Seeds of Change - Heiner Benking's Blog - quergeist.info

1001 Dialogues - 100 001 Actions for Dialogues and Unity in Diversity

2008-05-15T06:22:12Z

A campaign for intercultural, interdisciplinary events and side-events, formal and informal, to promote dialogue and unity in diversity across scales, nations, languages, cultures, diciplines, sectors, lervels,.. is starting today: May 15 to June 15, 2008

TITLE: The Cultures and Powers of Diversity
Map Diversity and Mind Unity in Diversity - Create it & Accept it - Share & Expand it ! http://p-n-w.net/events/1001diversities.htm

BY DIVERSITY WE MEAN: cultural, natural, biological, genetic, temporal, spacial, lingual, media (signs), artistic and creative diversity !

– even diversity of viewpoints, positions and world-views and world models or world maps ! and the need of not needing to agree and the beauty of difference (diversity) in view of requisite variety.

Why are these “Diversities treated seperately ? cant we learn from each other ? or do we think there is no common language and no overview possible? Can we come to grips with broad issues and vague subject areas?

There is also a diversity of views and positions, representations and displays, call them signs, symbols, schemas, maps and models.

What is needed is to go beyond dualistic approaches, thinking just from an individual an collective, or personal or societal, just as we are seperating goos and bad, black and white, north and south or east and west.

So let us explore and negotiate the merits of having more than one way to go and present, one perspective or one direction.
And see outcomes like from the EcoTHEE - 2008 Agora: http://open-forum.de/events/AGORA-OUTCOMES-Chania-EcoTHEE-2008.htmWe started today, May 15 in Bonn at the CBD and linked to the UN-CBD-16 - like last year. We travel really and virtually with Taking Communities with the Anna-Lindh-Foundation 1001 Actions and 1001 Night May 22, and will touch ground at the "UN - Day of the Earth" opening session in Berlin.

All this makes me remember our efforts around the UN Year of the Mountains 2002 and the Global Learn Day, this time not 24 hours, but 24+ days.
Please visit our time-line of side-events http://open-forum.de/events/

more later - very busy presently.... Heiner

here more about 100 001:

Please join us:

· in the TALKING COMMUNITIES internet conference room,

type your name and use the password: ijgd (ijgd and Ihtec sponsor this room)

· see our symposion BLOG http://symposion.wetpaint.com/

· see the 1001 Actions site of the Anna-Lindh Foundation

· and the visit the 100 001 diversities side-events site. http://p-n-w.net/events/1001diversities.htm

· FACE BOOK treat: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=11002305058&topic=5237

·

While waiting for someone in our TC Conference room you might want to check this (taken from the FACE-BOOK Discussion): http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=11002305058&topic=5237

ONE CONCERN IS DEFINITELY: 1001 or 100 001 actions for dialogue !??

WHY 100 001 diversities ? - WHY so many ?
WHAT is “many” for you ? 10 ? - 100 ? - 1000 ? - or 10 000 ?
It looks like our thinking often doesn’t go beyond 0 or 1 – north or south – good or bad, black or white, … We know as fairy-tale about 1001 night (alf leila wa leila) so some cultures have more diversities and a broader concept of many – and so can avoid oversimplification and labeling (box-thinking) more easily. The Chinese concept for “many” is 10 000 – as you can see in 10 000 miles, 10 000 books. [ more at:] http://benking.de/GI/GI-datavisual-1987.html#10_000

So please consider for a moment MANY possible diversitries: natural, biological, cultural, temporal, spacial, lingual, media (signs), artistic, creative, gtroup and clan. …diversity !
And we have to talk about the Differences and how they connect !!

We also need to avoid the trap of overclaims and oversimplifications as we outlined for CULTURE OF PEACE long ago. http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/overview.htm

So join us on out trip, find out about new conferencing methods, a dialöogue and decision culture and how to tackle issues like multi-media, multi-lingual Cyberculture and how to “negotiate” and we ourselves and others mean, and how to concretely bridge not only the secors, scales, and issues, but how to come to the need not necessarily needing to agree, but to discuss the common grounds and shared frames or “maps”. [more on paradigm mapping and out of the box thinking here:] http://www.benking.de/wholeness/paradigm-mapping.htm

Valencia Report - UNFCC-IPCC and the Earth - Is that our field or turf?

2007-11-19T15:07:00Z

Finally the new and last IPCC report has hit the streets - but did it "hit" the "people" even when it matters to all of us?
Is this a matter that make us all act?
Why did the world did not react 20 years ago when the Climate and Development Conference in Hamburg with Willy Brandt, or when the COP-1 in Berlin took place in 1995?
Doomsday scenarios were already ubiquitous at that time, and earlier, media asked scientists to present vividly worstcase, serious scenarios!
People in Charge, like Elisabeth Dowdeswell (UNEP) wrote we know enough - we need to act to fight the crisis now - But how when me behave as this has nothing to do with us and we close our eyes and senses, and continue with business as usual.
Why was it so hard - even at CSD-15 - to speak about a climate crisis - which is much more than just climate change and the challenges we face?
Below I will focus on the reasons why I think we do not confront and tend to ignore the issues - why they do not "hold" in our memory -a nd so we can get dumbed down and continue "muddling through" - See more below:Forthcomming - please come again

Humanities new “Canon” ?? - a new German Bildungskanon ??

2007-10-26T08:09:57Z

HERE SOME QUESTIONS:
Is there a “store of knowledge" which we learn about, and jointly explore, share, and apply ??? - see the context, the frame, and the why we should learn? and what??
Should we use Signs, and Symbols, Images, Analogies, Maps and Models and Puzzles to help us digest and share what we know about the world?
See here the http://www.zeit.de/2007/44/Kanon-Auftakt and the themes in our German ZEIT Magazin.

So how to come to shared references or "order" ? as a pile of stone is not a house or canon. How about making use of Intelligences, Minds, Reason, ? and see them as one and combine them - because it is hard and misleading to be one-eyed and self centered only, leaving levels, times and others "out of the picure" instead of comming "down to Earth"?
Pls. see also below regarding grounding and purpose and responsibilities the question to Al Gore about "up to the moon" ? or "down to Earth" !
I hope the texts and references in the "corpus" below make sense and help us to make what we can know more real and shareable.

Puzzels, walls, houses, or cathedrals
name="country-region"/>
name="City"/>
name="place"/>

name="OLE_LINK5">style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK2'>style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK6'>lang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Humanities new
“CANON” style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK1'>style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK5'>style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'>- style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK1'>style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK5'>lang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>style='mso-spacerun:yes'> thestyle='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK1'>style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK5'>lang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'> new German style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK5'>lang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>BILDUNGSKANON ??

style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK5'>class=GramE>orstyle='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK5'>lang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'> “store of
knowledge we need to learn about, and jointly explore, share, and apply”style='mso-spacerun:yes'> ???

name="OLE_LINK3">style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>

style='mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK3'>lang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Should we use
Signs, and Symbols, Images, Analogies, Maps and Models and Puzzles to help us
digest and share what we know about the world?

style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>

Today we have a new puzzle-quest: src="Puzzels-cathedrals-Dateien/image001.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1025">style='mso-spacerun:yes'>

please go to http://zeit.de/bildungskanon

The ZEIT Journal is still using strangely distorted world maps (pls. see
this link on Earth Literacy and much needed “Map- and Model –Alphabetisation
Efforts” http://in-betweener.org/flatworlds,
and locates 6 strange categories:
Political Sciences, Economy, Natural Sciences, Humanities, Cultural Sciences,
and Daily Life – Culture. Each with 6-10 categories.

We applaud the effort of the ZEIT visualisation-team, special to use a
3-D puzzle, but have the designers and editors looked into a meaningful class=SpellE>Bildungs-Canon ever?

Have they looked into multi-lingual, multicultural switching systems
across scales and cultures?

I wonder !
- have the designersstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'> looked at the world-map sent with every
weekly – 500 000 Copies ?? – to present in a new
“Canon” old Worldmaps and Worldviews?? class=GramE>and overclaims and
oversimplifications? ( Culture of Peace 1997 - href="http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/overview.htm">http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/overview.htm
)

Have the Zeit authors and editors looked into
the Frankfurt Book-fair, (LIT) UNESCO &
Google Literacy Campaign ******?

Have they realized that our pupils get dumbed
down with strange digital world-maps – if you pan t the global scale – the maps
Google Earth – not Google Earth !! is using?style='mso-spacerun:yes'> - see “Humane Information Society href="http://benking.de/information-society-1998.htm">http://benking.de/information-society-1998.htm

orstyle='font-size:14.0pt'> Die Neuen Medien - Kommunikative Gesellschaft
? href="http://benking.de/zeiten-welten-wende.html">http://benking.de/zeiten-welten-wende.html
(2000) or Coping with Globalisation and Cyberculture?
-
href="http://benking.de/culture/kouvola-2001/sld001.htm">http://benking.de/culture/kouvola-2001/sld001.htm

style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Many questions
! - Maybe consult the Earth Literacy
link above or join in here:

The first section is about “The Earth”, but I wonder what is creative,
synthesizing, new in this first of 50 sections, and how they want to brig the
knowledge in the 50 sections together! See Howard Gardners
integrating and other “minds” mentioned below.

I wonder if they saw the Global Change: Challenges to Science and Politics
effort: http://benking.de/Global-Change/system-earth-posters.html,
done closely with the Alfred Wegner Foundation href="http://benking.de/Global-Change/aws-geotechnica-1991.html">http://benking.de/Global-Change/aws-geotechnica-1991.html

- (just see the historic changes of the planet at page 44-45 in ZEIT
about Alfred Wegeners “out-of the box
thinking”), and with centers
and Research Associations like: Frauenhofer, Max-Planck,
The German Federal Research Centers (AGF now HGF), for
the Chancellery, with consultations with the US NRC, NAS, AAAS, and visited by
the White House Conference of on GLOBAL CHANGE. Maybe this more recent links on
Global Research Challenges, NAS-Washington ***, the 2020 Emergency Teach-In
****, or these links on Higher Education are helpful *****, as there is much
more to be said about Earth for this new Canon.

Please follow the links where we did more coherent and meaningful ways
to order and visualize, ways to bring pragmatic alternative approaches to the
store of knowledge of humankind – call it Bildungskanon…
maybe also check out the Positive News links on Literacy and the Decade for
Education for Sustainable Development: http://pnyv.org

I will present here some “out – of – box !style='mso-spacerun:yes'> approaches to not only look into what we know
or do not know – or what is un-knowable, but
that we need much more than an education canon, As this is about knowing
– not acting responsibly and sharing towards positive outcomes”.

Starting from Howard Gardners
“Intelligences” and “Minds”. href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Gardner">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Gardner

Unfortunately we only learn the “disciplined” mind at school, we learn
to be a great parrot in “Chinese School” forgetting that we need more: to
responsibly know, connect, transcend, or as we say – moving even one step
further: Wissen, Wollen, class=SpellE>Wagen, Verantworten. This means
include a pragmatic view on ethics with scales and time horizons, aware of
proportions and consequences, and a look into a dialog and decision culture
into the infliction of suffering, which goes beyond dualisms and class=SpellE>labeling.

But let us go back to the WISSEN
_ WOLLEN _ WAGEN _ VERANTWORTEN:

It
includes know and to forget, to want and step back and restrain, to dare, and
take risks aware of the suffering involved, by increasing the amount of
compassion, and taking on responsibly for one-self AND others ! – class=GramE>so not just either-or “Ego” or “Eco”, but including
intelligences, minds (Gardner),
and eyes and models (Benking): House of Eyes and Me, We, You, They, Others,…
Models: UNESCO PARIS
(1996): Positions and Identities in Global Contexts: Awareness of Self and
Others with me,
you, we, they and "others" models, href="http://benking.de/cob-paris.html">http://benking.de/cob-paris.html,
or about Chances and Riscs of the new Media (1994): “class=SpellE>Fluchtwelten oder class=SpellE>Sinnwelten - Cyberspace als class=SpellE>Spielzeug und Orientierungshilfe?“style='mso-spacerun:yes'> - href="http://benking.de/VR-Oeffentlichkeit-pro-con.html">http://benking.de/VR-Oeffentlichkeit-pro-con.html
- http://benking.de/sinn-fluchtwelten.html
also covered in this entries
in the Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics: href="http://benking.de/systems/encyclopedia/newterms/">http://benking.de/systems/encyclopedia/newterms/

Here more on Signs, Symbols, Schemas, Orders, Metaphors and Analogies.
Please start here: From Senses to Meaning and Reason – from Culture to class=SpellE>Cybervultue?? (“Durch
die Sinne zum Sinn von Kultur zu Cyberculture?“ - class=SpellE>for EFFE - European Forum for class=SpellE>Freedom in Education, 1996): lang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>href="http://www.thur.de/philo/Benking/effe_en.html">style='mso-ansi-language:DE'>http://www.thur.de/philo/Benking/effe_en.htmlstyle='font-size:14.0pt'> or in 2006 class=SpellE>with ICSU CODATA:

href="http://benking.de/systems/codata/CODATA-MIST2005-ppt-s_files/frame.htm">http://benking.de/systems/codata/CODATA-MIST2005-ppt-s_files/frame.htmstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'> -
http://benking.de/systems/codata/CODATA-MIST2005.htm

Show or Schau?: (for
Lynton Caldwells’s “Is Humanity destined to
Self-destruct?): href="http://benking.de/perspect/perspectives-cover.htm">http://benking.de/perspect/perspectives-cover.htmstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'> - href="http://benking.de/pls-caldwell.html">http://benking.de/pls-caldwell.html

“Our view of Life is too flat” was the headline of the Youth around the
World Future Studies Federation meeting in w:st="on">Turku, w:st="on">Finland.

http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/12theses.htm
- href="http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/edu/educationfin.htm">http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/edu/educationfin.htm

style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>mybelang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'> also see links
from that “epoche” – on another server

http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/borderland.htmstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'> -style='mso-spacerun:yes'> href="http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/battle/battle.htm">http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/battle/battle.htmstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'> - href="http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/landscape.htm">http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/landscape.htm

We need to do more than just making nice puzzle of the globe, as was
done years ago already, see below, We need to do more than just label a puzzle
piece and locate it somewhere! We need how to design how things might connect
and overlap from different angles and distances, and then not just discuss
entities or views, but what that means for practical and cultural life across
times.

style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Picture Road Puzzlelang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>style='mso-spacerun:yes'> src="Puzzels-cathedrals-Dateien/image002.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1026">style='mso-spacerun:yes'> src="Puzzels-cathedrals-Dateien/image003.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1027">style='mso-spacerun:yes'> src="Puzzels-cathedrals-Dateien/image005.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1028">

The Worlds as WALL or PUZZLE !style='mso-spacerun:yes'> see class=SpellE>Europateppich http://p-n-w.net

This are covers close to my work I did in the early 90ies, by people I
was associated with at that time, Pentii class=SpellE>Malaska, Franz-Josef-Rademacher. class=SpellE>Pentti at that time president of the Future Studies
Federation and one of the players around the FICOR – Finish Club of Rome
Association, and Fanz-Josef head of the FAW in class=SpellE>Ulm, now with the GLOBAL MARSHALL PLAN and also more
recently Club of Rome member. *** class=GramE>more to come and also the puzzles I refer to.

MY QUESTION: How can we bring and
think together issues which are not “at hand” and how can we can come to grasp,
grope, grok what is
tangible, at other scales or in other worlds or times.

Please see the work on a global embodied Covenant as presented in class=SpellE>Urbino at an EARTH CHARTER Open-Space href="http://benking.de/covenant/sld001.htm">http://benking.de/covenant/sld001.htm,
the work on WORLD-Houses, and the recent presentation at a SPACES_SACRED SPACES
syposium on “Oikos, class=SpellE>Ecumene, Ecodomy” with class=SpellE>Theologycians, Politicians, Architects, and Geographers at
the University of Bamberg. href="http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v396/__show_day/_w2007-05-25">http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v396/__show_day/_w2007-05-25
see also these volumes on post materialism and my contribution on the Design of
“Worldhouses”:
Skizzenstyle='mso-bookmark:_Toc39245437'> class=SpellE>für Weltbilder und class=SpellE>Welthäuser-style='color:red'> class=SpellE>Haus-Aufgabenstyle='color:black'> zum Thema
Weltbetrachtung und Naturverständnis,
or going back 10 years to “an Mind Architecture” the Ulm
School of Design presentation: http://benking.de/IFGestaltung_Ulm.html

See the summary of the conference organizers: International Design Forum
(IFG):

At the moment, people's capacity to think
three-dimensionally is underdeveloped. That is why studies examine the
opportunity of three-dimensional intelligence and orientation. The 'panorama of
knowledge' is a model designed to facilitate visual access as well as the
interlacing of fields of knowledge. It provides a structure for navigation
processes and at the same time, is a dynamic, modular
and configurable system for a comprehensive architecture of knowledge.lang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>

I will add here some more links a.s.a.p. but maybe in-between check out href="http://benking.de/systems">http://benking.de/systems -style='mso-spacerun:yes'> href="http://benking.de/education/">http://benking.de/education/style='mso-spacerun:yes'> - http://benking.de/culture
and http://benking.de/dialog !

Today I want to check with the German on-line ZEIT community – but will
come back to report from the German- Kanon-, Gestalt-,
and Zeitgeist-Thinkers.

Heiner

(Thursday night, the night when the German ZEIT Weekly hit the streets,
hat putting Earth into the Education CANON)…

http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/12theses.htmstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'>

http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/edu/educationfin.htm

http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/borderland.htmstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'>

http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/battle/battle.htmstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'>

http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/landscape.htm

Questions for Al Gore

2007-10-21T10:13:38Z

Al Gore might want to answer one or more of these questions which were posed to him for his comming-out in Berlin next Tuesday.

There are more questions and the people can vote which one they consider most relevant for him to answer.
Pls. visit this link, and maybe even vote here

And now my questions: 1-4 (in full in the body below)
1. Apollo Alliance, 2. Earth Literate or Ignorant Leaders ? 3. Participation, Inclusion, Empowerment, Co-Creation, and shared agreed Actions? 4. Have you revisited "The Problematique" from 1970?
Dear Al, I understand that in the US there is a new, not just "man to the moon", but "humans down to earth" project which is called the Apollo Alliance.
Can you explain why this is just an American enterprise, and not a European or Asia, and shared global effort?
And – if – what your part in this is and means?

****

Dear Al, I was sad when I saw you in the early 90ies focussing as VP in Washington on reinventing Government and InfoHighways, given all you know about Climate and Environment at that time, and both of us just coming out of the “Rio-process”...
My question is: ARE YOU AWARE of efforts and campaigns to look into Earth Literacy, and Map & Model Alphabetisation, and that maybe people like you and I were educated with strange, distorted, euro-centric historic world-views and world-maps? So to be clear: You use in your movie INCONVENIENT TRUTH such inadequate – not equal area maps, WHY?
DO YOU AGREE that we need not just earth literate pupils, but Earth literate leaders, aware of not just scales, levels, sectors, but proportions and consequences, AND how they relate and re-enforce themselves (vicious problem circles)?

AND if not your fellow American who helped with the Club of Rome in the 60ies, Hassan Ozbekhan, should be revisited as a late eulogy? AND to reconcile prognostic, participatory, and normative futures, by looking also into words and meanings, values, and how to share commons in complex, if not perplexing, situations.

****

Dear Al, I congratulate you for your willingness to test new forms of participation, like this Question and Voting exercise. ARE YOU aware of the efforts in participants messaging since the 70ies, AND HAVE YOU SEEN this early History of Participant Interaction Messaging (1979 to 1995) - http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs00s/part_msg.php
In a nutshell, it has to do with empowerment and encouragement and listening, To give Voice. There is in the Database on social Innovations, with the same mind behind Anthony Judge, UIA, Brussels, the idea of time credits or tokens, to not just question, but to share interests and subsume and resonate.
More was exercised in the WAHLKAPFZIRKUS here with Chancen 2000 with Christoph Schlingensief in Germany, and can be found under the title: RE-INVENTING DEMOCRACY: http://open-forum.de/open-space-open-forum.html
I congratulate you as I see your approach here as an important step towards going beyond “Ideenwettbewerbe”, contests of ideas, as all to often the new quality is lost in ivory towers or in ignorance, as new ideas need to travel fast, and need fertile grounds, as peers will not rank something new - “not from here” - favourably. GOOD luck with your exercises to use these new forms of participation in individual and mass communication.

****

Dear Al, I congratulate you for your willingness to test new forms of participation, like this Question and Voting exercise. ARE YOU aware of the efforts in participants messaging since the 70ies, AND HAVE YOU SEEN this early History of Participant Interaction Messaging (1979 to 1995) - http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs00s/part_msg.php
In a nutshell, it has to do with empowerment and encouragement and listening, To give Voice. There is in the Database on social Innovations, with the same mind behind Anthony Judge, UIA, Brussels, the idea of time credits or tokens, to not just question, but to share interests and subsume and resonate.
More was exercised in the WAHLKAPFZIRKUS here with Chancen 2000 with Christoph Schlingensief in Germany, and can be found under the title: RE-INVENTING DEMOCRACY: http://open-forum.de/open-space-open-forum.html
I congratulate you as I see your approach here as an important step towards going beyond “Ideenwettbewerbe”, contests of ideas, as all to often the new quality is lost in ivory towers or in ignorance, as new ideas need to travel fast, and need fertile grounds, as peers will not rank something new - “not from here” - favourably. GOOD BYE & GOOD LUCK with your exercises to use these new forms of participation in individual and mass communication for new forms of capacity building.

****

Dear Al, with congrats for your decisive and long-time effort to put the “environment” onto the agenda at a very important, even when late leverage point or action. Moving with the Climate Sector first makes sense, but I wonder WHAT YOU THINK about putting also Health, Water, Soil, Oceans, Biological and Cultural Diversity onto the Agenda with similar emphasis, as some problem-areas, s as we see them develop over the last 30 years, are not just getting critical, but overlap, and strange perplexing vicious-cycles become more often obvious. MY QUESTION IS: Do you think we should tackle, let us say after Climate, Water, Education, Population Pressure, Poverty, or for example Security, next, like with the Millennium Development Goals, and then hope the others get treated by this “core” issues, or do you think we should study also the Key Problem Syndroms, as some policy research in Germany went into that direction, or even dig deeper, by studying the underlaying inter-sectorial dilemmata, and even check the values and meanings used when people try to grapple with the challenges ahead.
AND as he subsequent question, should we not revisit the Original Prospectus of the Club of Rome, which was designed much wider and deeper, not just modelling alternative future scenarios, but address the participative, terminological, and normative dimensions of Global Change.
So WHAT DO YOU THINK of this early peace of the Club of Rome which somehow got lost while muddling through, as I see it.
MAYBE you have not seen this on Problem Bodies ?: http://www.uia.org/problems/probcom_bodies.php?kap=1 and THE PREDICAMENT OF MANKIND - Quest for ... Original Prospectus of the Club of Rome, with co-authors like Hasan Ozbekhan, Erich Jantsch, Aurelio Peccei, ...and others from 1970 ? http://www.cwaltd.com/pdf/clubrome.pdf
YOU GOT CURIOUS BY THIS? Maybe visit your compatriot in Philadelpia, The person in charge at that time and still alive !: Alexander Christakis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Christakis

________

Postscript:
Now people can vote, old questions have more votes than last minutes ones, long-sellers are better than late-sellers... (forget about bestsellers ), Englsih Questions are ignored in favour of German ones (that is what I hear).

As I have English "connections" and as a lot of more questions came up, not just from me, here 2 examples: (my further questions are to much for this format. A WIKI-TIKI will help ! or something like a http://www.citizendium.org/essay.html CITIZENDIUM derivate.

ERIC SCHNEIDER or his personal profile.

Dear Mr. Gore,
I see the major quality of your film in its characteristic as a useful
lively quality tool for committed actors in the public, in media, in
education and civil society to inform about this complex issue. However,
even if there is / will be / was no climate change, there are many other
just as final Game Over issues, such as Biodiversity and Species Loss,
Water Loss, Chemicals in Water reducing species fertility (incl. humans),
trends to global empire and militarisation instead of evolution of
democracy and peace, and - as your recent book has shown - media
manipulation (studies show 50% of main media articles today are designed
by PR companies, including long-term soft messaging by political and
economic interest groups). What is your opinion on also developing strong
media on these vital issues?

Dear Al,
in the frame of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development 2005-2014, youth leaders are developing comprehensive
information media (online, download print, multimedia) like your film for
a multilingual youth and education public; for example http://pnyv.org;
http//pnyv.org/water. Do you see chances that such initiatives be
supported by the informal sector, affluent donor and citizen initiatives,
like the Apollo Alliance?

As one would expect, the questions "voted/chosen" by the website visitors are the common issues (global climate coop, and US climate progress), - which makes me consider this anyother participatory fake, especially since enbw already ON THE DAY OF the event has deleted the questions page from its server, hahaha. There were some very critical questions about coal, nuclear, CO2 controversies that sure made their stomach turn.

Fortunately there is google cache, which still shows the page. It was taken before I posted my questions. I find them rather meaningful, looking ahead, practically.

Maybe though, Al would not have lived up to his depiction of being a GIANT (looks like the picture was taken from a baby pram)

**

I see the major quality of your film in its characteristic as a usefullively quality tool for committed actors in the public, in media, ineducation and civil society to inform about this complex issue. However,even if there is / will be / was no climate change, there are many otherjust as final Game Over issues, such as Biodiversity and Species Loss,Water Loss, Chemicals in Water reducing species fertility (incl. humans),trends to global empire and militarisation instead of evolution ofdemocracy and peace, and - as your recent book has shown - mediamanipulation (studies show 50% of main media articles today are designedby PR companies, including long-term soft messaging by political andeconomic interest groups). What is your opinion on also developing strongmedia on these vital issues?

Dear Mr. Gore,in the frame of the United Nations Decade of Education for SustainableDevelopment 2005-2014, youth leaders are developing comprehensiveinformation media (online, download print, multimedia) like your film fora multilingual youth and education public; for example http://pnyv.organd http://pnyv.org/water. Do you see chances that such initiatives besupported by the informal sector, affluent donor and citizen initiatives,like the Apollo Alliance?

****

ANTHONY JUDGE.

has just sent two questions and some links, maybe you enjoy:

I believe in the mathematics of inability to respond -- although
illogically I am so numerically challenged that I occasionally buy a
lottery ticket. How can the poor guy respons to anything?

My question would be why will it be impossible for him to respond
significantly to the set of questions and what does this suggest with
respect to democratic feedback?

Generating a Million Questions from UIA Databases: Problems, Strategies, Values
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs00s/questdb.php

Preliminary NetMap Studies of Databases on Questions, World Problems,
Global Strategies, and Values
http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs00s/netmap.php
The database is online

It looks like a repository of Q&A's is needed - an Intelligent one ! see the entries in Blog in this Blog about Dropping Knowledge ! and the UIA!

G8 Gleneagels Dialog & Comparability, Fairness, and Fidelity

2007-09-10T11:20:18Z

Today and tomorrow in Berlin, the G8, UN organisations, and Stakeholders are assembling for a new round of climate policy negotiations 3rd Gleneagles Dialogues in Berlin. Keynoters include Gro Harlem Brundtland, and top representatives of the 20+ leading countries in the fields of energy and environment, and their pendants heading the top international organisations in the field.

Talking to Timothy Wirth United Nations Foundation, and Ricardo Lagos Club of Madrid and Global Leadership for Climate Action was very informative, .... please read MORE
Today and tomorrow in Berlin, the G8, UN organisations, and Stakeholders are assembling for a new round of climate policy negotiations 3rd Gleneagles Dialogues in Berlin. Keynoters include Gro Harlem Brundtland, and top representatives of the 20+ leading countries in the fields of energy and environment, and their pendants heading the top international organisations in the field.

Talking to Timothy Wirth United Nations Foundation, and Ricardo Lagos Club of Madrid and Global Leadership for Climate Action was very informative, since these people have a "high stand" and can see aspects with a broader perspective. High priority items are Mitigation, Adaption, Technology Development and Cooperation, Finance.

German Minister Gabriel’s statement caught my attention: "justice" and appropriate "scales" have to be related to "per capita" schemas. Wirth and Lagos also recognised that we need more flexible schemas, as the situation is so diverse, - compare for example Malta and China – and agree that we need to more flexibly address not just the economic setting but also the context and cultural setting. We discussed examples of how to, in a fair manner, include other criteria; - not just the number of people, but population density, and other "area-related" criteria, like carrying capacity and environmental exposure, or production yields - Or to use a more „fashionable term“: ecological footprint. More about ecological Integrity and Justice was discussed in this seminar: A seminar where we also introduced common frames of references and a global embodied covenant.

I informed also about the initiative towards EARTH LITERATE LEADERS (by curing their map- and model analphabetism. I stated that some of our decision makers and leaders have strange and distorted, historically and culturally biased "maps of the world" in their mind. They just did not learn better in schools.... and that we need dialogues, conversations, and a decision culture which questions deeper and includes more complex issues across levels and sectors, like the value and terminological base. Pls. see these recommendations we summed up here: CAPACITY TO GOVERN.

Material of our side event at the UN CSD-15 about the early steps of the Club of Rome to achieve a “structured stakeholder dialog” were delivered and hopefully lead to further concerted and robust action.
Please see: 40 years problematique revisited, and Dialog and Decision Culture, and last-not-least: Role of Culture in Dialog among Civilizations.

Playing Go - Braille Alphabet - Cognition - Creativity - Intelligence / Choice

2007-07-28T15:01:14Z

I was intrigued by the recent article about computability of games - how homoludens is outmastered by the computer, when playing Chess, Backgammon, ... but not Go !
Why ? and what that means for cognition, imagination, and pattern-languages, but also to the Braille-Alphabet for us blind people in modern media and globalisation, and what I think can be done to add human capabilities to keep "in check" advanced full-text research research like from Google, and add the big picture of the context, the broader orientation or big picture. See Panopticon.I was intrigued by the recent article about computability of games - how homo ludens is out-mastered by the computer. How the computer wins when playing Chess, Backgammon, ... but being hopelessly loosing when playing Go !
Why ? and what that means for cognition, imagination, and pattern-languages, but also to the Braille-Alphabet for us blind people in modern media and globalisation, and what I think can be done to add human capabilities to keep "in check" advanced full-text research like from Google, and add the big picture of the context, the broader orientation or big picture. See Panopticon.

But one after the other. Computers can not cope with humans playing GO as it need visual and intuitive components and if compared to chess has 64 versus 361 fields and allows 10 power120 versus 10 power 761 for the game Go.

Using a matrix, a schema, or grid allows the human eye to see contexts and situations, I was always intrigued by when seeing masters playing simultan chess, and so I explored 3 D chess and looked into chess with three parties on a hexagon "grid" (which I developed as a student in the early 70ies and was excited to see the alternatives, social dynamics, and patterns evolving).

So what s the Braille Alphabet? A grid for the blind to help them read. What is the Ekistic grid? A way for a science and practice to look at different scale platforms and different structure elements at the same time. So what is a general Switching Systems for Archiving?
(by Ingetraut Dahlberg ISKO founding president) It is a way to bridge terminologies of disparate repositories and the grid in the left space of the Cognitive Panorama. And maybe as a combination of the above schemas: What is the Cognitive Panorama and Cognitive Spaces, where areas of meaning can overlap like a venn diagram for Cognitive Spaces.

Why all the trouble? Why look into intuition, visualisation and intelligence?
Well Humanity has open new realms with Globalisation, and new technologies like multi-media, and nano-technology, but we are still stuck in our box of the meso-scale, tangible, and material. We cross scales and dimensions, but close our eyes hoping or unconsciously trying to avoid to confront the effects we inflict. We leave our new generation without orientation and elders in power. They seem to be groping in the dark, like a drunken searching his key in the dark, as that seems to be the only obvious way to search/look ....

I explored mind architectures, deep knowledge-spaces{link:http://benking.de/meta-paradigm.htm, -maps and -metaphors&analogies, meta-paradigms,
creativity and cognition over the last 10+ years, but it looks like the sciences are stuck in their box turfs as well and nobody seems to be in charge for or interested in something "outside" or "general". So how can we share - not to consider managing - something "outside there".

The design discused here is definitely not flat like a chess-board, it has to include different times, languages, cultures, perspectives, signs,... and so it has to be "deep". More needs to be written about this elsewhere if there is time ... for the beginning I propose to visit:
Interdisciplinary Conference 2004: The Evolution of World Order - EWOC
Towards one Possible Global Embodied Covenant: Models, - not just Systems, Signs, Words and Images“

Using Maps and Models, SuperSigns and SuperStructures - CODATA 2005 see also: conference text with links

Again, why the trouble, isn't it it enough to say exactly what you mean, and if the people do not get it give some definitions?

I think no, because the context varies and is situational.
To get a broader picture waht issues, books, or orgnaisatrions "are about" we have done some exercises in schools, so the pupils marked in a concretely defined and outlined! field of schema, call it knowmap or interest map, what for an example a book is about, where an organisations is working, or where individuals interest is, or what they need to know, .... So it was not multiple-choice in the conventional sense of hierachical lists like we use in "tests", but having the pupils mark any field "connected" to the issue to be registered. The outcome is a diverse matrix of interests or subjects where the depth or shading depends on how a majority feels something belongs to, think of meta-tag fields, matrixes or patterns that overlap and relate !!

This has to do with the tagging we know ten years later, or what was considered with new approaches to information management, beyond a World Press Center, see WORLD BANK letter by John O'Connor "What is going on in ICT", .
and Augmented Understanding. and how to overcome labeling and "isms", about our ways to think in boxes and consider it clear, logical and final. But this is quite another contribution as involves magnetic portals, knowbots, hypertext and hyperframes, and what they call now Web2.0....

Panoptic - A word of yesterday and tomorrow ?

2007-07-23T08:37:40Z

Panoptic was the Word of Yesterday. Is it possible to have a comprehensive, coherent "all-seeing" from a high stand to see the context and have overview? As our society believes in specialisation and ignores the potentials of being both, specialist and generalist ways or constructions are shown to share positions, issues, and perspectives and their combination. The essay reviews the possibility of not only having single, a caleidoscop of images, but to agree upon a coherent unifying generalisation in order to find orientation and see and share contexts, overlaps, and common patterns, and proposes to study the combination of elements or signs forming the "whole" of "all" of panoptic endeavour.

A friend called me last night informing my that my "favorite" word: "panoptic" was proclaimed by Merriam-Webster the Word of the Day: [LINK] and [MP3]

panoptic \pan-OP-tik\ adjective: being or presenting a comprehensive or panoramic view

DRAFT - still not complete and final Monday 18:00 hrs

This nomination comes to me as fortunate surprise as I see this civilization is avoiding or even fearing? any kind of overview or orientation. The use of the word "panoptic" is therefore very rare and special in English in everyday language. The occasion of to revisit this "Word of the Day" is therefore very much appreciated and very welcome.

All to often anything having to do with overview and orientation [LINK] is considered impossible, not our business, and as you are an individual, you have to consider yourself small, and so you can never raise to the real understanding. In some cultures it seems even to be used like a commandments are used: you shalt not look "outside of the box", and you should not raise your head to find orientation yourself, just put your head into the sand .

So let us see see what Merriam-Webster gives us as an example for panoptic, what it means and where the word comes from and was used:

At the top of the mountain is a sightseeing point that provides climbers with a panoptic view of the surrounding valleys

The establishment of "panoptic" in the English language can be attributed to two inventions known as panopticons. The more well-known panopticon was conceived by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1787. Bentham's panopticon was a circular prison with cells arranged around a central tower from which guards could see the inmates at all times. The other panopticon, also created in the 18th century, was a device containing pictures of attractions, such as European capitals, that people viewed through an opening. Considering the views that both inventions gave, it is not hard to see why "panoptic" (a word derived from Greek "panoptēs," meaning "all-seeing") was being used by the early 19th century.

We got two very different inventions here. First a device which allows us look into and "control" all "cells" of prisoners. This resembeles the Orwellian total control of "big brother", a very discouraging implementtion of "seeing all". The Second invention is the collage of pictures to form a new comprehensive and meaningful picture, call it (virtual) panorama. The question is, is the second invention helpful, can it bring new insights and realisations, or is it just a toy, full of colors, maybe harmonic and pleasing the eye, or is it also pragmatic and meaningful, helping towards positive ends like deeper insights and understanding?

One approch towards bigger, comprehensive pictures, can definitely to close our eyes, allowing multi-media and globalisation to "dumb us down" and in the post-modern apathy avoid confronation with anythin alien or strange, anything we are not used to. This was definitely a tactic in the ancient time, when every valley, every island, every tribe tried to cultivate and celebrate the sweet solitude of being alone and special, and all others are barbarian. The problem, when confronted with something different all too often fight and wining over the others was seen as the ultimate an only solution. But times are different, we co-exist with other cultures and cross broundaries and scales all the time. Should we fight? or try to find a lonly island? or should we like in the first "solution" wait that a technical golem or big brother, takes over the "overview" and gives directions? We are already much on the way towards this end. Philosophers and Teachers tell us, what Preachers told the people aeons ago and systems like GOOGLE - if we are not aware what is going on and counteract and set limits - tell us what we can and should know according to our "profile".

Such an "all-seeing" seems to make people and philosophers afraid, and so such a comprehensive seeing is turned down as impossible in modern times or is left to automats. In the past it was exciting to climb a mountain, and even discover the perspective like Petrarca did in the 14th century, but stepping back, or finding a "higher stand", or even considering the Earth as a Whole when seeing it as one form orbit, is somehow neglected as a way to see bigger pictures in perspective. People seem to confuse "all" with ALL or higher echelons "not given", confuse something coherent and complete with something ultimate and beyond our direct "touch", like the supreme.

Overview seems to be considered impossible to have, specially in times of ourt modern Cyberculture and Globlisation, where post-modern abstract thinking neglects and ignores any context and the consideration of structures, sectors and levels, as this would imply that there is a common or agreed frame of reference. This is what grown-ups and decision makers already learn in school, it is like a dogma often repeated, not to be questioned, and we are unaware that we inhale and resonante with it like a mantra.

Already in school our Children learn that it is impossible to have overview, that you can not be a generalist, and there is no order or systematic in global affairs and a globalising world. In a nutshel we and our youth are condemned to specialise and overspecialize, knowing more and more about less and less, that we can not develop an idea what we can know, where to find what we search, and how it relates to other pieces of knowledge or wisdom.

My work with the cognitive panorama [LINK] or call it cognitive panoptic panorama is exactly about that, the possibility to step back, or reach a high position to see a bigger picture. This picture should be of something simple, coherent, and complete, so you know the frame and where the elements have their place. It is of a smaller scale, with a coarser granularity, so you can see the outline and the context, well aware of loosing the detail. We wrote about survey knowledge, which might be "panoptic" if you go the metaphor of just seeing, as there are other forms of expereincing, senses, and ingelligences you might want to include in the "overall" knowing and seeing. Please see: "Granularity and Context of Knowledge" in this Know-Map article [LINK]

Open Questions:

This leads to the challenge of post-materialism. Can we find and share orientation?, May we use metaphors of seeing, eye, perspective, or models like house, garden, ocean to befriend us and make us feel "at home" with something out of reach, something we can physically trouch or not directly "see" ? Can we make use of models to make such other dimensions concrete and real us, and so help us share, negotiate, discuss, change issues on on other scale-platforms or beyond our direct reach? Can we learn from concepts like Truthing and Fideltity, to compare our constructions or models with "reality" and so learn about pragmatics and sensemaking, and comming to grips with issues the public or we tapically ignore and neglect?

Possible Answers / Directions to explore:

If you consider the above not too strange or alien, maybe you want to see what cultural philosophers like Jean Gebser wrote about the Integral, and the need to make issues concrete. He even used the word a-perspective as a new and advanced level of seeing. He explicitely said this is not ""not-perspective", so maybe we can understsand it as "extra-pespective", which includes al the other forms moves on onto higher levels of human development. For more read "Concreteness": http://benking.de/gebser2001.html and "Show or Schau?": http://benking.de/show-schau.htm.

Proposing new models, schemas, grids, or designs to explore and negotiate something "panoptic" can only be the second step. First we need to cultivate our ways to have true dialog, in short to participate and share and go eyond the need to be "right" or having "to agree": On this way I propose to read: http://benking.de/dialog/dialog-among-civilizations.htm, http://benking.de/dialog/dialogues-conversations/, and: http://benking.de/Dialogue_and_Decision-Culture.htm

As an aside:

The work of the author has focussed on international data repositories and information management or knowledge organisation. It had to do with what is where, in which language or discispline, and from which time. The concepts developed 15-20 years ago did not make it as there was little awareness of the issue of new media and modern computer technologies in our international policy bodies - so funds and admistrative turfs were a unsurmountable problem. Besides, as with all futures and global look-out studies, the technology was not there (yet) and so long-views are considered alienating or endangering, so - the author moved on to fields like environment and education. Today the information technology is there - knowbots can help us find and filter - but also hide as what they do is intransparent and invisible, and so we humans have little ideas, ways , and means to find something which is not stored in a certain "facon". Besides, everything in different languages, sign systems, or spelling is lost totally or in translation. The question is: do we just go for full-text research and "eat what is served" or do we want to visit and know the ontologies. This is a question not just for science and policy, but also for any kind of epistemiology and learning.

post-materialism,.. not-given, comprehensive, .. coherent - complete?? panoopticon, metaphorics, just words, just images, just symbols, amnalogies and metaphors?? - signs systems !

Tällberg Forum 2007

2007-06-28T15:22:51Z

The Tällberg Forum is a unique event on the level of Davos, World Social Forum, Summits, but very different in scale, quality, and results. This report is about the different design and outcomes and starts whith the requests in the opening event to find a new World-House and new Language to help us find ways to live together.
The openingevent: Forum keynote: HM Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan where she cited Martin Luther Kings Nobel Price lecture requesting a world-house. Setting the framework: Manfred Max-Neef, Rector, Universitad Austral, Chile TÄLLBERG NEWS - TELLBERG NEWS - TÄLLBERG NEWS

TÄLLBERG NEWS - TELLBERG NEWS - TÄLLBERG NEWS

Not final – I NEED TO WORK ON THIS !!

The Event: The Tällberg Forum 2007 | Learn to Live to Learn June 28 – July 1, 2007. Dialogue. "How on earth can we live together" http://www.tallbergfoundation.org/forum_2007/ Tällberg Foundation http://www.tallbergfoundation.org/
The opening event: http://www.tallbergfoundation.org/forum_2007/program/day_1/ (excerpts):
1. Forum keynote: HM Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan where she cited Martin Luther Kings Nobel Price lecture requesting a world-house. (pls. see this link in this blog about a world house as a common for all cultures). oikos & ecumene & ecodomy - spaces as fullness/emptyness/potential.
2. Setting the framework: Manfred Max-Neef, Rector, Universitad Austral, Chile urged the participants to look for a new language.
As both common models and the combination of sign-systems is central to the authors work I hope you find the time to follow these links:

Interdisciplinary Conference 2004: The Evolution of World Order - EWOC
Towards one Possible Global Embodied Covenant: Models, - not just Systems, Signs, Words and Images“

Using Maps and Models, SuperSigns and SuperStructures - CODATA 2005 see also: conference text with links

Later updated link: pls see this link.

COMMING BACK TO THE TÄLLBERG FORUM
Tällberg Forum is unique in its quality, scale, and depth and allows participants to have a time out – not just to focus on areas of interest, but to socialise and see the “other” sector or subject, and hopefully see with new eyes and come to new solutions in the normal professional life.
It is very different if compared to DAVOS, State of the World Forum, World Social Forum, or any kind of Summit where also such high level issues are discussed. Why? It is not done for the celebrities, politicians, media, …. But the movers and shakers who are oftern second-liners, who are in charge, even when not in the position of president or secretary general. Tällberg also attracts also the first line presidents and princes(cesses) but as media-hype is not invited and I may say discouraged and hindered, there is a familiarity possible which is unique if compared with the other first-class events on this planet.

Except the sponsoring TV – and Media Organisations, all other press representants are somehow left outside, besides, behind the gate and fence, far away from the “hospitality desk” and the Charterhouse’ Rules : no attribution of comments and no publication in the press are highlighted so any jounalist knows that this is a different event.

Tällbeg is an event to allow people in power to exchange freely. Typically for such events which are mcuh smaller in “in camera” rules are applied, so nothing has to leave the room. But Tällberg is different it tries to make the bridge by making it a week-long event for many people and combining public events with work sessions and recreation – this is definitely unique in Tällberg and very necessary for the free flow of (new) ideas in the right setting.

I was accredited as accompanying camera man and later as individual free-lance journalist, even when I wrote the organisers that I am involved in the field and know many participants personally since long. But that was all - journalist may come to the countryside - but are treated well - apart from the participants - so socializing and connecting was very difficult - but not impossible - especially when you are acquainted with some of the players and movers. If not - you can request an interview and wait that somewhere in the free-time - you meet and get into a conversation with someone by chance or with some effort and plan.

NOT READY YET _ COME BACK LATER ...

I will bring excerpts from the transcript during the day and will report on the how this new way or model, this new language looks like and how it is applied to which effects. Stay tuned - as we are on-line here in Tällberg, Sweden, a week after midsummer.

Meanwhile Swedish Television Chanel 4 has send a 4 hours documentary which is highly recommended. It definitely can portrait the work done during the sessions and in-between, but it is at least a nice summary fur the public.

Which Worlds ? G8+5, G20, G77, G meta-networks, G people, ... or what?

2007-06-04T23:53:51Z

some reflections about summits, peoples, sectors, scales and issues to be completed a.s.a.p. as we are nearing the G8 in Heiligendamm, Germany - STILL NOT FINISHEDsome reflections about summits, peoples, sectors, scales and issues to be completed a.s.a.p. as we are nearing the G8 in Heiligendamm, Germany

UIA or UIA ? Centinental celebrations and a day of ??

2007-06-01T12:44:01Z

100 years UIA Union of International Associations, 30 years Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential and some new "developments" in Brussels around Anthony Judge.
We ask: Union of International Associations or Union of Intelligent or Intelligible Associations? Union of Intelligent or Intelligible.
- and what they have done 100 or 30 years ago, and what is up for the Futures to come? with dumb or intelligible beings.Today I received a very sad message when instead I was expecting good news and hopes for the international multilingual, intersectoral communitiy. UIA is celebrating 100 years of its foundation - in conjunction of another anniversary, the 30 years of its Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, but at the same time it looks to me that the captain has left the boat, leaving the UIA Union of International Associations http://uia.org alone in heavy waters.
Did he desert the boat? Creating another UIA - Union of Imaginative Associations ?? http://www.un-imagine.org.
Or is that the good news, especially given its relation to three complementary initiatives: Cognitive Fusion reactor (ITER-8), the University of Earth, and the Union of the Whys?, Together perhaps more appropriate to the chaotic challenges of the times to come and the need for strategic flexibility and timeliness?
please see: Celebrating the Institutional Century of the UIA (1907-2007): senility, immortality or reincarnation ? http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/uia/docs/centenary.php - (with links to rough translations into German, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese raising interesting conceptual issues) if you have questions on the relationships between these initiatives please visit: http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/uia/docs/logo_uia.php
If you read for example: In Quest of "Meta-Union"? - Interplay of generic dimensions of any "union of international associations" http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs00s/uia_12.php -- you can see what this Anthony J. N. Judge is caring about and how he presents his findings to questions other not even bother to ask....

As a "long-time collaborator" I am shaken and somehow stumbling/crying in the dark in view of these changes -- and wonder if they are for the better.
The Blog entries below about the ontology of the UIA and other groundbreaking achievements might be of interest to better understand the challenges UIA dedicated itself to the last decades, even one century, how much they were and are ahead of their times - like always I would say ! - http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v396/__show_day/_w2006-09-09 -- http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v396/__show_day/_w2006-10-26

This is of special relevance as Dropping Knowledge http://www.droppingknowledge.org is thriving on such ground-work done by the UIA over decades for example at the VISION SUMMIT in Berlin this week: http://www.visionsummit.org/ What I refer here to is the reliable and fieldproven ontology developped by Anthony Judge and his collegues on the basis of 100 years of international work and the background of people like Paul Otlet http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Otlet , and maybe I may mention Erich Jantsch http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Jantsch , James Welles-Wellesly, Robert Jungk http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jungk , Hasan Ozbekhan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_%C3%96zbekhan ,... ) all intellectual giants or great thinkers (see syntopicon of Great thinkers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntopicon ) - but except Robert Jungk known to only a few ...

___
PLEASE come back later as we have the G8 "at home" and lots is going in Berlin nowadays... liek the legislators meeting Sunday - Tuesday to prepare for the "chiefs": http://www.globeinternational.org/
http://www.complusalliance.org/Templates/COMPLUS/COMPLUS5/layout.asp?MenuID=2