research sources: August 2004 Archives

Getting closer. Dr. Oschmann responded to an email query with a lead to The Institute of HeartMath. He recommended this article, The Electricity of Touch (available as a PDF download). Their main accomplishment? "This study represents one of the first successful attempts to directly measure an energy exchange between people."

I also found this press release, which states: "The Institute of HeartMath (IHM) in Boulder Creek, California is a nonprofit research organization that has been studying emotions and the electromagnetic energy generated by emotions and the bodyóspecifically the heartófor over a decade. A recent study conducted by IHM represents one of the first successful attempts to directly measure an energy exchange between people, and provides a testable theory to help explain why we can sense what other people are feeling and why we tend to know when someone is behind us without hearing or seeing them."

Now I'm getting excited! This SQUID technology proves energy can flow in two directions (to/fro) at the same time! Talk about FLOW! :-)

This exchange between Bodavor, Jonathan, and Dan is not contexted, but - besides its reference to Schroedinger's SQUID - it is fascinating in its speculation about leaps of intelligence (I'd say "in subjectivity") being induced (?) by language, and its implications for human evolution.

Everyone keeps referencing a Scientific American article but it keeps coming up "page missing." :-( Here's something from Complexity Digest (which I'd like to add to my rss feed). These folk are also onto Self-Organization.

When I really want to get serious, here's a dissertation, The Nine Lives of Schroedinger's Cat, that "surveys nine different interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics." One of the nine is "the idea that the mind causes collapse", which I was just writing about recently. :-)

I had an informal homework assignment from that first conversation with Enoch, to try and find the source of the info I learned at an event at Norwich University in VT....it was in a casual conversation, but one of the faculty there said there was some scientific measurement of the energy (electrical?) that bodies emanate when feeling different emotions. He said the "negative" ones, like anger, put out more force to a greater distance than the "positive" ones, like love.

Here's what I'm finding:

The Human Energy Field: "Scientific instruments are able to measure some aspects of the energy field, and some effects of the energy field on other systems; however, some aspects elude measurement with current technology. The field shares many common aspects with electricity and magnetism (see Oschman for discussion) but it is not yet clear whether biomagnetism is exactly the same force as the human biofield, or just a closely related phenomenon."

It's time to chase down Enoch. Hope he even remembers me! Kennaria's had some contact with him; that's cool. I found this library listing of resources for his class, Anthropology of Consciousness, Anthro 697b.

I just read, however, that he'll take sabbatical in the spring. :-( I won't record my outburst here, but talk about bummed with the timing...........

Jose recommended this dialogue between Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant as a source of definitions for the uninitiated. :-)

There's a follow-up online colloquim with Wacquant in which, in part, he discusses Bourdieu, the later Wittgenstein, Searles, and Austin. I can easily see why Jose made the connection between my proceedings paper for Critical Link IV and Bourdieu's work on structure, agency, and habitus. :-)

A book to read, which they wrote together: An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology.

Austin's performative

How to Do things with Words, originally published 1961.

Interesting stuff at The International Network for Life Studies. The author (?), Morioka Masahiro, is interested in consciousness, communication, disability, death (and dying process?), philosophy, desire, bioethics, feminism, religion...hmmm!

I like that he thinks beyond the surface of things, as evidenced in this debate about succession within the Japanese Imperial Family. This is what I'm trying to do in the Critical Link article on professionalization.

Unesco has posted the text with a brief historical account.

"On Nov. 5, Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly supported ballot Question 2, the measure to replace bilingual education in public schools with a sheltered English immersion program, but many experts and students still question whether it will work."

Campus reacts to bilingual ed. vote

By Bryan Mattei

The Heights, the independent student newspaper of boston college
11/12/02

James Crawford has posted some basic info about copyright protections, rights, and waivers. He emphasizes that these are his interpretations (I like them) and provides a link to a more official source.