Saturday, August 29, 2009

Biocentrism

Mr. Berger had this past week an interesting wrap up and interview about the concept of "biocentrism," a theory about the unified perception of reality put forward by physicist Dr. Robert Lanza. The theory, in an oversimplified nutshell,
"is an out-and-out challenge to modern physics, and its inability to reconcile the fundamental forces of nature and make sense of our universe. Lanza believes that is because physicists fail to take consciousness into account as part of their theories. As a result he proposes a new theory, biocentrism, that says the universe cannot exist without life and consciousness."

I posted the following comment to the blog:
Interesting.... Of course, all "explanations" are indeed rational. The possibilities are that there is an objectively real rational structure "out there," that there isn't such a thing and that what science observes is purely the observer's composition, or that there is a single field that includes the observer as well as what is observed. Now this doesn't have to be purely subjective--consciousness itself may well have that necessary and universal "structure" that ties it to the "structure" of what we experience as observed reality. There is a metaphysical question about "the mind of God," or something like that, lurking behind all of this. Science, at its limits, often seems to point in this direction.

An longer abridgment of Dr. Lanza's book is also found here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31393080/.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Syllabus and Course Calendar, Fall 2009

Here's the Syllabus/Course Description:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=df8n9qbt_507f48p7hch

Here's the Assignment Calendar:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=df8n9qbt_245dr8dtmgs

Textbook.

The text for this class is an anthology. Here are the specs:

Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application
Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman
Wadsworth Publishing, 5th Edition, 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0495095033

Gotta start somewhere

(Reposted from a year ago.)

This blog is mainly for getting information to students in the Environmental Ethics class. On occasion I'll post something I think is interesting or seek feedback about some topic.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Power Plant Accident in Russia

Now viewing the headline of this story on Bloomberg today, "Russian Power Plant Accident Kills 8; 54 Missing," what was your first thought (after, of course, sorrow over the casualties)? That it was another nuclear generation plant that had gone bad? Nope. It was HYDRO. Just thought I'd point that out.