Halcyon Imagines

...what others love, hate, think, believe, feel and wish.

Ulrich Beck, a German sociologist, and the man who coined the word "individualisation", showed that as many of us are no longer members of groups (church, union, clubs) and have to construct our own lives, we become mistrustful and aggressive and with no-one to support us, lonely and frustrated.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the RSA wondered whether we can adjust over the longer-term, by developing a "truly global model of citizenship".

A new experiment in "biomapping" tracks the emotions of people in a community by wiring them up to Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) devices and detecting their emotional arousal. These states are then mapped onto people

"It is essential to happiness that our way of living should spring from our own deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes and desires of those who happen to be our neighbours, or even our relations" - Bertrand Russell

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself - Henry David Thoreau

Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn't most of them turn out all right after all? - Dale Carnegie, 1888-1955

There is an emerging concern that the cult of individualism, greed and selfishness has gone so far that families and children need "basic training in love and moral responsibility".

Some eminent ethicists argue the opposite, supporting those who claim that "there has been no bubble in available human energy" and that there is no less human energy available now than before the current financial and moral crises.

...for whom kindness is just one of many strategies to secure our isolated and isolating needs? An intriguing new essay says no, finding a place for genuine altruism.

...by believing that merely improving others' awareness will be sufficient to overcome the world's problems? When we are trying to be "authentic" and "green", for example, is this more about preening our own self-esteem than driven by any real sense of altruism or compassion?

...in which we try to escape from the prison of our own feelings and desires, and embrace the lives of others, discovering ourselves by learning about other people, and finding out how they live, think and look at the world?

...nice quote, nice sentiment. Animal-friendly consumerism could be a major trend in 2009. Until three years ago I too gorged myself on turkey every Christmas Day, Boxing Day, 27th...and my mouth still waters at the remembered taste of turkey soup on the 28th or 29th, a meal which definitely constituted one of the culinary highlights of my year.

Now, I still undergo the occasional inner drool at the memory and unfortunately (for me) the smell of meat still attracts rather than -as with many "lucky" veggies - repulses me, but some thoughtless things just can't stand up to an authentic and welcomed onslaught of values so, all the trimmings, certainly...but no turkey again this year.

..weird, but satisfying, to know that Leonard Cohen, having allegedly been shafted financially by his former manager, is going to coin it in from royalties from the new X-Factor version - the umpteenth - of Hallelujah. I've shivered to Lennie's original version for more than 20 years, and the performance I saw him give of the song live in Rotterdam last month brought the house down.

The most crucial decision-making skill, some scientists are now saying, is the ability to think about your own thinking, or metacognition. According to this emerging new vision of decision-making, the best predictor of good judgement isn't intuition or experience or intelligence, but willingness to engage in introspection, to cultivate "the art of self-overhearing".

Not quite the same thing as blogging, I feel. A fool with a tool is still...well, let's just say that perhaps not all humans demonstrate all of the time the "floodlight intelligence" that's supposed to distinguish us from the "laser-beam" intelligence of other animals.

...asks Time magazine, if synthetic organisms have arrived? It seems that it will soon be possible to mix and match genomes to generate organisms that can perform all sorts of molecular functiions, including - possibly - curing diseases.

Learning and sharing your genetic secrets are at the heart of a controversial new service - a saliva test that estimates your predisposition for more than 90 traits and conditions ranging from baldness to blindness. The 600,000 genetic markers that the service identifies and interprets for each customer are "the digital manifestation of you," the service's creator claims, adding that "it's information beyond what you can see in the mirror".

It's interesting to contrast this DNA-led approach to identity with efforts that Halcyon is starting to support that help us look behind each other's masks, learn what is common, or different, or surprising about other people and thereby - if we're so inclined - make new connections and even perhaps find new soulmates.

If we're dominated and therefore de facto separated by our qualia, can we ever reasonably hope to reach a consensus on what should be our shared values?

Could the collapse in consumerism caused by our troubled economic times combine with the growing critique of its consequences to create a fundamental shift in human values?

"I do not want to talk about what you understand about this world. I want to know what you will do about it. I do not want to know what you hope. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle" - Robert Fulghum

...account of what seemed to happen to the financial markets in 2008.

...an age characterised by common purpose and increased compassion, as a forthcoming film featuring Desmond Tutu, Deepak Chopra and others suggests, or is this merely another label for the Blessed Unrest movement, or more simply still just the latest incarnation of the Age of Aquarius ideals of yesteryear?