Burning Turtles and Oily Rain!

Are we being honestly kept informed of events regarding the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico? While BP is compensating for lost wages, who is compensating nature for the hundreds of thousands of lost wildlife? Did you know that when you hear stories about burning off the oil slick that sea turtles are being burned alive with no effort to save them?

If this concerns you, please join the Facebook group, PETITION FOR OIL COMPANIES TO COMPENSATE NATURE FOR ITS DESTRUCTION. You can see what's up at, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118567354854294&v=wall

BP-THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO!

Dear Philip,

Two days on the Louisiana Gulf Coast last week changed me in profound and gut wrenching ways.

My throat burned and my head foggy and dizzy from the Gulf's toxic fumes, I returned home and shared my pictures and my flip-camera video with my wife, Fran, and 13-year-old daughter, Nicole.

With the horrific images of gooey peanut-butter colored oil, blackened wetlands, oil-soaked dolphins and brown pelicans flashing on the screen, Nicole played the music from the season finale of the popular TV series Glee. And I heard for the first time the show's final song of the year, a slow, soulful, ukulele and guitar-driven version of the classic "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

The beautiful song and the heartbreaking images blended in tragic irony. I choked up.

Thanks to some quick video editing by our EDF team and to Fox for granting us rights to use the Glee version of "Somewhere," we now have a video I hope will inspire you to keep up constant pressure on our Senators to move a strong clean energy and climate bill this year.

SHADOW LESSONS STARTS STRONG

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #11,582 in Books
ATTMPress new release starts strong on Amazon.



When high school English teacher Sean Cullinan comes across a specialty publisher looking for fresh African-American voices, he decides to submit his latest manuscript. One problem: Cully is white. Enter Janine Russell, black lieutenant in the San Francisco fire department and long-time friend of Cullinan. Together, they create a literary hoax that eventually fuels a national race debate. In Shadow Lessons new author Tim Reardon delves deep into the heart of the volatile American race conversation in a work that overflows with humor, honesty, and courage. "Don't let Reardon's breezy style fool you. Underneath the humor and crackling dialogue is a well-crafted novel. It also just happens to be an off-beat examination of race in America. Don't let that fool you either."


About the Author
Tim Reardon graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1990. For the past twenty years, he has taught creative writing at Saint Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco, where he lives with his wife, Gina, and their three daughters: Kate, Claire, and Lizzy. Shadow Lessons is his first novel.

THE SORCERER'S DREAM

The Sorcerer’s Dream: An Initiation into the Sorcerer’s World

This is the autobiographical story of a young woman bumping into the enigmatic sorcerer Running Deer and her initiation into the sorcerer’s world and mastering conscious dreaming. It takes the reader throughout the magic realms of the unknown and gives a new approach to the traditional training of women sorcerers.

The riveting autobiographical account The Sorcerer’s Dream written by Dreamshield takes the reader throughout the magic realms of the unknown and mastering conscious dreaming. This book, following the traditions of Carlos Castaneda and others, gives a new approach to the traditional training of women sorcerers.
The author describes her initiation into the surrealistic world of dreaming and magic, following the teachings of ‘Man of Knowledge’ Running Deer. In the heart of Amsterdam, a thrilling stride unfolds in obtaining the knowledge of the Second Reality on the way to the ultimate goal: finding the Totality of the Self!
The combination of unusual instructions and experiences within the sorcerer’s world and the level-headedness of a very Dutch woman offers the reader excitement and contemplation on the way to the source of this reality, finding the ultimate self through the experiences and understanding of Dreamshield herself. Up until the last page the reader remains intrigued whether Dreamshield will reach her goal.

Right by the author’s side or facing her stands the character of Running Deer. Sometimes mysterious, then challenging, strict as a guru, or vulnerable as a visitor in a foreign country. However, the precise description of these distinctive steps on the road to her initiation stand like milestones in the landscape of this unique history.

About Alysa Baceau, Dreamshield
Dreamshield (Alysa Braceau) studied social work and is a freelance journalist who writes for newspapers and magazines. She has a Healing Practice and gives workshops about the Art of Mastering Conscious Dreaming and Dream Healing.

Facing spiritual, physical and emotional blocks and stopping your dreams

The Sorcerer’s Dream is about my initiation into the sorcerer’s world and mastering conscious dreaming. Among other things, I describe the steps you can take to master your dreaming. It takes you on the road to the totality of the Self. To reach this point you have to face your spiritual, physical and emotional blocks and work to release them. Stopping your dreams is one of the first steps you take in this procedure of facing your blocks. The following excerpt is a conversation with my dreaming teacher Vidar and my dreaming experiences, which gives an impression of this procedure. (The next step which I describe further on in my book is a ritual to heal your inner child).

“Unpleasant dreams disappear when you look right through them. First you ask yourself what is happening, what is going on? When you stare at it, all that remains is beauty, wisdom and strength and the fear of certain situations will vanish permanently.” Vidar summarizes, “On the way to the totality you may encounter many shocking images, but you must not let it distract you. Tell yourself: I will reach the totality. Nothing can keep me from reaching my goal.”

I fly along with the eagle and from the air I see the red path down below bending like a thin trail through the rocky west and I dive downwards after the eagle. Like the first time we land at the start of the trail and after a short walk we fly over the green palm tops in the direction of the ocean. Further to the left there are several bays interrupted by rocks and stones. I circle exploring over the west’s shelter. It is the first bay seen from the rocks, because towards the right the jungle starts narrowing into a point. I descend at sea, make myself comfortable and take in the light orange horizon from left to right and back. The tiger walks towards me, purrs and pushes his head against my shoulder. I stroke his head softly, get up and then we walk to the wooden villa together.

On closer inspection, the house which is accessible via a broad half-rotten staircase, could use some renovating. Except for a few stair-steps the window frames are also rotten and the paint is peeling in some places. Suddenly my attention is diverted by the sound of broken glass. The tiger walks around in circles in the sand behind me. Curiously I walk up the stairs and carefully open the front door, which is ajar, and which gives direct access to the living-room where I stand before my father who has an empty bottle of booze in his hand. He is furious. The floor around him is scattered with pieces of glass. His appearance is just as vibrating as in the last dream. I don’t like to be reminded of this part of my youth and would like to turn around, prefer to erase the dream and if it were written on paper I would ripple it and throw it in the garbage can, but my thoughts are interrupted by the tiger who jumps up from behind me and starts to attack my father.

I am indifferent to the scene in front of me. When the seriousness finally dawns on me, I order the tiger to stop dutifully. But he only listens after I have urged him persistently, stamping my foot. But it is too late.

The living room floor starts to collapse and I try to put a stop to it, but I fail and we all end up in the sand. I get up frustrated, wipe the sand off of me and crawl to the light among the rotten floor boards. I reflect upon the scene for which I was certainly not prepared. The eagle is immediately on the spot and suggests throwing my father in the sea. After careful consideration I turn down the offer: I cannot bear to think that his body or whatever is left of it would wash up on the beach in a few days time. I prefer a conventional funeral.

The tiger does not doubt for one second and starts digging a hole in the ground. The eagle collects the torn body, picks it up with his strong claws, flies up to the sky with a powerful beat of his wings and then lowers my father into the hole. We cover him with sand, everyone of us in our own way. We become more and more fanatical as the sand slips away or dissolves, leaving my father visible. I drop down in the sand disappointed, grab some of the loose sand and look up as I let it slide through my half-opened fist, like an hour glass. From the green oasis we are being spied on by an Indian holding a spear in his raised hand, ready to throw. He watches us attentively, as if he is turned to stone, petrified, except for his deep brown irises shooting from left to right. I am too busy to pay attention to it as I am trying to figure out how I could have prevented the situation, or how to turn this into something positive and then, unsatisfied, I return to reality together with the eagle.

Before I fall asleep that night I return to the west in hope of a miracle, or rather that I wish not to be faced with my father still lying in the way. I call upon the eagle. Looking down from the sky I realize nothing has changed, except that the tiger is walking circles in the sand where my father lies. I sleep on it and than it seems that time has left its marks, but I am certainly not happy about it.

Looking on from the rocks I see my father – dead, but physically unharmed – lying crossways like a hand of a clock in the eastern part of the circle, with his head pointing outside. Overcome by grief I kneel by his side and start crying pitiful. Anyhow, he is more alive than you would expect from a dead man.

He pulls himself up mechanically like a stick, faces me and – with his green eyes and expressionless face – he says exactly what I need to hear: “I’m sorry I was such a bad father.” I wait for the rest of the words patiently, which he searches in the handful of shells in the sand. “But I had no choice,” he continues as he looks me in the eye. I weigh the words, I had no choice. The tiger stretches out like a sphinx, upright and with pricked up ears.

My father begs me: “I won’t have peace before you forgive me.” I am deeply touched and impressed and quickly tell him “I forgive you”. We hug each other and I wonder whether I mean it or said it to make him happy. I wipe the tears from my cheeks, right across the dream reality. The eagle comforts me by putting his wing around my shoulder and takes me to his nest where I wake up.

Vidar points out to me that I witnessed a very troublesome event. “Fixate it, and then it will transform itself into beauty.” I feel stupid. That is precisely what I did not do. It hadn’t entered my mind for one single second to fixate the attack. “If you look fixated, the totems help you to erase unpleasant events from your history. Only then you will be able to reach the totality.”

He says that it is important to stay in close contact with the totems and to share feelings of worth, love, warmth and trust. “Consider them devoted friends. Just think back the way the tiger took your part and the eagle put a wing around you.””


We invite you to join s on the virtual tour for The Sorcerer’s Dream by Alysa Braceau (Dreamshield). The full schedule can be seen at http://bookpromotionservices.com/2010/05/03/sorcerers-dream. You can learn much more about Dreamshield and her work on her website – www.dreamshield.nl. The book can be ordered on Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Sorcerers-Dream-Dreamshield-Alysa-Braceau/dp/1609101561. SPECIAL OFFER - Every time you post a comment on any tour post - you will be entered into a drawing for a $35 Amazon gift card -- so, share your thoughts with us.

THE BLACKENING OF AMERICA…AND THEN SOME

This is not about race; it’s about oil and lessons not learned, warnings not heeded, opportunities lost and a future that is black. Have you noticed that the news is filled with accusations, promises of investigations, commissions being formed, warnings of prosecutions and basic finger pointing? What is the subject of all of this attention? Obviously, it is the Deepwater Horizon on-going disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

There should be no need to recount the events or to even bring you up-to-date on the planet’s worst environmental disaster since the Biblical flood. Just turn on the news and get all of the latest. My concern is not the loss of entire ecosystems, how many millions of gallons of crude are destroying the entire way of life of the Gulf, how the spill will get to the East Coast and perhaps Europe, the senseless loss of wildlife along with their homes, habitats and breeding grounds, or the economic destruction of the Gulf. Rather, my concern is whether or not the finger is pointing in the right direction.

It is certainly easy to point toward BP. And, there is no question that at some point, they will pay the piper. There are also those who made faulty equipment and who failed to ensure that all such equipment would work at such depths. Of course, we do not want to forget those who issued permits when all facts were not known and compliances not guaranteed. Without doubt, heads will roll, jobs will be lost, and fines paid. One must remember, however, that those with financial power, at least historically, never really lose power of money.

America, and most of the world, is at the crossroad of a major crisis. But is the crisis oil spills or something more fundamental? Here is the crux of the matter; we have developed a universal culture of blaming others for our woes. As a result, we have a companion mindset that says problems like oil spills, climate change, refugees, peace, pollution and other pressing world problems cannot be solved by the common person because it is beyond the scope of their ability and power to do so. As long as we point the finger at another, we think we are free from guilt and not responsible for the solution of problems. But let’s be clear, our insatiable appetite for oil, power, and throwaway consumer goods has allowed the rampart rape and pillage of the very home on which we live. As long as our cars run, the lights come on, the food is on the shelves and we can get the latest disposable gadget, the purveyors of black gold can do as they will. Certainly someone is watching them and, if a problem occurs, ‘someone’ will deal with it.

Critics of such concepts as the Law of Attraction like to point to such disasters as genocide, disease, oil spills, rape, and a wide range of other seemingly disasters and argue that “certainly people do not attract these things to themselvesthey are much too horrible.” Ah, the pointing figure syndrome strikes again. Clearly, people do not let dictators rise to power. Clearly, we do not let nations commit genocide. Clearly, we do not so over consume so there is food for all. Clearly, we do not consume the majority of the world’s energy resources. Clearly, we treat all with respect and dignity and help all in need so there is no need for crime. Clearly, oil companies are greedy and they get away with all sorts of machinations, but that’s not our problem. Clearly, someone else is always responsible for the troubles in the world and there is nothing we can do about it.

In way, all of the above are what are called “memes.” If you haven’t done so, I highly recommend reading “The Virus of the Mind, by Richard Brodie. A ‘meme’ is a unit of information in a mind that influences events such that more copies of itself get created in other minds. A virus of the mind is something that infects people with memes which, in turn, influence the infected people’s behavior in such a way that the virus spreads. Dictators are experts in the use of memes to alter public behavior, as are corporate advertisers. After all, look at all of the new diseases that exist and look at all of the stupid things people buy because they are convinced they must have those things. This is how those who ‘know’ use the Law of Attraction to get rich. This all brings us back to the oil spill in the Gulf. The reason that the oil rig is there in the first place is because we have been convinced we must have oil; that we must get it at all costs so the Arabs can’t control us or turn off their supplies, and that even if there is a disaster, it happens and there is nothing you can do about it because you really need the oil.

When we point the finger, we must discover that we are pointing in a mirror. We let ourselves be controlled and manipulated by the masters of memes. We bring into our lives that which someone else says we must have. As a result, the Law of Attraction is fulfilled and we attract what we deserve, what we think, what we fear. There is a growing sense of futility, an emerging blackness in the American psyche. It is a mind virus that is spreading everywhere. Biologists tell us that one of the leading causes of evolution is environmental stress. There are those who also say that humanity is on the verge of a spontaneous evolution. While change does not require negative stress, it does seem that humanity only rises to the occasion when we are faced with disaster. Such disasters are now happening in the environment, the economy, in religion, education, politics, and in nearly every aspect of human life. Many forces are flowing together in what appears to be an interesting 2012 scenario. Perhaps we will wake and discover that we do not have to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Perhaps we will discover that if we can create such gross injustices to ourselves and the place that we live, then we also have the ability and the power to create a world that makes sense.

The following is a list of major oil spills and disasters. Perhaps if we recall that the Gulf is not the only place that we have allowed such destruction, we will wake up and end the madness.

Oil Spills and Disasters

The following list includes major oil spills since 1967. The circumstances surrounding the spill, amount of oil spilled, and the attendant environmental damage is also given.

1967-March 18, Cornwall, Eng.: Torrey Canyon ran aground, spilling 38 million gallons of crude oil off the Scilly Islands.
1976-Dec. 15, Buzzards Bay, Mass.: Argo Merchant ran aground and broke apart southeast of Nantucket Island, spilling its entire cargo of 7.7 million gallons of fuel oil.

1977-April, North Sea: blowout of well in Ekofisk oil field leaked 81 million gallons.

1978-March 16, off Portsall, France: wrecked supertanker Amoco Cadiz spilled 68 million gallons, causing widespread environmental damage over 100 mi of Brittany coast.

1979-June 3, Gulf of Mexico: exploratory oil well Ixtoc 1 blew out, spilling an estimated 140 million gallons of crude oil into the open sea. Although it is one of the largest known oil spills, it had a low environmental impact.
July 19, Tobago: the Atlantic Empress and the Aegean Captain collided, spilling 46 million gallons of crude. While being towed, the Atlantic Empress spilled an additional 41 million gallons off Barbados on Aug. 2.

1980-March 30, Stavanger, Norway: floating hotel in North Sea collapsed, killing 123 oil workers.

1983-Feb. 4, Persian Gulf, Iran: Nowruz Field platform spilled 80 million gallons of oil.
Aug. 6, Cape Town, South Africa: the Spanish tanker Castillo de Bellver caught fire, spilling 78 million gallons of oil off the coast.



1988-July 6, North Sea off Scotland: 166 workers killed in explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha rig in North Sea; 64 survivors. It is the world's worst offshore oil disaster.
Nov. 10, Saint John's, Newfoundland: Odyssey spilled 43 million gallons of oil.

1989-March 24, Prince William Sound, Alaska: tanker Exxon Valdez hit an undersea reef and spilled 10 million–plus gallons of oil into the water, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Dec. 19, off Las Palmas, the Canary Islands: explosion in Iranian supertanker, the Kharg-5, caused 19 million gallons of crude oil to spill into Atlantic Ocean about 400 mi north of Las Palmas, forming a 100-square-mile oil slick.

1990-June 8, off Galveston, Tex.: Mega Borg released 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston as a result of an explosion and subsequent fire in the pump room.

1991-Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait: during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 mi off Kuwait. Spill had little military significance. On Jan. 27, U.S. warplanes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil.
April 11, Genoa, Italy: Haven spilled 42 million gallons of oil in Genoa port.
May 28, Angola: ABT Summer exploded and leaked 15–78 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola. It's not clear how much sank or burned.

1992-March 2, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million gallons of oil spilled from an oil well.

1993-Aug. 10, Tampa Bay, Fla.: three ships collided, the barge Bouchard B155, the freighter Balsa 37, and the barge Ocean 255. The Bouchard spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay.

1994-Sept. 8, Russia: dam built to contain oil burst and spilled oil into Kolva River tributary. U.S. Energy Department estimated spill at 2 million barrels. Russian state-owned oil company claimed spill was only 102,000 barrels.

1996-Feb. 15, off Welsh coast: supertanker Sea Empress ran aground at port of Milford Haven, Wales, spewed out 70,000 tons of crude oil, and created a 25-mile slick.

1999-Dec. 12, French Atlantic coast: Maltese-registered tanker Erika broke apart and sank off Britanny, spilling 3 million gallons of heavy oil into the sea.

2000-Jan. 18, off Rio de Janeiro: ruptured pipeline owned by government oil company, Petrobras, spewed 343,200 gallons of heavy oil into Guanabara Bay.
Nov. 28, Mississippi River south of New Orleans: oil tanker Westchester lost power and ran aground near Port Sulphur, La., dumping 567,000 gallons of crude oil into lower Mississippi. Spill was largest in U.S. waters since Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989.

2002-Nov. 13, Spain: Prestige suffered a damaged hull and was towed to sea and sank. Much of the 20 million gallons of oil remains underwater.

2003-July 28, Pakistan: The Tasman Spirit, a tanker, ran aground near the Karachi port, and eventually cracked into two pieces. One of its four oil tanks burst open, leaking 28,000 tons of crude oil into the sea.

2004-Dec. 7, Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska: A major storm pushed the M/V Selendang Ayu up onto a rocky shore, breaking it in two. 337,000 gallons of oil were released, most of which was driven onto the shoreline of Makushin and Skan Bays.

2005-Aug.-Sept., New Orleans, Louisiana: The Coast Guard estimated that more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled during Hurricane Katrina from various sources, including pipelines, storage tanks and industrial plants.

2006-June 19, Calcasieu River, Louisiana: An estimated 71,000 barrels of waste oil were released from a tank at the CITGO Refinery on the Calcasieu River during a violent rain storm.
July 15, Beirut, Lebanon: The Israeli navy bombs the Jieh coast power station, and between three million and ten million gallons of oil leaks into the sea, affecting nearly 100 miles of coastline. A coastal blockade, a result of the war, greatly hampers outside clean-up efforts.
August 11th, Guimaras island, The Philippines: A tanker carrying 530,000 gallons of oil sinks off the coast of the Philippines, putting the country's fishing and tourism industries at great risk. The ship sinks in deep water, making it virtually unrecoverable, and it continues to emit oil into the ocean as other nations are called in to assist in the massive clean-up effort.

2007-December 7, South Korea: Oil spill causes environmental disaster, destroying beaches, coating birds and oysters with oil, and driving away tourists with its stench. The Hebei Spirit collides with a steel wire connecting a tug boat and barge five miles off South Korea's west coast, spilling 2.8 million gallons of crude oil. Seven thousand people are trying to clean up 12 miles of oil-coated coast.




2008-July 25, New Orleans, Louisiana: A 61-foot barge, carrying 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel, collides with a 600-foot tanker ship in the Mississippi River near New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel leak from the barge, causing a halt to all river traffic while cleanup efforts commence to limit the environmental fallout on local wildlife.

2009-March 11, Queensland, Australia: During Cyclone Hamish, unsecured cargo aboard the container ship MV Pacific Adventurer came loose on deck and caused the release of 52,000 gallons of heavy fuel and 620 tons of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, into the Coral Sea. About 60 km of the Sunshine Coast was covered in oil, prompting the closure of half the area's beaches.

2010-Jan. 23, Port Arthur, Texas: The oil tanker Eagle Otome and a barge collide in the Sabine-Neches Waterway, causing the release of about 462,000 gallons of crude oil. Environmental damage was minimal as about 46,000 gallons were recovered and 175,000 gallons were dispersed or evaporated, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
April 24, Gulf of Mexico: The Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible drilling rig, sank on April 22, after an April 20th explosion on the vessel. Eleven people died in the blast. When the rig sank, the riser—the 5,000-foot-long pipe that connects the wellhead to the rig—became detached and began leaking oil. In addition, U.S. Coast Guard investigators discovered a leak in the wellhead itself. As much as 25,000 barrels (1,050,000 gallons) of oil per day were leaking into the water, threatening wildlife along the Louisiana Coast. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared it a "spill of national significance." As many as 1,000 people and dozens of ships and aircraft were enlisted to help in the cleanup. BP (British Petroleum), which leased the Deepwater Horizon, is responsible for the cleanup, but the U.S. Navy supplied the company with resources to help contain the slick. Oil reached the Louisiana shore on April 30, and there was widespread consensus that the spill would dwarf the Exxon Valdez in terms of environmental damage.

Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001451.html

SAM HARRIS-YOU'RE WRONG!

There is no such thing as objective science. If physics has taught us anything, it is that the observer and the observed are one. The idea that science can find an objective morality is, by its very nature, an oxymoron. Science is based upon "knowledge,knowledge requires a learner and a learner cannot be objective. Sam Harris would like us to believe that science can lead us to the promise land of well-being. That, while religion and all of its worn out dogma has failed to do so, a new religion of science will show us how to create a land of milk and honey. While I agree with his assessment of religion, his solution is just as inappropriate. In a response to his critics, Sam Harris tried to clarify his position. What follows are parts of his response as posted on his site and my comments are in bold.

Last month, I had the privilege of speaking at the 2010 TED conference for exactly 18 minutes. I was not suggesting that science can give us an evolutionary or neurobiological account of what people do in the name of “morality.” Nor was I merely saying that science can help us get what we want out of life. Both of these would have been quite banal claims to make (unless one happens to doubt the truth of evolution or the mind’s dependency on the brain). Rather I was suggesting that science can, in principle, help us understand what we should do and should want—and, perforce, what other people should do and want in order to live the best lives possible. There is an obvious bias in the preceding statements. The notion that science can tell people what they ‘should’ do or should not do indicates simply another form of dogma that has been found not to work by religions. My claim is that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, just as there are right and wrong answers to questions of physics, and such answers may one day fall within reach of the maturing sciences of mind. As the response to my TED talk indicates, it is taboo for a scientist to think such things, much less say them public. While there is no doubt that it is appropriate for scientists to discuss such issues, the notion that there are right and wrong answers is a matter of judgment and subjective bias. What is the difference between science telling people what is wrong and the Church, any church, telling people what is right or wrong? Actually, the notion that there is right or wrong, good and evil, flies in the face of science. There are certainly positive and negative forces. But calling hot right and cold wrong is ludicrous. Despite the influence of religion on the issue, calling murder wrong is a moral judgment.


Some of my critics got off the train before it even left the station, by defining “science” in exceedingly narrow terms. Many think that science is synonymous with mathematical modeling, or with immediate access to experimental data. However, this is to mistake science for a few of its tools. Science simply represents our best effort to understand what is going on in this universe, and the boundary between it and the rest of rational thought cannot always be drawn. There are many tools one must get in hand to think scientifically—ideas about cause and effect, respect for evidence and logical coherence, a dash of curiosity and intellectual honesty, the inclination to make falsifiable predictions, etc.—and many come long before one starts worrying about mathematical models or specific data. Clearly, from the above definition, i.e. “our best effort to understand,” is not objective. History is replete with our misunderstanding of science and the fire pits are filled with the charred memories of those who defied our ‘best efforts.”

There is also much confusion about what it means to speak with scientific “objectivity.” As the philosopher John Searle once pointed out, there are two very different senses of the terms “objective” and “subjective.” The first relates to how we know (i.e. epistemology), the second to what there is to know (i.e. ontology). When we say that we are reasoning or speaking “objectively,” we mean that we are free of obvious bias, open to counter-arguments, cognizant of the relevant facts, etc. There is no impediment to our doing this with regard to subjective (i.e. third-person) facts. It is, for instance, true to say that I am experiencing tinnitus (ringing in my ears) at this moment. This is a subjective fact about me. I am not lying about it. I have been to an otologist and had the associated hearing loss in the upper frequencies in my right ear confirmed. There is simply no question that I can speak about my tinnitus in the spirit of scientific objectivity. And, no doubt, this experience must have some objective (third-person) correlates, like damage to my cochlea. Many people seem to think that because moral facts relate entirely to our experience (and are, therefore, ontologically “subjective”), all talk of morality must be “subjective” in the epistemological sense (i.e. biased, merely personal, etc.). This is simply untrue. Sorry, Sam, but it is true. While on its face, it is easy to understand why one would claim that five birds just flew by; it is raining; I just stubbed my toe, etc. Reality is only our perceptions. And, I suppose you can also say that quantum physics is also all wrong, too, but that just makes you as dogmatic as those you criticize.

Many of my critics also fail to distinguish between there being no answers in practice and no answers in principle to certain questions about the nature of reality. Only the latter questions are “unscientific,” and there are countless facts to be known in principle that we will never know in practice. Exactly how many birds are in flight over the surface of the earth at this instant? What is their combined weight in grams? We cannot possibly answer such questions, but they have simple, numerical answers. Does our inability to gather the relevant data oblige us to respect all opinions equally? For instance, how seriously should we take the claim that there are exactly 23,000 birds in flight at this moment, and, as they are all hummingbirds weighing exactly 2 grams, their total weight is 46,000 grams? It should be obvious that this is a ridiculous assertion. We can, therefore, decisively reject answers to questions that we cannot possibly answer in practice. This is a perfectly reasonable, scientific, and often necessary thing to do. And yet, many scientists will say that moral truths do not exist, simply because certain facts about human experience cannot be readily known, or may never be known. As I hope to show, this blind spot has created tremendous confusion about the relationship between human knowledge and human values. Is it really possible for what science says is a finite mind to know and understand the infinite? Or, is it possible that we see the mind as finite because we define ourselves by it. Since it weighs x grams there is no way it can carry the infinite knowledge of the universe. Or, is it possible that we are not at limited by the size of our brain and that there is transcendent knowledge that we can know?


When I speak of there being right and wrong answers to questions of morality, I am saying that there are facts about human and animal wellbeing that we can, in principle, know—simply because wellbeing (and states of consciousness altogether) must lawfully relate to states of the brain and to states of the world. Facts are merely our ‘best understanding’ at any given moment. Many facts of the past were clearly not. Is it the states of the brain that laws relate to or something bigger? Are there even really any laws. Can we test a law an infinite number of times to see if it ever deviates? Has not quantum mechanics shown that what we have held as physical laws are not true at the sub-atomic level? And have not recent experiments shown, as mystics have known all along, that such deviations to laws can now be demonstrated at the physically observable level?

And here is where the real controversy begins: for many people strongly objected to my claim that values (and hence morality) relate to facts about the wellbeing of conscious creatures. My critics seem to think that consciousness and its states hold no special place where values are concerned, or that any state of consciousness stands the same chance of being valued as any other. While maximizing the wellbeing of conscious creatures may be what I value, other people are perfectly free to define their values differently, and there will be no rational or scientific basis to argue with them. This is perhaps the one place where Sam Harris is correct, i.e., what we value does relate to well being of consciousness. However, we should not assume a value on levels of consciousness.

Carroll appears to be confused about the foundations of human knowledge. For instance, he clearly misunderstands the relationship between scientific truth and scientific consensus. He imagines that scientific consensus signifies the existence of scientific truth (while scientific controversy just means that there is more work to be done). And yet, he takes moral controversy to mean that there is no such thing as moral truth (while moral consensus just means that people are deeply conditioned for certain preferences). This is a double standard that I pointed out in my talk, and it clearly rigs the game against moral truth. The deeper issue, however, is that truth has nothing, in principle, to do with consensus: It is, after all, quite possible for everyone to be wrong, or for one lone person to be right. Consensus is surely a guide to discovering what is going on in the world, but that is all that it is. Its presence or absence in no way constrains what may or may not be true. There seems to be confusion all around since there really is no current scientific truth.



There are many things wrong with this approach. The deepest problem is that it strikes me as patently mistaken about the nature of reality and about what we can reasonably mean by words like “good,” “bad,” “right,” and “wrong.” In fact, I believe that we can know, through reason alone, that consciousness is the only intelligible domain of value. What’s the alternative? Imagine some genius comes forward and says, “I have found a source of value/morality that has absolutely nothing to do with the (actual or potential) experience of conscious beings.” Take a moment to think about what this claim actually means. Here’s the problem: whatever this person has found cannot, by definition, be of interest to anyone (in this life or in any other). Put this thing in a box, and what you have in that box is—again, by definition—the least interesting thing in the universe. Therefore, in order to place a moral value against killing, all must kill-otherwise; the value of not killing has nothing to do with actual/potential experience. Does the value precede the experience or vice versa?

So how much time should we spend worrying about such a transcendent source of value? I think the time I will spend typing this sentence is already far too much. All other notions of value will bear some relationship to the actual or potential experience of conscious beings. So my claim that consciousness is the basis of values does not appear to me to be an arbitrary starting point.

Now that we have consciousness on the table, my further claim is that wellbeing is what we can intelligibly value—and “morality” (whatever people’s associations with this term happen to be) really relates to the intentions and behaviors that affect the wellbeing of conscious creatures. And, as I pointed out at TED, all the people who claim to have alternative sources of morality (like the Word of God) are, in every case that I am aware of, only concerned about wellbeing anyway: They just happen to believe that the universe functions in such a way as to place the really important changes in conscious experience after death (i.e. in heaven or hell). And those philosophical efforts that seek to put morality in terms of duty, fairness, justice, or some other principle that is not explicitly tied to the wellbeing of conscious creatures—are, nevertheless, parasitic on some notion of wellbeing in the end (I argue this point at greater length in my book. And yes, I’ve read Rawls, Nozick, and Parfit). The doubts that immediately erupt on this point seem to invariably depend on extremely unimaginative ideas about what the term “wellbeing” could mean, altogether, or on mistaken beliefs about what science is.

Those who assumed that any emphasis on human “wellbeing” would lead us to enslave half of humanity, or harvest the organs of the bottom ten percent, or nuke the developing world, or nurture our children a continuous drip of heroin are, it seems to me, not really thinking about these issues seriously. It seems rather obvious that fairness, justice, compassion, and a general awareness of terrestrial reality have rather a lot to do with our creating a thriving global civilization (Creating a thriving global community is not desired by all and not really a value, a goal perhaps, but not a value)—and, therefore, with the greater wellbeing of humanity. And, as I emphasized in my talk, there may be many different ways for individuals and communities to thrive—many peaks on the moral landscape—so if there is real diversity in how people can be deeply fulfilled in life, this diversity can be accounted for and honored in the context of science. As I said in my talk, the concept of “wellbeing,” like the concept of “health,” is truly open for revision and discovery. Just how happy is it possible for us to be, personally and collectively? What are the conditions—ranging from changes in the genome to changes in economic systems—that will produce such happiness? We simply do not know.

But the deeper objection raised by scientists like Carroll is that the link I have drawn between values and wellbeing seems arbitrary, or otherwise in need of justification. What if certain people insist that their “values” or “morality” have nothing to do with wellbeing? What if a man like Jefferey Dahmer says, “The only peaks on the moral landscape that interest me are ones where I get to murder young men and have sex with their corpses.” This possibility—the prospect of radically different moral preferences—seems to be at the heart of many people’s concerns. In response to one of his readers, Carroll writes:

[W]e have to distinguish between choosing a goal and choosing the best way to get there. But when we do science we all basically agree on what the goals are — we want to find a concise, powerful explanation of the empirical facts we observe. This is not true. The idyllic notion here is that all scientists are purists who only seek to discover how the universe works. It assumes no hidden or subjective agenda. While it is fine to argue that a person on a spiritual quest for meaning and truth is really just seeking new dogma to impose on humanity, this cannot be true for the scientist. Clearly, the use of science to further specific political, social, economic or religious goals can be demonstrated throughout history. Again, is there really empirical fact? Sure, someone can choose to disagree with those goals — but then they’re not doing science, they’re doing philosophy of science. Which is interesting in its own right, but not the same thing.

When it comes to morality, there is nowhere near the unanimity of goals that there is in science. That’s not a minor quibble, that’s the crucial difference! If we all agreed on the goals, we would indeed expend our intellectual effort on the well-grounded program of figuring out how best to achieve those goals. That would be great, but it’s not the world in which we live.

Again, we encounter this confusion about the significance of consensus. But we should also remember that there are trained “scientists” who are Biblical Creationists, and their scientific thinking is purposed not toward a dispassionate study of the universe, but toward interpreting the data of science to fit the Biblical account of creation. Such people claim to be doing “science,” of course—but real scientists are free, and indeed obligated, to point out that they are misusing the term. A real scientist? Does that exist? How can you base a system on an imaginary ‘real scientist’? Certainly, a person with a religious agenda cannot conduct this so called pure science. But neither can the mythical real scientist, who, unless they grew up with no human interaction, be free of any bias. Similarly, there are people who claim to be highly concerned about “morality” and “human values,” but when we see that they are more concerned about condom use than they are about child rape (e.g. the Catholic Church), we should feel free to say that they are misusing the term “morality,” or that their values are distorted. As I asked at TED, how have we convinced ourselves that on the subject of morality, all views must count equally? It is clear that Harris cannot make his arguments without reverting to moral judgment.


The very idea that a morality exists has not come from science. To say that women should not be degraded, people should not be enslaved, that there should be no war, did not stem from some scientific observation. To even say that there should be an objective morality is, of itself, a subjective moral judgment. What might nature tell us about morality. Survival of the fittest? No room for the weak? Only cooperate if your own well-being is enhanced? In nature, there are animals that herd together for mutual protection. There are also lone hunters, hives, colonies, predator and prey. Would not objective science say that it makes no sense for the genetically weak or defective to survive? In nature, the weak and deformed are left behind. Why would science make an argument for weakening the gene pool and promote the perpetuation of the "defective?" It is not science that has said that the likes of Steven Hawking should survive. Make no mistake, religion has not provided the answer, but within religion has been pearls of wisdom that form the fundamentals of a working morality. I will continue with Sam's talk on TED in Part II.

Let me leave you with some quotes from a real scientist, Albert Einstein:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

END PART I

PROMISES KEPT

WE ALL ARE SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS AND WE ALL HOPE THAT THE POWER OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT WILL LEAD US TO THOSE ANSWERS. This book is about a search that seeks the answers to questions that have plagued many in recent years!


About Promises Kept

Promises Kept is Faith’s story, an unforgettable young woman whose life’s journey has been filled with uncertainty, of searching for people and answers that others take for granted. Compassionate and courageous, she never gives up, showing strength and character beyond her years. It is also the story about the power of the human spirit, of family, friends and love.
After finding the father she never knew until adulthood, and graduating law school, Faith is focused on bringing down the priest who abused her father as a child. She wants the cunning, deceitful cleric put behind bars long enough that no other young boy will ever have to fear his touch. She takes on a veteran, highly experienced and shrewd Boston lawyer. He underestimates her passion for justice, her fight for right against a wrong.
The story transforms from the legal battle on behalf of her father into a beautiful love story as she falls madly in love with her colleague, Tyler England. Soon, her fighting instincts are called on like never before. Only this time her intelligence, perseverance and resolve may not be enough.

About Cindy Bradford

Cindy Bradford is the author of Keeping Faith and Promises Kept, recently released on Amazon. She lives at South Padre Island, Texas, where she loves the peacefulness of the Gulf of Mexico. She tries to spend several months a year at her condo in Ruidoso, New Mexico, since she has a view of the Sierra Blanca Mountains, and therefore, the best of both worlds. A native Texan, Cindy spent her childhood in East Texas before living in central, northern, and now the southernmost part of the state.
Cindy has a B.A. in English and journalism from Baylor University and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of North Texas. As a college student, she worked at a city newspaper and wrote for the university newspaper. She was also editor of the Baylor literary magazine, for which she won a university graphic arts award.
She started her career in education as a high school teacher and quickly became director of communications, a position that allowed her to use her writing skills and creative talents. Within months of being hired for that position, she was named Rookie of the Year by the Texas School Public Relations Association. She held several other administrative positions before becoming a superintendent of schools in the Dallas area. Following a lengthy career in public education, she served seven years as a tenured associate professor for the University of Texas system. Prior to writing fiction, she wrote numerous professional articles that were published in various journals and educational periodicals. She also enjoys writing poetry when time permits.
Dr. Bradford is an avid traveler and has visited more than 40 countries, plus numerous states and islands in the last ten years. Her other hobbies include gardening, cooking, and reading. Tasting, drinking, collecting, and reading about different wines and the countries that produce them is a passion of the author. She often incorporates her knowledge of wine into her writings and shares the many beautiful places she has visited, known for outstanding wines, with her readers. She is currently working on two more novels.

For more details -www.KeepingFaithTheNovel.com and www.DocCBradford.com/my-books