A Few for Friday

The Unobservable Mind
"As a conscious subject, I have a point of view on the world. The world seems a certain way to me, and this seeming defines my unique perspective. Every conscious being has such a perspective, since that is what it means to be a subject rather than a mere object. When I give a scientific account of the world, however, I am describing objects only. I am describing the way things are, and the causal laws that explain them. This description is given from no particular perspective. It does not contain words like here, now, and I; and while it is meant to explain the way things seem, it does so by giving a theory of how they are. In short, the subject is in principle unobservable to science, not because it exists in another realm but because it is not part of the empirical world. It lies on the edge of things, like a horizon, and could never be grasped from the other side, the side of subjectivity itself. Is it a real part of the real world? The question begins to look as though it has been wrongly phrased. I refer to myself, but this does not mean that there is a self that I refer to. I act for the sake of my friend, but there is no such thing as a sake for which I am acting."



Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report,


The state of the world? It is on the brink of disaster
"Slow degradation is one thing but sudden and irreversible decline is another. The report identifies half a dozen potential "tipping points" that could abruptly change things for the worse, with little hope of recovery on a human timescale."

Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up'

Final Exam: Birds and Bees 101
Thanks to Professor President George W. Bush, millions of your tax dollars are being pumped into risky abstinence-only programs. But what is Bush really teaching America's teens? Could YOU pass sex-ed by President Bush? Take the quiz to find out...

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Letting Go, Intuition (listening to yourself)

If you are willing to confront the fears that arise when you are faced with letting go of some cherished illusion, then intuition allows you to know things as they are. At this point, when you have made commitment to your own inner truth, you may be increasingly willing to follow the guidance of intuition rather than try to use it to fulfill egotistical desires. The steady pursuit of self-knowledge leads eventually to a self-transcendence in which personal needs and desires are seen in a larger perspective. The intuitive realization that one is part of a larger whole, inseparable from the environment in which one lives, and that being is essentially the same in everyone, albeit in an infinite variety of patterns and forms, allows one to see oneself and the universe as an interdependent unit.
~Frances E. Vaughan

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