Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Psychology, and the study of Memory and Consciousness are all focusing on understanding the nature, behaviour and living reality of our home; the human mind, living within our human brain. Weighing 3lb, being 6.5″x5.5″x3.5″ in size, having 2% of our body’s weight, consuming 20% of our body’s energy, containing around 100 billion neurons and establishing around 100 trillion connections, the human brain is, or should I say most likely you are, perceiving and reading and interpreting these words within its neural networks right now.
What does this relatively new form of life, this highly self aware and complex human brain, bring to Earth, to our Solar system, and to this Universe as a whole, so far as we know? And how do we find joy within it and do well by it? I intend to share new scientific insights into the structure and processes of our memories in mind, and then offer some of my own thoughts and theories regarding the very nature and form that our human minds take within reality as a whole, and in doing so, seek to propose some answers to these questions.
Fifty years ago Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, exposing the devastating impact of pesticides, especially DDT, on the whole web of life. Time magazine dismissed her as “hysterically overemphatic” and the New Yorker published a letter from a reader who complained, “As for insects, isn’t it just like a woman to be scared to death of a few bugs!”
Why is it that men and women have often responded so differently to the environment and environmental issues? From pre-Columbian Native Americans to the modern environmental justice movement, gender has played an underappreciated role in environmental attitudes and actions. In this illustrated presentation based on her new book Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History (Oxford University Press), historian Nancy C. Unger reveals how women have played a unique role, for better and sometimes for worse, in the shaping of the American environment.
Have you ever thought about writing your own personal Humanist Manifesto? Sandy Smith, a member of the Humanist Community, will give a brief history of the Humanist Manifestos written under the auspices of the American Humanist Association and other organizations, and then there will be an opportunity for you to consider how you would write your own.
In this talk, Paul George uses as a framework George Orwell’s famous themes of “war is peace”, “freedom is slavery”, and “ignorance is strength”, as a way of examining modern-day America, which translates to endless war, the national security state, and propaganda (along with lousy journalism).
Paul George has been a peace activist and grassroots organizer for nearly forty years. He is the Director of Peninsula Peace and Justice Center (www.peaceandjustice.org) in Palo Alto, CA.
The growth in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is already having significant climatic impacts. World wide, the average temperature increase since the industrial revolution has been more than a degree Fahrenheit. Over the land it is more than twice that. In the arctic, summer ice has receded to the point where the Northwest Passage is now open. Projections to the end of this century forecast increases in the world average of 5 to 15 degrees. The droughts, heat waves and floods of recent times is child’s play compared to what our grandchildren will face, if we continue to drop the ball on this issue.
Stabilization of the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will require a world wide reduction of 70% from the present level of emissions. Conservation, wind and solar energy cannot meet this challenge. Adequate energy storage technology does not exist to provide power when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. Only Nuclear Power can satisfy our “base load” requirements without adding carbon to the air. The sooner we implement this solution, the less horrific the world of our grandchildren will be. The Fukushima disaster highlights the need to do it right. Modern reactors such as the Westinghouse AP1000 with passive emergency cooling systems will not repeat this tragedy. In the future thorium reactors will not only be safe, but will not require nuclear material which could be used for bombs. Development of these systems is estimated to take about 20 years. Fortunately, the modern reactors are safe and can be used immediately to reduce our carbon emissions. See the presentation for more information.
Biography:
In 2004 Dr Mallary authored Our Improbable Universe. It is the scientifically comprehensive account of how the raw energy of the Big Bang evolved into us. It is such a shame, that we are destroying the high point of this incredible 14 billion year creative process in less than a century. Most of the things, for which our ancestors prayed to their gods, we can now accomplish. They would roll over in their graves if they could witness our folly.
Dr. Mallary received his S.B. degree in physics from M.I.T in 1966 and his PhD degree in Experimental High Energy Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1972. As an Assistant Professor in the physics department of Northeastern University he worked on an experiment at Fermi Laboratory that produced early evidence for the fifth quark in 1977. As part of this work, he hazarded exposure to significant radiation levels in order to repair a failed magnet and therefore has some personal appreciation of the heroic effort of the Fukushima operators.
Since 1980, Dr Mallary has worked on the design and modeling of heads and media for advanced magnetic disk drive recording. He has 51 publications and holds 92 U.S. patents and 50 foreign patents.
