Get your own Free Home Page"Earlier in this century, the Heisenburg principle established that the very act of observing natural phenomena can change what is being observed. Although the initial theory was limited in practice to special cases in subatomic physics, the philosophical implications were and are stagerring. It is now apparent that since Descartes reestablished the Platonic notion and began the scientific revolution, human civilization has been experiencing a kind of Heisenberg principle writ large. The very act of intellectually separating oneself from the world in order to observe it changes the world that is being observed - simply because it is no longer connected to the observer in hte same way. ....In hte final analysis, all discussion of morality and ethics in science is pointless as long as the world of the intellect is assumed to be separate from the physical world. That first separation led inevitably to the eparation of mind and body, thinking and feeling, power and wisdom; as a consequence, the scientific method changed our relationship to nature and is now, perhaps irrevocably, changing nature itself. " Al Gore, Earth in the Balance, Ecology and the Human Spiritpg 253, Houghton Mifflin Company, NY, 1992
The truth about Al Gore And The Internet Daniel Dern passed this along. Vint Cerf is widely known as "the father of the Internet." Here's what he says about Al Gore's role is founding it. By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development. No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time. Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective. As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises. As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network." Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George Bush's administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This "Gore Act" supported the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond the field of computer science. As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out, as well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government agencies that spawned it. He served as the major administration proponent for continued investment in advanced computing and networking and private sector initiatives such as Net Day. He was and is a strong proponent of extending access to the network to schools and libraries. Today, approximately 95% of our nation's schools are on the Internet. Gore provided much-needed political support for the speedy privatization of the Internet when the time arrived for it to become a commercially-driven operation. There are many factors that have contributed to the Internet's rapid growth since the later 1980s, not the least of which has been political support for its privatization and continued support for research in advanced networking technology. No one in public life has been more intellectually engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the Vice President. Gore has been a clear champion of this effort, both in the councils of government and with the public at large. The Vice President deserves credit for his early recognition of the value of high speed computing and communication and for his long-term and consistent articulation of the potential value of the Internet to American citizens and industry and, indeed, to the rest of the world.
Carl Sagan speaks on current issues
"A global environmental crisis threatens to overwhelm our children's generation. Mitigating the crisis will require a planetary perspective, long-term thinking, political courage and savvy, eloquence and l eadership--all of which are in evidence in Al Gore's landmark book." -Carl Sagan
from : United Eco-Action
"The ecological perspective begins with a view of the whole...this perspective cannot treat the earth as something separate from human civilization; we are part of the whole too, and looking at it ultimately means also looking at ourselves." -Al Gore. Earth in the Balance
"Republican neo-fascists have moved against the American people, corrupted five Republican Judges into defiling our Constitution, and sold the White House to multi-national corporations bent on controlling the United States from within.".
__________ "In the 1930's, when Kristallnacht revealed the nature of Hitler's intentions toward the Jews, there was a profound failure of historical imagination. The United States - and the rest of the world - was slow to act. Few could conceive of the Holocaust to follow... Now warnings of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. But where is the moral alertness that might make us more sensitive to the new pattern of environmental change...we are still reluctant to believe that our worst nightmares of global ecological collapse could come true: much depends upon how quickly we can recognize the danger. How much more evidence is needed by the body politic to justify taking action?" -Al Gore from the United Eco-Action web page:
Environmentalists have reacted with anger to a decision by US President George W Bush not to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power stations. (BBC, 3-14-2001) http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1219000/1219574.s tm
There is a similar "control panel for spaceship earth" on a Buckminster Fuller inspired web page:
In 1939 Joseph Ratner wrote a bok about John Dewey's Philosophy which goes in to the history of the mind-body dualism idea and the history of the split between science and philosophy. Here are some of his comments about the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries:
"Although the differences between rationalists and empiricists developed to serious proportions later on, at the outset, especially as far as concerns their common opposition to the manifold medievalisms and oppressions, the differences were tactical rather than strategic."
"[...]Because of this prevailing cultural fact, to call it no more, it was inevitable that in taking over the Greek ideas, the spectator theory of mind should assume first and dominating place, acknowledged and unacknowledged, in the thinking of the period. Wherever it went, the spectator theory of mind necessarily brought along with it the theory of eternal and immutable Being [...] But in modern thought, the original relationship between them in Greek speculation was consistently reversed; their positions relative to each other were permanently exchanged." pg 26
Although science and philosophy started out in community of effort, and with a common set of fundamental ideas, the courses they have run are not the same."
According to Ratner, Dewey had discovered the error in metaphysical reasoning that affected both science and philosophy. (I will gradually add to this page.)
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