knowledge and skills continuously.
Traditional careers are changing or disappearing. Today someone can even create a new job, and so, can innovate.
Creativity and innovation can be the main tools for new business and jobs. Skills like communication, critical thinking and collaboration can be more important than academic knowledge. Wagner also said that the schools of 21st century must change to teach all these goals.
We want to add “information” as a “transversal” element to those three cited factors. Information is a biologic, cultural, cybernetic “fluid” among all kinds of knowledge, skills and motivation.
We also want to add subjectivity and emotion. When we talk about motivation we talk about emotion and subjectivity; when we talk about innovation capacity we talk about emotion and subjectivity.
But, as Felix Guattari wrote, if we do not cultivate our own subjectivity it will be “cultivated” by some kind of “power” of someone else…
Anyway, After-postmodern is an “open space” for innovation…

quinta-feira, 28 de fevereiro de 2013

A new step or an end of “galenic science” in physiology and molecular biology: a new after-postmodern paradigm?

Galen (c.130 – c.210 AD) was a Greek physician that lived in Rome and influenced occidental medicine for fifteen centuries.  Many of his knowledge were based on comparative anatomy. In ancient Rome it was forbidden to do autopsy (in pagan Rome). So, it was necessary to study anatomy of animals and compare it to humans.
In the 16th century the Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) rebelled against the galenic anatomy adopted in the University of Paris and went to the University of Padua, where he could learn about human autopsy. So, he became the founder of modern anatomy based on the direct study of the human body.
It is interesting that sometime after that, in the 17th century, the study of physiology started based on vivisection of Descartes and empiric science of Francis Bacon, both using animals and comparing to humans; maybe we could name it, in a certain way, a kind of “galenic science”.
Recently, in The New York Times it was published an article about a paper of Dr. H. Shaw Warren and collaborators in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That paper was about the misleading of research based on mouse model for at least three pathologic conditions: sepsis, burn and trauma. They found that the immune response of the mouse is very different of that response in humans. So, the response to the same drug is not the same in mouse and in humans. The genomic knowledge could explain that difference.
In the last decades new scientific and clinic knowledge brought new light to biologic mechanism of sepsis. 
It does not mean that any animal model is not anymore useful. But it is necessary understand better the complexity of the human body itself in its singularity, or even comparing to animals.
So, notions of Complexity, that was proposed first in the field of Biology in the beginning of the 20th century, are now again necessary to understand peculiarities in a “transdisciplinary” approach of knowledge in several fields of science. 
  

     

sexta-feira, 8 de fevereiro de 2013

G-zero of Stiglitz and after-postmodern


In Project Syndicate Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote about The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos this year. He remembered that before 2008 “the captains of finance and industry” could speak about a “new era of relentless growth” that could reach everyone since “the right thing” would be done.
Now that things are changed, the debate in Davos is not anymore the same. The emerging countries are not looking the advanced countries as they did before.
Economic inequality was the topic that concerned more the assembled leaders, according to Stiglitz’s text.
The meeting had more problems than solutions to focus, even with some good perspectives from the developing countries point of view.
International organizations that were supposed to solve the unemployment are in paradoxical conditions, between fine speeches and no action, or between questions of political unification and the hypothesis of each country search for its own solution.
Stiglitz concludes that today G-7, G-8, G-20 are not working anymore and we see now a kind of G-0 (G-zero), meaning the absence of leadership.
The postmodern globalization seemed very efficient before the crisis. Now it shows the end of efficiency.
Maybe the “G-zero” can help to work with new paradigms in the era of “after-postmodern” to find new bindings among human communities.
  
  

quinta-feira, 24 de janeiro de 2013

What word could replace “globalization”?


“Globalization” was one of the paradigmatic words in the apex of postmodern era.
It was a word carried with strong attractive almost magic meaning, suggesting a kind of “economic peace”, “end of poverty”, etc., although some movements opposed to it.
Now, in a crisis since 2008, what could be the meaning of “globalization”? Could it be “unemployment”?
Postmodern was an “efficient” time…
Is after-postmodern an “inefficient” time?
As Thomas Kuhn said about scientific paradigms, the time of a scientific paradigm is ending when it cannot answer questions or find solutions to problems.
Under this thought we could say that the postmodern paradigms are over…
People are running in circles trying to find solutions using overcome paradigms, overcome concepts that seems to be still efficient, because society is still working in several issues despite the crisis…
Maybe it is necessary to find the new paradigms… Maybe it could come from several different fields beyond economy, although together with economy…