tag > Regenerative
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Notes on the Book The End of Certainty - by Ilya Prigogine (1997)
Interesing summery of the book by Mona M.Abd El-Rahman:
Prigogine’s view on cosmology (the more widely accepted Big Band Theory and The Steady State Theory) agrees with that of the Indian cosmologist Jayant Vishnu Narlikar, who wrote “Astrophysicists of today who hold the view that the ‘ultimate cosmological problem’ has been more or less solved may well be in for a few surprises before this century is out”.
“Many scientists have been willing to explain this singularity (the big bang) in terms of the “hand of God” or the triumph of the biblical story or creation.”
“In accepting that the future is not determined, we come to the end of certainty” says Prigogine. He does not believe, however, that this is an admission of defeat for the human mind. He asserts that the opposite is true.
He views the universe as a giant thermodynamical system far from equilibrium, where we find fluctuations, instabilities, and evolutionary patterns at all levels.
Some great quotes from the end of the book: For Einstein, science was a means of avoiding the turmoil of everyday existence. He compared scientific activity to the “longing that irresistibly pulls the town-dweller away from his noisy, cramped quarters and toward the silent high mountains. Einstein’s view of the human condition was profoundly pessimistic.
Science began with the Promethean affirmation of the power or reason, but it seemed to end in alienation – a negation of everything that gives meaning to human life.
Einstein repeatedly stated that he had learned more from Fyodor Dostoyevsky than from any physicist. In a letter to Max Born in 1924, he wrote that if he were forced to abandon strict causality (classical physics and relativity), he “would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist”. In order to be of any value at all, physics has to satisfy his need to escape the tragedy of the human condition. “And yet and yet”, when Einstein was confronted by Godel with the extreme consequences of his quest, the denial of the very reality that physics endeavors to describe, Einstein recoiled. (Godel took Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and classical physics and showed that past and future are equivalent and that it is possible to travel back in time).
Prigogine has tried to follow a narrow path between two conceptions that both lead to alienation: a world ruled by deterministic laws, which leaves no place for novelty, and a world ruled by a dice-playing God, where everything is absurd, acausal, and incomprehensible.
Prigogine ends his book with the following words: “As we follow along the narrow path, we discover that a large part of the concrete world around us has until now “slipped through the meshes of the scientific net”, to use Whitehead’s expression. We face new horizons at this privileged moment in the history of science”.From Wikipedia, on "The End of Certainty":
"In The End of Certainty, Prigogine contends that determinism is no longer a viable scientific belief: "The more we know about our universe, the more difficult it becomes to believe in determinism." This is a major departure from the approach of Newton, Einstein and Schrödinger, all of whom expressed their theories in terms of deterministic equations. According to Prigogine, determinism loses its explanatory power in the face of irreversibility and instability."
An interview with Ilya Prigogine by Yiannis Zisis
Ilya Prigogine – On Dualist Knowledge
Dissipative system (wikipedia)
"A thermodynamically open system which is operating out of, and often far from, thermodynamic equilibrium in an environment with which it exchanges energy and matter. A tornado may be thought of as a dissipative system."
#Science #Complexity #Generative #Regenerative #Religion #Philosophy #Book
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The ‘Amazon effect’ is flooding a struggling recycling system with cardboard.
"This holiday season, the popularity of online shopping collides with upheaval in cardboard recycling. China’s 2017 decision to turn away America’s trash has left the recycling industry reeling as it figures out what to do with all the packaging online shoppers leave behind.
Some municipal recycling programs have closed. Even the ones that haven’t still have headaches: specifically, filthy recyclables. All of that leads to more cardboard in landfills. The rise in curbside cardboard waste coming from packaging is “the Amazon effect”. Last year, Cyber Monday was the biggest shopping day for Amazon in the history of the company. The trend extends beyond the holidays: US Postal deliveries have doubled to 6.2 billion in 2018, from 3.1 billion in 2009."
"There’s been a more than 50% decline in the price of recovered cardboard in the US since China’s decision. Coupland believes there’s actually been as much as an 80 to 100% devaluation in some markets. That’s a big reason why cities across the country are scaling back or completely dumping their recycling programs."
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Giant tortoises show surprising cognitive powers (Nature)
Giant tortoises can learn and remember tasks, and master lessons much faster when trained in groups.
Scientists trained Galapagos tortoises and Aldabra tortoises to bite a ball of a particular color — blue, green or yellow.
When tested three months later, the tortoises recalled the task. The authors tested three of the tortoises again after nine years and found that all three responded to toys of the correct color. The researchers also found that both species of tortoise could be conditioned with fewer training sessions if they were taught in groups than if learning occurred in isolation, hinting that tortoises learn from watching their peers.
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Wild Silkworms Produce Proteins Primed for Bioprinting. A mix of silkworms’ proteins acts as a scaffold for 3-D-printed tissues and organs.
Wild silkworm species Antheraea assamensis. -
Techno-fix futures will only accelerate climate chaos—don’t believe the hype - by Joanna Boehnert and Simon Mair
“To address the climate and ecological crises, we need a vision of the future. But some of the most popular ones out there will only propel the planet more quickly towards destruction; Rejecting the ecologically harmful assumptions on which our culture is currently built offers us a unique chance to build a healthier and fairer world.”
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Recology adds robotics to produce cleaner plastics
"A West Coast operator installed four artificial intelligence units at its high-tech San Francisco MRF. A company manager explained how the machinery is working in conjunction with optical sorters to boost recovery and reduce contamination."
"I don’t get sick. I don’t need breaks, lunches or days off. I work harder, longer and better than anyone else. I’m more accurate and more efficient than anyone could be. Thanks to my intelligent neural network, I’m capable of learning on the job so I can adapt to changing conditions and variables. Lowering costs & improving productivity"
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Secretive Bill Gates-backed solar startup announces major breakthrough
"Heliogen is able to achieve these breakthrough temperatures as a result of its technology that uniquely uses advanced computer vision software to hyper-accurately align a large array of mirrors to reflect sunlight to a single target."
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"Deutschland kriegt das Problem nicht in den Griff: Es ist nicht nur so, dass der Abwärtstrend ausbleibt. Es gibt sogar wieder mehr Müll."
"E-Mobile ähneln inzwischen der Situation bei einem Kernkraftwerk, wenn es um die Entsorgung von Havaristen geht" #Regenerative #Upcycling #Circular
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Mysterious Fungi Bring a West Virginia Forest Back to Life: https://www.wired.com/video/watch/mysterious-fungi-bring-a-west-virginia-forest-back-to-life
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Engineer discovers how to extract water from air and sunlight: https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/465212-engineer-discovers-how-to-extract-water-from-air-and-sunlight #Regenerative #Technology
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From oil age to soil age: What's already emerging? Some snapshot slides of our Urban-Rural exhibition in Shanghai by @johnthackara et.al: https://www.slideshare.net/johnthackara/urbanrural-exhibition-shanghai-november-2019-john-thackara-personal-slides
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The End of Prehistory - talk by Kenny Ausubel at Bioneers 2019
"If billionaires were a country in 2019, they would be the third largest nation on earth"
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Food loss & waste contribute 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Tackling them can help fight #ClimateChange while generating food security & economic benefits: https://www.eco-business.com/opinion/theres-no-time-or-food-to-waste/ #Regenerative #Food
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Collection of EU funded bio innovation initiatives:
- ValueWaste Project: https://twitter.com/ValuewasteP project that proposes an integrated approach in urban biowaste upcycling for the production of high-value biobased products
- NUTRIMAN network: https://twitter.com/NUTRIMANnetwork Creating an inventory of practical and readily available nutrient recovery practices for farmers.
- EUBIA: https://twitter.com/EUBIA1 European Biomass Industry Association
- SCALIBUR: https://twitter.com/SCALIBUR_H2020 Circular economy for biowaste
- Biorefine Cluster: https://twitter.com/Bioref_Cluster The Cluster interconnects research projects and people within the domain of Biorefinery.
- POWER4BIO: https://twitter.com/power4bio Horizon 2020 bioeconomy project empowering EU regions to maximise the use of their locally available biomass feedstock
- EU Eco-innovation: https://twitter.com/EU_ecoinno EU H2020 Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency & Raw Materials programmes.
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Top Solar Energy Producing Countries 1983 to 2018
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Growing Ecological Civilization in China - by Evaggelos Vallianatos: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/08/growing-ecological-civilization-in-china/ #ClimateChange #Regenerative #Economics #Infrastructure #China
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Interview with David Wallerstein, chief exploration officer of Tencent
