Seizing an Alternative: the 10th International Whitehead Conference

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The full program is now up in .PDF format (see link below). While the presentation at the website is in many ways even more detailed, the .PDF program makes the size of this conference much more tangible and vivid (to me, at least.) This is rather like the allied invasion of Europe in its scale. While the massive professional gatherings such as the Eastern APA might yet exceed it in size, we must also take into account the focus of this gathering (which the Eastern shares no part of) and the lack of massive membership support to finance it. It is unlikely that we — any of us — will ever see its like again.

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It is on the Program, so it must be TRUE

A small measure of satisfaction always comes with seeing someone else mention my name:

TRACK 2.
INTUITION IN MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS
Chair: Ronny Desmet
Mason Hall, Rm 005
Mathematics and physics need to be imaginatively re-envisioned by taking our deepest intuitions into account. Physicists focuson “lifeless nature” and hence exclude from their descriptions all characteristics of “nature alive” such as feeling, creativity,purpose, and value. By contrast, in these sessions we challenge the separation and turn the opposition between physics and intuition into a fruitful contrast.
Presenters:
Ronny Desmet, Jean Paul Van Bendegem, Arran Gare, Henry Leonard Jr., Ron Phipps, Gary Herstein, PeterFimmel, Hank Keeton, Michael Epperson, Timothy Eastman, Robert Valenza

The Times, They are a’ … well, moving on …

I’ve been away so long, I scarcely know how to make a new entry.

My time away, if not well spent, has at least clawed its way to the surface of something like recognizable human existence.

I will soon (June 3) be leaving for the 2015 International Whitehead Conference. I will be delivering two invited papers, and acting as moderator for two other sessions. I hope to delay my projected nervous breakdown until I am back home and my cat can yell at me for being an inadequate human. In the intervening time, I will have the opportunity for numerous personal and professional contacts and interactions.

My cat will be singularly indifferent to these lame attempts at developing myself as a person and a scholar.

I plan on blogging (very short snippets) while I am at the conference. I will have more considered thoughts once I get home, and will also return to my not entirely regularly scheduled screeds on matters of science, metaphysics, and logic.

(And the Oxford comma, which I hope you all appreciated in the above.)

Press Release, 2015 IWC

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Here is the most recent press release for the 2015 International Whitehead Conference (Original press release to be found HERE): FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JOIN US IN “SEIZING AN ALTERNATIVE” A GLOBAL CONFERENCE FOR THE PLANET JUNE 4 – 7, 2015 | CLAREMONT, CA CLAREMONT, CA – Nearly 1,000 presenters from some 30 countries and as many as 80 areas of specialty are coming together in Claremont, CA on June 4-7 for themost ambitious transdisciplinary conference ever held on behalf of the planet. All are invited to attend. Titled “Seizing an Alternative: Toward an Ecological Civilization,” the conference focuses on the big ideas that matter for a thriving biosphere. Attendees can join working groups to explore the foundations needed for an ecological civilization. “To see the world with ecological relations at its core means never to see it in the same way again,” explains renowned American philosopher, theologian, and environmentalist, John B. Cobb, Jr., the intellectual architect of the conference. Cobb has been called the most important living philosophical theologian. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a pioneer at the intersection of the environment, philosophy, and ethics. Plenary Speakers include renowned leaders on the environmental front, including Bill McKibben (founder of the global climate movement, 350.org), Vandana Shiva (world-renowned physicist, activist, feminist and philosopher from India deeply committed to issues of sustainability and social justice), and Sheri Liao (China’s leading climate activist, founder of the Global Village of Beijing, and recipient of the Clinton Global Citizen Award). Other luminaries include the father of eco-economics Herman Daly, pioneer of eco-agriculture Wes Jackson, political theorist William Connolly, leading thinkers in religion and theology such as Harvey Cox, Brian McLaren, Mary Elizabeth Moore, Joerg Rieger, and many others. The conference will be held on the campus of Pomona College and other Claremont colleges in Claremont, CA June 4-7, 2015. Cost: $300, with reduced rates for seniors, students, and low-income participants. To register, visit Whitehead2015.com. “Seizing an Alternative” unites the 10th International Whitehead Conference with the 9th International Conference on Ecological Civilization. The conference is organized by the Center for Process Studies and is the inaugural event of Pando Populus, a platform for public scholarship and civic engagement for the Earth. For more information, visit PandoPopulus.com/conference. Conference Contact: Andrew Schwartz Center for Process Studies Andrew@ctr4process.org | 909.621.5330 Press Contact: Claudia Pearce, Publicity claudia@PandoPopulus.com | 909.482.2040 ###

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

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Rather than allow the blog to languish entirely, I thought I’d put up this bit of organizational matter to defend the claim that I really am working on stuff. Below is the outline of the paper I’ll be delivering at the 2015 International Whitehead Conference in Claremont, CA, this coming June. (I’ll be presenting in Section IV, Track 2, Session 5.)

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Ooops?

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So I’ve argued in three of the previous four posts (oh, just go look; I’m busy and I’m not going to repost links) that one of the signs that a so-called scientific controversy is really just bullsh!t is if it floats to the surface of popular consciousness. I may need to moderate that claim a bit, as it appears that one of my favorite examples is, in fact, surfacing. All this, without any significant influx of money from the fossil fuel industries to manufacture the appearance of controversy!

See, for example: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/01/27/381809832/the-most-dangerous-ideas-in-science?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150127

Projects

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I will be taking a bit of a break from this blog for the next couple of months, doing little more than occasionally posting some odd bit of flotsam that amuses me, as I need to dig in and complete a couple of fairly large projects. The project most on the front burner right now is the presentation I’m committed to for the 2015 International Whitehead Conference. Continue reading

Model-Centrism 2: Data Density

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Within the limits of my own study, the idea of “data density” and its relation to science vs. pseudo-science, is not one that I recall having encountered. (And I freely admit that my studies are limited; the world is large, and human life is short.) I suspect that no small part of the problem is that we have only begun to slam into this wall in earnest in the last few generations. I wish to use this idea of “data density” here to compare two branches of scientific study. It is my thesis that the data in gravitational cosmology is especially “thin” and “patchy,” which makes the general lack of attention to alternative models to the standard one especially inexcusable.

Thin grass

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