Moving on from the Island of Human Endevour.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Can a model be generated, using an Island landmass within a vast ocean, to represent the encompassing of the entire range of human occupation, as it copes with discoveries.

Can the figurative launch from land to sea , be helped by considering the discipline of symmetry breaking, phase transition, complexity, and chaos .

Will the model offer help in dealing with our place in the Universe.

. ----------- ---------------

Human endevour is quite a long list, but it can be grouped or just stated, in one off examples.
eg Writing , building of houses, , electrical engineering , child rearing, painting pictures, research into our origin , sculpting , study of maths, physics, chemistry etc etc.

EXAMPLE
Some of these endevours , are rock solid [ at least in its historic use ] say house building of conventional structures,. pictured as near the mountains at the centre of our island model . perhaps a coastal version of that endevour might be modernistic project homes based on geodesic domes [coast] . Entering the sea . Well this is where we would move into very futuristic living space.

The Coast is where we move from land to sea, This is where a "Phase transition can occur " Think in terms of your strategy on land and that at Sea ? Then apply the model to one of human endevours, That are central ( mountain position) general land , coastal or passing through phased transitions into the sea.

Mike

If you look around the world, certainly up through human history, it is interesting that much of human society grew up around the coast or where great rivers made there way to the sea . It is also very interesting that the coast often looks like a section out of a fractal image , where looking at closer grain a similar complex image is seen .

Edited February 13, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Chaos and Complexity theory

10 to 15 years ago when chaos theory and complexity theory was becoming popular as an openly discussed topic, a colleague and myself , looked into the possibility that human activity ( and endeavour) could somehow follow some of the aspects of these theories.

We considered the whole range of human occupation as it seemed to experience some of the aspects of these two theories quite closely, the ideas of turbulent flow in liquids as the symmetry was broken , as turbulence developed , and a phased transition was experienced.

Such aspects as bifurcation as it broke from laminar flow in a series of bifurcations. Etc We examined first hand the coastal interface between rocks and the sea, at a venue in South Devon near Dartmouth. I then realised there was an analogy being enacted within human society , not dissimilar to this turbulence we were seeing.

If we were to place the bulk of ADULT human society as represented by land. As established, with its structure, learned approaches, dogma, and in many ways fixed ideas. Then if we were to place the young adult , student population, as the water immediately touching the coast, we had a good match with turbulent conditions suggested by the theories of chaos and complexity. Indeed having grown up through the turbulent years of the 60's 70's and 80's as the student / young adults ( particularly the young adult mind) , did much to erode the establishment and bring about change, we have seen a society reflect quite closely the land to sea interface.

This so convinced me, that I made a career change in my 50's to take up teaching young adults, as I believed quite strongly then that this was where all the interesting action was going on . This junction , now permissible, between the land coastal rock the (establishment) and sea of the student mind. I have had those years , witnessed the patterns of complexity in the student mind, and lived to tell the tale. Just !

 

An example of the step from land to sea in the student mind :

 

 

Having taught students in my Physics lessons during the day, the rigor of electrical circuits with Ohms law ( R= V/I ) with the control of an electric motor and its speed by changing the series resistance,[ the land ] I would go on to have a Science Club in the evening boarding School . I was utterly amazed at the ideas some of the students would come up with. Student boffs, not yet having to earn a living by their craft would bring in designs they had obviously spent a long time in their dorm , thinking about and drawing up .[ the sea ] They make my ideas , look like 'Sunday afternoon Tea.'

In their imagination, stimulated by the Rigor of Ohms law yet in an electrical control context, . in their imagination the symmetry was free to break, and to phase change into near chaos , and yet come up with a crazy design at sea , yet one which had come from the stimulation on Land

.NOT ME STANDARD IMAGE

The Land The Rigor of established Learning V Sea Student Mind

 

 

.This is just one small example of the model discussed in the initial post. The island of human endeavour , surrounded by the sea of symmetry breaking, phased transition, chaos and complexity theory.

If we , apply the model to other areas of human endeavour there are good correlations . Particularly to me in the areas of scientific developments and philosophical reasonings.

Mike

Edited February 14, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Example of the model .

 

If we were to take a Human Endevour say ( Human to human communication ) .

 

Then bedrock ( center of the island ) must be something like .. GRABBING and POINTING...eg grabbing a fellow and pointing to a heard of elephants about to charge, or grabbing a fellow who is just about to be run over by a bus.

 

Next off , still on the central mountain must be VERBAL ... Eg "would you like one of these cherries?" , or " how do you feel about this subject of using an island in a vast sea as a representation of the human condition.?" .

 

Somewhere further out on the general plane of the island, must be the .. WRITTEN WORD.. Eg. " My fathers. Father was called ...my father lived over in ...land , and I and my family live between the lime tree and the steam.." Or " if you do not get to the point quickly I will get irritated "

 

We have a long history of the PRINTED PAGE which must take us toward or if not beginning to touch the coast. With libraries bursting at the seams, second hand shops full of books, attics creeping under the strain of housing long since forgotten books, bomb fires of books containing controversial books .

 

Enter the electronic age and RADIO and TV must put us on the coast with our toes in the water. Communication by these medium have exploded across human society and endeavour in the 20 the century ,as we sit back and be communicated with and entertained as we do /are on the beach of human endeavour .

 

Is there here on the beach the makings of a symmetry breaking ,water like, ocean beginning , human condition?

Already in the TV and Radio we are using technology where the very medium of transmission uses all sorts of interesting physics phenomenon as it pushes electrons into antennas such that electro-magnetic waves BREAK from their station to zoom out across oceans of sea and space. We are dabbling here with the edge of chaos!

 

Enter the INTER NET . Finally we have left our island and while away our time in cyberspace communicating with whomever we choose. In reality or in virtual reality, with friend or foe, with dangerous stranger or friend. Even if I go to the moon or mars I am sure we will soon be able to communicate about whatever with whom ever............... I. AM WELL AND TRULY AT SEA ON AN OCEAN...

 

 

The example. Here illustrates well , how the model can be used and works.

 

Mike

 

One can plot many more human endeavours on the "island in an ocean " model. Soon a time line emerges around a compass ( N, S, W, E) @ . Soon it becomes apparent that human society seem poised on the shores of an ocean of opportunity. We have a home on an Earth , full of human endeavours yet near to full to capacity, and resources draining. The future begs !

 

 

@ N Esoteric. S. Substantial. W. Altruistic. E. Self Orientated.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Ophiolite]

Sorry Mike, but this seems to me less like a model and more like third rate poetry, or fourth rate philosophy. Your imaginative excursions are usually interesting: this one falls of a cliff for me, into the Ocean of Lost Souls.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Sorry Mike, but this seems to me less like a model ......etc

Is it possible we have got so used to maths being essential for a model, that the mention of mountains, coast and oceans does not immediately sound like science.

 

Yet Kuhn in his reasoning in Paradigm and Paradigm shifts as being the models on which the universe could be understood , did not make Math a fundamental , rather a mere contributor to the world view and his list of contributions towards the MODEL which would make up the Par-a-digm as a list of equal [ Par ] necessities to make THE MODEL or PATTERN .

 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the basic meaning of the term paradigm as "a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model".^[1] The historian of science Thomas Kuhn gave it its contemporary meaning when he adopted the word to refer to the set of practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as: "universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners,^[2] i.e.,

• what is to be observed and scrutinized
• the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject
• how these questions are to be structured
• how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted
• how is an experiment to be conducted, and what equipment is available to conduct the experiment.

 

I feel most of Kuhn's list was conducted and is present in/on my Island & Ocean Project with .. Model & Paradigm .. Particularly the observations, questions, research ,investigations, thought experiments undertaken

 

mike

Edited February 15, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[tar]

Mike Smith Cosmos,

 

I am having something similar to Ophiolite's reaction to this thread. I don't think it third or fourth rate anything though. I think its good. Second or possibly first rate something, but not readily accessible. In this, in regards to the island analogy, it's important to remember that different people, even in the same time, in the same moment, do not have their focus on the same thing. And some part of the chaos can occur, while some other part is occuring "differently".

 

Important to remember that although the island analogy "works" on more than one level, there is more than one island going on, at a time.

 

Regards, TAR2

Mike,

 

A tie-in, for this thread and the ideas we have bantered about in "the lingual theory of everything" is morphology.

 

The study of the structure of language must have analogies to our study of the structures of reality.

 

I was thinking the other day (merging your ideas here, with your ideas in the aforementioned thread, with my own), that inorder to visualize a structure, one must freeze it in time, and have the whole thing, from one end to the other, happening at once. So when it comes to an island or a tube, there are portions that are actual and dynamic, and portions that are "frozen" in a somewhat arbitrary way, from a certain perspective, that while true, is only true temporarily from a certain perspective. When the structure persists or repeats, then we can count on it "being real" and actual. (even though it is NOT frozen into that shape.)

 

Don't know what that says about the island analogy, but I think it says something.

 

Regards, TAR

In Physics, I understand that one cannot measure both the position and momentum of a particle, partially because the measurement is likely to disturb one or the other.

 

In some way this indicates that one can see the structure if you freeze time, or see the motion if you freeze the structure, but you can't freeze both space and time.

Doing so leaves you with nothing to say about it.

Unless of course you agree on, and define the "system" or sentence you are considering, with a known subject, a known predicate and a known object.

Speaking of shapes and being frozen, how about a snowflake. People have struggled to categorize them into 41 different types, each with incredible possible variations, enough so to consider that no two match exactly. The varying elements of pressure and humidity and temperature and motion during the formation of one, allow for, or cause a large range of occurances, cystal formation, melting, refreezing, branching and breakage, all to result in a snowflake, which we measure in the landscape it and its relatives create, and in inches and feet that we have to remove from the driveway.

Edited February 16, 2014 by tar

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

I was thinking the other day...........

To keep clear thinking .... I would like to go with your freezing time... or snapshop .... .

 

By taking any timeline from mountain to sea, for say, woodworking, from chipping out a canoe to very modern Computer Aided Design construction of furniture and all the use of wood as an artistic and structural use , up through human history. AS A SNAPSHOT it does not really matter particular dates or specific times involved . The image is complete. What is questionable is, is there a chaotic, sea , equivalence in the use and fashioning of wood . I can not think of one , maybe this is yet to come ? Or maybe this is as far as the use of wood goes. [ or may be wood has a.Yet undiscovered, use equivalent to carbon and graphine with carbon } The span of Time so far, is frozen like a snapshot.

 

To me what is important is the idea of MODEL ,with a PATTERN as the basis of a PARADIGM . In this case I am suggesting the single island in a vast ocean [ where human endeavour is spread around the compass 360 deegrees as described earlier ] is an adequate paradigm . The SHIFT in paradigm is an acceptable process for the future.

 

Mike

 

 

 

,, FUTURE . ? .

 

This starts to beg the question , what area of human endeavour , if not wood , are we able to move forward into the sea ( figuratively ) . .? This is the modern equivalent of men setting sail in canoes across the sea to new lands .

Edited February 16, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[tar]

Mike,

 

You may be right. We are pushing at frontiers of every area of human endeavor at a pace not possible before SQL data bases, and processors, and hand held iPhones and the internet. Good ideas can spread fast. Well they always could, at least since radio and telephone, and before that there was telegraph and pony express and the railroad. And before that, the building of roads and smoke signals.

 

We have yet to see what being able access the knowledge and capability of millions in a moment can spawn. Yet to see what 65 billion dollars a month in unowned computer money will do to the world economy and the balance of power between the indivual and his/her world.

 

People are still going to be concerned with what they are going to have for dinner. And peanut butter cups are still going to be a really nice thing to pop in your mouth.

 

Perhaps we have always had some representatives on the shore, and sailing the seas. Making something out of the chaos seems to be one of our skills as a species. We have always had paridigm shifts. Just have not before had so many, on so many different fronts within a single human's lifetime.

 

Like anytime else, I think human judgement will be applied, and we will figure it out, as we figure it out. Some great good will be accomplished and some great evil will be attempted. But as before, good will probably win out, as it has done before.

 

Regards, TAR2

As long as I have good food, good sex, comfortable shoes and a warm place to go to the bathroom, I'll be a happy guy.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Mike,You may be right. ..."........... I think human judgement will be applied, and we will figure it out, as we figure it out. Some great good will be accomplished and some great evil will be attempted. But as before, good will probably win out, as it has done before.Regards, TAR.

Was it storming Norman who said or someone else ?

....

..We Americans .......we FIGURE IT OUT , and then WE FIX IT !

 

And of course us English joined in !

 

Highway of Death

Part of the Persian Gulf War

 

Wrecked and abandoned vehicles along Highway 80 in April 1991.

Date February 2527, 1991

Location The roads out of Kuwait City towards Iraq

 

The Highway of Death refers to a six-lane highway between Kuwait and Iraq, officially known as Highway 80. It runs from Kuwait City to the border town of Safwan in Iraq and then on to the Iraqi city of Basra. The road had been used by Iraqi armed divisions for the 1990 Invasion of Kuwait. The road was repaired after the Persian Gulf War and used by U.S. and British forces in the initial stages of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[3]

 

. . Images from Wikipedia and also fix at end of world war 2

 

 

 

. .........----------There must be a better way to figure it out and fix things ....----------

 

Although this is slightly disturbing, it is not meant as a political point.

Just reality of our current human endeavours. Maybe it is time we took to the ocean !

 

Mike

We are pushing at frontiers of every area .... Good ideas can spread fast. Well they always could,

On a happier note !

 

Science started probably when humankind realised there were advantages to use tools to dig and hunt.

As we lived at the centre of our ' island' we took part in the migration to other areas. Philosophers thought and postulated . People like Leonardo da Vinchy designed and built fascinating machines, Galileo , who even now has a large pendulum ball swinging in the railway station building at Pisa airport , used the methodology of science to invent and uncover the functionality of the universe. The late 1800's and the 1900 - 2000. Century saw an explosion of science and it's application , which must be at the Coast all around our 'Island'. Now in the 21 st century we must surely be ready for leaving our Island. But chaos exists out there. However chaos theory and complexity theory have solutions even though they are things like strange attractors, there can be solutions. Also string theory,and quantum physics to name but two area are full of indeterminate aspects , what with waves/ particles , position / momentum and a host of uncertainty and probabilities.

 

Like the seamen of old , who ventured the high seas, not knowing if they would fall off the edge of the world or be drowned in hurricanes. But courage prevailed.

 

It will be interesting to see what possible different varieties of science can offer us.

 

Maybe it will be known as Exodus Science .

 

 

 

 

Mike

Edited February 18, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Lets Trace down the human endevour of Boat Building and the use of the boats constructed . From Canoe to Ocean going liners .
This may reveal some interesting ideas from a model that is dealing with land and ocean .to our current human predicament as the human race faces its future.

Man no doubt soon developed canoes as transport on inland rivers and lakes .

At the other end of the timeline of human endeavour the ocean going liner .


Now as this is the model , what predictions can we make ? For the future ! .? INTERESTING.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have just taken the dog for a walk and had a good think . The extensions from model to the greater predictions are quite exciting, really exciting .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

What did we do ? and

 

What now, could we do. ?

Mike

Edited February 18, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[tar]

Mike,

 

Wierd, I have that canoe hanging off the ceiling of my garage. Except for you see the wood on the inside of mine where the one you pictured you see white. And I work for a Japanese Company and have been to Japan, and spent two years in peace time Germany as a soldier, protecting the country that shot my dad and took his dream of being a surgeon and the full use of his left hand (machine gun bullet through his left shoulder, lodged over his left hip) from him, against the threat of Soviet Tank invasion.

 

Evil, lots of evil that has been done in my name, good, lots of good that has been done in my name.

My dad and stepmom came over to Germany and I had scoped out the area and we rented a car and visited the hill where he was shot and found the spot where the pontoon bridge had been to facilitate the crossing of the Saar. We stood overlooking the river winding thru the peaceful and beautiful green valley and greeting a lone German man as he walked the trail, not far from the spot (which we did not find for sure) where the German pillbox had fired at my dad.

 

Saddam was not exactly being a sweetheart when we destroyed his army, and he had left Kuwait ablaze with oil fires that burned for many a day and pumped who knows how much hydrocarbons into our air.

 

I have spent the last 25 years of my life in the employ of the Japanese. I am friends with the same people I blew to smitherines. I practiced hiding under my desk and watched a bomb shelter be built near our town hall to prepare against a missle attack from the same country where my athletes are snowboarding for metals.

 

The human spirit has come out victorious. We have figured it out, and fixed it.

 

I watched what once was two beautiful towers with people from all over the world in them, putting up a tremendous pillar of black smoke that reached as far as sight toward CT, from a ferry port on the Jersey side of Hudson, and knew there was evil in the world and knew I was its enemy.

 

I really do think that evil only exists when good men do nothing. (but I've just come from a morality discussion in "Philosophy" so I am off topic here.)

 

We had to stop the Axis powers. We had to stop Saddam. Neither would cease and desist just because we asked them nicely. They had to be stopped big and ugly because they were a big and ugly thing to stop.

 

Regards, TAR

[Acme]

... snip

If you look around the world, certainly up through human history, it is interesting that much of human society grew up around the coast or where great rivers made there way to the sea . It is also very interesting that the coast often looks like a section out of a fractal image , where looking at closer grain a similar complex image is seen .

A coastline more than looks like a fractal, it is a fractal; that is to say a coastline has a fractional dimension. Measure its length with ever smaller rulers and it gets longer and longer and longer wheras the area it bounds remains static.

 

Well, what I really came for was to post an image of a Polynesian navigation aid. It has a flavor of your art Mike, and at the same time illustrates that there is no one model leading from -or to- an island. Models are as models do.

 

source: Polynesian Navigation @ Wiki >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Mike,Wierd, I have that canoe hanging off the ceiling of my garage. Except for you see the wood on the inside of mine where the one you pictured you see white. And I work for a Japanese Company and have been to Japan, and spent two years in peace time Germany as a soldier, protecting the country that shot my dad and took his dream of being a surgeon and the full use of his left hand , TAR

Tar, I must apologise for bringing up a subject that awakened .. Thoughts that are probably best left to rest. As I said this was not a political comment , just quote from Wikipedia . However I did think twice about using it , but wanted a contrast to a hoped for future peaceful world.

 

I have personally longed for it all my life. I carry an embarrassing legacy of being British. The country that spent a few hundred years going around the world causing a lot of death and destruction amongst a lot of disperit peoples including America, so I have an ancestry ,not to be terribly proud of. I was born 1943 in a bombed city ( Northampton ) the middle of the Second World War . I was brought up in another bombed City Plymouth 1945- 1960 (rubble and my father was an Archetiect war damage repair ) I dreamed my youth away about the treat of a Third World War . I was in London in during the Cuba missile crisis, and really thought that was IT . The end . I spent the very first part of my electronic career designing test equipment for attack missiles. So very much have blood on my hands. Then wondered if I was using my life to the best? And God forbid that a Third World War ever happens in the future, or we will have some serious rubble on our hands. I long for the time when my four daughters ( now in 20's and 30's ) can grow up in a peaceful passage through to the future of humanity crudely illustrated by my end pictures of girls basking in warm seas, looking at flitting birds, and civilisation finding a new occupation. However , I am sorry if I disturbed your bad memories . I again apologise. Unreservedly !

 

As you say we must not make this ,a political debate, or the tread will be moved to 'Politics' . I would rather continue the debate with you , and others here in speculations as , the future is very speculative, and I do love your comments !

 

Mike

 

I

A coastline more than looks like a fractal, it is a fractal; that is to say a coastline has a fractional dimension. Measure its length with ever smaller rulers and it gets longer and longer and longer wheras the area it bounds remains static.Well, what I really came for was to post an image of a Polynesian navigation aid. It has a flavor of your art Mike, and at the same time illustrates that there is no one model leading from -or to- an island. Models are as models do.source: Polynesian Navigation @ Wiki >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation

You must tell me more .

 

I really love the Wikipedia link to Polynesian navigation .. Give me more.. It will help me with this thread of

 

" Seeking a better future for the human endeavour , as here we are poised on our coastal shores, wanting to go somewhere , but not sure where or how to go there? "

 

Mike

Edited February 19, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[tar]

Mike,

 

Well, I accept your apology, but you didn't cause me any distress. I already accept that there is bad stuff that happens, did happen and will happen. I already accept that we cause our own problems, and many of our solutions have unintended or unwanted consequences. What's the old adage about not being able to make an omelette without breaking a few eggs?

 

I have known, since an insight I had 40 some years ago, that you can't move or breath in this world, without disturbing it and using oxygen that someone else could have used.

 

It is not likely that anyone here has shit that does not stink. So I take such things as a fact of live, that you forgive of yourself, and forgive of others, and you just try and build the outhouse downwind. It is unavoidable that that logically means that your smells are going to waft in the direction of the wind and disturb your neighbors that live in that direction, and disturb you, when the winds shift. You just hold your nose and go ahead.

 

I would like to reiterate the beauty and peacefulness and pleasantness of the good feeling I had, looking at my dad, with his wife's arm around him, looking at that peaceful beautiful Saar river scene at the location of the absolute worst events of his life, where pain and fear and death and near death, had been so very very strong and present.

 

And I use it along with my working for the Japanese, and protecting the Germans to illustrate, that we figure it out, and fix it. We have been doing it for a long time and followed many a rainbow. The end of the rainbow "always" moves as we move, and does not seem to have a fixed end that you can actually get to.

 

In regards to the island analogy you have to be able to not consider that it is one island, because it isn't from the outside, only when you are on the island are you surrounded by the sea. When you are on the sea the island is your goal.

 

Regards, TAR2

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Well, what I really came for was to post an image of a Polynesian navigation aid.

I wonder if you have the KEY to get us off this Island to New Horizons ? ACME

 

 

 

 

Tar said : 11:13 today " you have to be able to not consider that it is one island,..."

Yes but at the moment we are the only KNOWN. Human civilisation . So we can only leave our figurative one island { the entire compass of human endeavour from the time of the start of human civilisation untill the present time .}

 

So now the subject is " What are we looking for that can be hinted at by the model and

 

. How do we move on this totally different medium [ the ocean of the model ] .?"

 

 

 

I think you started to hint at one of the Changes as you described the Internet ( such a revolutionary change)

I believe a break with determinism has something to do with the change. We have been so nervous of leaving Terra Ferma.

 

OH ! According to ACME. ( next post #17 ) And the Polynesian slant . You may be right after all TAR . They did not go on a world conquering exploit. but just to go to new islands !

 

So where does that put us ! Going to Mars or a moon of Jupiter as a temporary home ,or next step. Or wait until the Earth recovers and we return to Earth as forever a Gem in the setting of human Endevour ?

 

Mike

Edited February 20, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

...

You must tell me more. [Acme]

 

I really love the Wikipedia link to Polynesian navigation .. Give me more.. It will help me with this thread of

 

" Seeking a better future for the human endeavour , as here we are poised on our coastal shores, wanting to go somewhere , but not sure where or how to go there? "

 

Mike

I wonder if you have the KEY to get us off this Island to New Horizons ? ACME

Sorry for the delay Mike... life intervened. Not sure what more I have. On the Polynesians I seem to recall hearing they took something of a backward view of land/sea from that of continent dwellers such that their equivalent of an island would be a lake. Moreover, they seem generally only to want to leave an island in order to get to another island rather than to undertake an adventure to new horizons as your model/metaphor proposes.

 

Re-reading my link I found this quote related to the above insomuch as Polynesians were not aspiring to some greater goal.

...

Experimental research

Another view was presented by Andrew Sharp who challenged the heroic vision hypothesis, asserting instead that Polynesian maritime expertise was severely limited in the field of exploration and that as a result the settlement of Polynesia had been the result of luck, random island sightings, and drifting, rather than as organized voyages of colonization. Thereafter the oral knowledge passed down for generations allowed for eventual mastery of traveling between known locations.[28] Sharp's reassessment caused a huge amount of controversy and led to a stalemate between the romantic and the skeptical views.[7]

While other research seems to counter the limited maritime expertise to some degree it does not appear to counter my proposition that Polynesians were interested only in island living.

 

For an interesting take on the hows, whys, and wherefores of Western civilization taking a different path from more-or-less the same starting point -say island(s)- as the rest of the peopled world, I recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel. I have not read the book, but watched the PBS show of the same name. Luck is as luck does and the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley. Bon voyage!!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

 

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a 1997 transdisciplinary nonfiction book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1998, it won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. A documentary based on the book, and produced by the National Geographic Society, was broadcast on PBS in July 2005.[1]

 

The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations (including North Africa) have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral or inherent genetic superiority.

...

[tar]

Sounds like a game of rock paper scissors. I wonder if the Polynesians have a similar circular game, and what their three powers are.

 

The steel comes from the mountain. The paper comes from the forest. The technology comes from what we put on the paper. Why do we not have a power in the game, that comes from the sea?

 

Water erodes rock, rusts steel and turns paper into rather a soggy mush. Perhaps its just too strong to be used in the game, as nothing defeats it. Even the sun merely vaporizes it gives it more storm type power.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

.+++++++++++++++++++++++. THE AGE OF CHANGE. +++++++++++++++++++++++

 

I am thinking of a need to keep this SIMPLE . Not by minimising the great works, and writings of august commentators on the growth and dominance of various civilisations. But to stand well back , and look for any theme , which might give an insight ,as to what human endeavour can do now , in a core change , illustrated in our paradigm , by the sea/ ocean.

 

Forgetting political boundaries, history , dominance, and past wealth, from industrialisation.

 

The nearest I can see to a self leveling , yet robust human endeavour , different from historic nations wealth is

.

. +++++++. INFORMATION. ++++++++++++++

 

INFORMATION. In an individuals hands , or in the hands of an organisation can be POWER.

 

INFORMATION is abroad . No one can stop it . Whether on the internet, protest , television an individual or organisation can use it with very great earth moving effect .

 

++++++++++++. THE INFORMATION AGE +++++++++++ IS THE OCEAN ++++++++++++++++++

 

. .

 

. .

Edited February 20, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

I...uhh....erhm.... am adrift in paraphrase and don't really know what I'm talking aboat.

 

I am disillusioned enough to know that no person's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine INFORMATION to make them really know what they're talking about. ~ H. P. LoveCRAFT

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

I...uhh....erhm.... am adrift in paraphrase and don't really know what I'm talking aboat.

 

I am disillusioned enough to know that no person's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine INFORMATION to make them really know what they're talking about. ~ H. P. LoveCRAFT

 

 

 

You seem to be enjoying things! I was thinking more like ...this :-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Voyage of a Lifetime This future five-year trip around the worldone that will use traditional Polynesian wayfinding knowledge almost entirelyhas never been undertaken before. Get the story behind the epic journey.

 

Story By national Geographic .

 

 

Mike

Edited February 21, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[tar]

Mike,

 

As is my MO I like to draw an example from my own experience to try against your thoughts.

 

I work as a "solutions tester" in a company that deals with information. We, as a company, at least the people in control of the servers and the code, have access to a lot of information that "we" know is sensitive, and we CAN NOT use for our own purposes, as it would erode the trust of the people that have entrusted that information to us.

 

In this regard, a "theory of mind", that there is another that cares what you do with the information is an absolute MUST. And from this I can only conclude that we have already accumulated quite a few examples of knowing both that we personally are an island, and that no single man is one.

 

I am not suggesting that we are not on the verge of launching a ship into the sea. I am suggesting that we are already on the sea in a boat chrisened by some bottle of champagne at a previous watershed launch.

 

Regards, TAR

[Acme]

You seem to be enjoying things! I was thinking more like ...this :-

 

The Voyage of a Lifetime This future five-year trip around the worldone that will use traditional Polynesian wayfinding knowledge almost entirelyhas never been undertaken before. Get the story behind the epic journey.

 

Story By national Geographic .

 

Mike

Can you provide a link? I can't seem to find the full story from just the images.

 

Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment. ~Novalis

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Can you provide a link? I can't seem to find the full story from just the images.Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment. ~Novalis

Sorry, it was an advert by the national geographic on talk talk . I will try and track it down as I only lifted the picture. I think it was a cooky but it should be in national geographic somewhere . I try to find it.

 

Mike

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Acme, on 22 Feb 2014 - 03:10 AM, said:

Can you provide a link? I can't seem to find the full story from just the images.Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment. ~Novalis

 

mike said :

Sorry, it was an advert by the national geographic on talk talk . I will try and track it down as I only lifted the picture. I think it was a cooky but it should be in national geographic somewhere . I try to find it.

 

This is as near as I have got :- link https://members.nationalgeographic.com

 

Mike,

As is my MO I like to draw an example from my own experience to try against your thoughts.

I am not suggesting that we are not on the verge of launching a ship into the sea. I am suggesting that we are already on the sea in a boat chrisened by some bottle of champagne at a previous watershed launch.

Regards, TAR

 

I like the way you use your personal experience as : -

 

An OBSERVATION as a means to formulate a contribution to THE CENTRAL PARADIGM which could cause a PARADIGM SHIFT .

 

Whether this then ever becomes The World view remains very much to be seen ?

 

mike

Mike,

.........., only when you are on the island are you surrounded by the sea. When you are on the sea the island is your goal.

Regards, TAR2

 

 

I do like your approach , it fired me to investigate......

 

 

a pattern or model".^[1] The historian of science Thomas Kuhn

 

 

mike

Edited February 23, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos