James Sherry

We usually understand that our thinking takes place in our brain, but we can also model thought as a series of connections between ourselves and the world. There’s no reason to continue to imagine thought as only in our minds. A cook is looking for the thyme. She doesn’t remember where it is on the shelf, so she runs her forefinger along the labels until she finds “thyme”. The image of the letters on the label match the model in her mind. Thinking takes place between her mind and the label as an exchange of language.

Another example, a beaver could have evolved stronger legs and bigger claws to run out and eat the bark off the tree before the wolf gets her. But instead, she figured out a better idea, expand her safe zone by building a dam. Less energy, less risk. (thanks to Mark Rowlands)

The solutions to climate change do not avoid manipulating the environment. We must make smart changes as we get smarter about our world. How can our manipulation of environment heat our homes, power our lamps and transports with less impact. You know the answers: renewable energy costs less overall. Even if the transition costs money the costs of cleaning up fossil fuel including wars is becoming too big to bear. We are choking and drowning in our own effluent. Renewables make sense. And the cost, see prior post. In many geographies solar is already cheaper than oil. It’s not a holistic solution, but a distribution of power with more types of systems in more places, each in its appropriate geography. And distributed systems are more resilient. Solar in deserts, hydro near moving water, geothermal in hot spots. Each person sees the solutions somewhat differently, but there are social types, and I may be similar to you, or different.