Energy/Introduction - Revision history

Rossini at 07:47, 5 May 2017

2017-05-05T07:47:17Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:47, 5 May 2017
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	As I have summarized in the section 'Energy Forms' above, nonlinear dynamic systems are open to external signs such as energy gradients and manage to dissipate those differences, producing order from chaos. This action requires semantic capacity and a certain degree of 'freedom'. To counter the entropic view of thermodynamics as it was applied to information in the cybernetic discourse of the 1940s, Bateson introduced the notion of 'bioentropy' to name these processes. Peter Harries-Jones explains that, unlike other ecologists of his time, Bateson refused to define the organisational power of ecosystems exclusively in terms of their physical properties of biomass and energy converted into work. Instead, his observation was that 'metabolisms rates were different in kind from physical flux. [http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/12/2359 Organisms had the ability to regulate their chemical activities or compensate for changes that result in an imbalance to their activities of reproduction, growth and movement]' (2010: 2672). Living organisms, in other words, are not machines.		As I have summarized in the section 'Energy Forms' above, nonlinear dynamic systems are open to external signs such as energy gradients and manage to dissipate those differences, producing order from chaos. This action requires semantic capacity and a certain degree of 'freedom'. To counter the entropic view of thermodynamics as it was applied to information in the cybernetic discourse of the 1940s, Bateson introduced the notion of 'bioentropy' to name these processes. Peter Harries-Jones explains that, unlike other ecologists of his time, Bateson refused to define the organisational power of ecosystems exclusively in terms of their physical properties of biomass and energy converted into work. Instead, his observation was that 'metabolisms rates were different in kind from physical flux. [http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/12/2359 Organisms had the ability to regulate their chemical activities or compensate for changes that result in an imbalance to their activities of reproduction, growth and movement]' (2010: 2672). Living organisms, in other words, are not machines.

	The story of energy connections I have begun to tell with this book seeks to induce a greater attentiveness on the part of human beings to the active power of things-in-phenomena and to the concomitant complex inter- and intra-actions between various living systems that together assemble our world -- and on which humanity depends for survival. In the process, I argue against a mechanistic and hence deterministic view of matter as predictable, as something to be fully controlled or 'hunted down', as a CERN spokesperson phrased it at the press conference. By the same token, also the present analysis is but a travelling sub(p)article in the ongoing energetic and mutually energizing relations we can forge between disciplines and cosmopolitan actors. In this adventure, energy matters as a nomadic concept for turning the humanities into the Energy Humanities and, more broadly, [http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities the posthumanities], in ways that will make them more responsive to the challenges of our times.<br>		The story of energy connections I have begun to tell with this book seeks to induce a greater attentiveness on the part of human beings to the active power of things-in-phenomena and to the concomitant complex inter- and intra-actions between various living systems that together assemble our world -- and on which humanity depends for survival. In the process, I argue against a mechanistic and hence deterministic view of matter as predictable, as something to be fully controlled or 'hunted down', as a CERN spokesperson phrased it at the press conference. By the same token, also the present analysis is but a travelling sub(p)article in the ongoing energetic and mutually energizing relations we can forge between disciplines and cosmopolitan actors. In this adventure, energy matters as a nomadic concept for turning the humanities into the [https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/energy-humanities Energy Humanities] and, more broadly, [http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities the posthumanities], in ways that will make them more responsive to the challenges of our times.<br>

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Rossini at 07:46, 5 May 2017

2017-05-05T07:46:36Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:46, 5 May 2017
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	As I have summarized in the section 'Energy Forms' above, nonlinear dynamic systems are open to external signs such as energy gradients and manage to dissipate those differences, producing order from chaos. This action requires semantic capacity and a certain degree of 'freedom'. To counter the entropic view of thermodynamics as it was applied to information in the cybernetic discourse of the 1940s, Bateson introduced the notion of 'bioentropy' to name these processes. Peter Harries-Jones explains that, unlike other ecologists of his time, Bateson refused to define the organisational power of ecosystems exclusively in terms of their physical properties of biomass and energy converted into work. Instead, his observation was that 'metabolisms rates were different in kind from physical flux. [http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/12/2359 Organisms had the ability to regulate their chemical activities or compensate for changes that result in an imbalance to their activities of reproduction, growth and movement]' (2010: 2672). Living organisms, in other words, are not machines.		As I have summarized in the section 'Energy Forms' above, nonlinear dynamic systems are open to external signs such as energy gradients and manage to dissipate those differences, producing order from chaos. This action requires semantic capacity and a certain degree of 'freedom'. To counter the entropic view of thermodynamics as it was applied to information in the cybernetic discourse of the 1940s, Bateson introduced the notion of 'bioentropy' to name these processes. Peter Harries-Jones explains that, unlike other ecologists of his time, Bateson refused to define the organisational power of ecosystems exclusively in terms of their physical properties of biomass and energy converted into work. Instead, his observation was that 'metabolisms rates were different in kind from physical flux. [http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/12/2359 Organisms had the ability to regulate their chemical activities or compensate for changes that result in an imbalance to their activities of reproduction, growth and movement]' (2010: 2672). Living organisms, in other words, are not machines.

	The story of energy connections I have begun to tell with this book seeks to induce a greater attentiveness on the part of human beings to the active power of things-in-phenomena and to the concomitant complex inter- and intra-actions between various living systems that together assemble our world -- and on which humanity depends for survival. In the process, I argue against a mechanistic and hence deterministic view of matter as predictable, as something to be fully controlled or 'hunted down', as a CERN spokesperson phrased it at the press conference. By the same token, also the present analysis is but a travelling sub(p)article in the ongoing energetic and mutually energizing relations we can forge between disciplines and cosmopolitan actors. In this adventure, energy matters as a nomadic concept for turning the humanities into the ~~[https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/energy-humanities~~ Energy Humanities~~] ~~and, more broadly, [http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities the posthumanities], in ways that will make them more responsive to the challenges of our times.<br>		The story of energy connections I have begun to tell with this book seeks to induce a greater attentiveness on the part of human beings to the active power of things-in-phenomena and to the concomitant complex inter- and intra-actions between various living systems that together assemble our world -- and on which humanity depends for survival. In the process, I argue against a mechanistic and hence deterministic view of matter as predictable, as something to be fully controlled or 'hunted down', as a CERN spokesperson phrased it at the press conference. By the same token, also the present analysis is but a travelling sub(p)article in the ongoing energetic and mutually energizing relations we can forge between disciplines and cosmopolitan actors. In this adventure, energy matters as a nomadic concept for turning the humanities into the Energy Humanities and, more broadly, [http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities the posthumanities], in ways that will make them more responsive to the challenges of our times.<br>

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Rossini at 07:45, 5 May 2017

2017-05-05T07:45:39Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:45, 5 May 2017
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	As I have summarized in the section 'Energy Forms' above, nonlinear dynamic systems are open to external signs such as energy gradients and manage to dissipate those differences, producing order from chaos. This action requires semantic capacity and a certain degree of 'freedom'. To counter the entropic view of thermodynamics as it was applied to information in the cybernetic discourse of the 1940s, Bateson introduced the notion of 'bioentropy' to name these processes. Peter Harries-Jones explains that, unlike other ecologists of his time, Bateson refused to define the organisational power of ecosystems exclusively in terms of their physical properties of biomass and energy converted into work. Instead, his observation was that 'metabolisms rates were different in kind from physical flux. [http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/12/2359 Organisms had the ability to regulate their chemical activities or compensate for changes that result in an imbalance to their activities of reproduction, growth and movement]' (2010: 2672). Living organisms, in other words, are not machines.		As I have summarized in the section 'Energy Forms' above, nonlinear dynamic systems are open to external signs such as energy gradients and manage to dissipate those differences, producing order from chaos. This action requires semantic capacity and a certain degree of 'freedom'. To counter the entropic view of thermodynamics as it was applied to information in the cybernetic discourse of the 1940s, Bateson introduced the notion of 'bioentropy' to name these processes. Peter Harries-Jones explains that, unlike other ecologists of his time, Bateson refused to define the organisational power of ecosystems exclusively in terms of their physical properties of biomass and energy converted into work. Instead, his observation was that 'metabolisms rates were different in kind from physical flux. [http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/12/2359 Organisms had the ability to regulate their chemical activities or compensate for changes that result in an imbalance to their activities of reproduction, growth and movement]' (2010: 2672). Living organisms, in other words, are not machines.

	The story of energy connections I have begun to tell with this book seeks to induce a greater attentiveness on the part of human beings to the active power of things-in-phenomena and to the concomitant complex inter- and intra-actions between various living systems that together assemble our world -- and on which humanity depends for survival. In the process, I argue against a mechanistic and hence deterministic view of matter as predictable, as something to be fully controlled or 'hunted down', as a CERN spokesperson phrased it at the press conference. By the same token, also the present analysis is but a travelling sub(p)article in the ongoing energetic and mutually energizing relations we can forge between disciplines and cosmopolitan actors. In this adventure, energy matters as a nomadic concept for turning the humanities into [~~http~~://~~culturesofenergy~~.~~com~~/~~a-long-overdue-anthology-of-the-~~energy-humanities/ Energy Humanities] and, more broadly, [http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities the posthumanities], in ways that will make them more responsive to the challenges of our times.<br>		The story of energy connections I have begun to tell with this book seeks to induce a greater attentiveness on the part of human beings to the active power of things-in-phenomena and to the concomitant complex inter- and intra-actions between various living systems that together assemble our world -- and on which humanity depends for survival. In the process, I argue against a mechanistic and hence deterministic view of matter as predictable, as something to be fully controlled or 'hunted down', as a CERN spokesperson phrased it at the press conference. By the same token, also the present analysis is but a travelling sub(p)article in the ongoing energetic and mutually energizing relations we can forge between disciplines and cosmopolitan actors. In this adventure, energy matters as a nomadic concept for turning the humanities into the [https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/energy-humanities Energy Humanities] and, more broadly, [http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities the posthumanities], in ways that will make them more responsive to the challenges of our times.<br>

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Rossini at 07:42, 5 May 2017

2017-05-05T07:42:23Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:42, 5 May 2017
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	One might perhaps object that my use of the term 'energy' outside the domain of physics has been purely metaphorical or, worse, accuse me of holding on to the paradigm of social and cultural constructionism I have critiqued [http://intertheory.org/rossini here] (Rossini 2006) and elsewhere. Indeed, I have largely spoken in terms that the scientists at CERN clearly distanced themselves from at the [http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1459604 press conference of July 4, 2012] – on Higgsdependence Day. They did not offer an answer when a journalist asked them about their preferred metaphor (knowing that they hated the popular expression 'God's particle') for the [http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1458922 Higgs boson]. Speaking for all of them, director Rolf Heuer summarised: 'the podium is metaphorless'. Instead, they repeated that they had found 'something'; i.e., only a ''signal'' that would drive their research for the next 50 years towards the final explanation of the universe and that, whatever it is, this new particle 'embodies the substance to all these other particles that exist' (50:00-51:53). While mainly drawing attention to the physical aspects of the boson (if it is a boson), one spokesperson on the panel also emphasised that 'these particles are not isolated, they talk to each other' (47:55-47:58) and that only a very small part of the full story has been told now. That this 'something' is but a nanoelement in a gigantic picture is demonstrated by the probability of 5 sigma – this is, a 1:3'000'000 certainty that the discovery was not a random fluctuation but the Higgs boson of the standard model – which seems highly fictitious to me but which indexes a reality within CERN's experimental systems. Even if this 'it' is not the predicted boson, the approximately 4000 physicists carrying out the ATLAS and CMS experiments can claim that they discovered a new particle with a mass of 125 to 126 gigaelectrovolts, which is about 133 times more than the weight of a proton. The experiments show that physical properties are a matter of measurement, which in turn is contingent upon measurement devices or massive apparatuses such as the Large Hadron Collider that allowed the acceleration of the protons in order to produce such a deep impact for 'something' consistent with the hypothesized Higgs element to appear in the first place. I owe this statement about 'objective' measurement and its condition to Isabelle Stengers, who contrasts [http://livingbooksaboutlife.org/pdfs/stengers.pdf the conversion-of-energy paradigm as a 'way of seeing]' (beginning with Leibniz and continuing well into the 19th century with the post-Kantian naturalists) to the conservation law of energy as the measurement of mechanical work; i.e., 'something' that, thanks to Joule’s calculation system, could be used to quantify conversion and hence put what was circulating as an 'aesthetic idea' without having one single author/ity into the realm of author/ized science (2010: 192-193).		One might perhaps object that my use of the term 'energy' outside the domain of physics has been purely metaphorical or, worse, accuse me of holding on to the paradigm of social and cultural constructionism I have critiqued [http://intertheory.org/rossini here] (Rossini 2006) and elsewhere. Indeed, I have largely spoken in terms that the scientists at CERN clearly distanced themselves from at the [http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1459604 press conference of July 4, 2012] – on Higgsdependence Day. They did not offer an answer when a journalist asked them about their preferred metaphor (knowing that they hated the popular expression 'God's particle') for the [http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1458922 Higgs boson]. Speaking for all of them, director Rolf Heuer summarised: 'the podium is metaphorless'. Instead, they repeated that they had found 'something'; i.e., only a ''signal'' that would drive their research for the next 50 years towards the final explanation of the universe and that, whatever it is, this new particle 'embodies the substance to all these other particles that exist' (50:00-51:53). While mainly drawing attention to the physical aspects of the boson (if it is a boson), one spokesperson on the panel also emphasised that 'these particles are not isolated, they talk to each other' (47:55-47:58) and that only a very small part of the full story has been told now. That this 'something' is but a nanoelement in a gigantic picture is demonstrated by the probability of 5 sigma – this is, a 1:3'000'000 certainty that the discovery was not a random fluctuation but the Higgs boson of the standard model – which seems highly fictitious to me but which indexes a reality within CERN's experimental systems. Even if this 'it' is not the predicted boson, the approximately 4000 physicists carrying out the ATLAS and CMS experiments can claim that they discovered a new particle with a mass of 125 to 126 gigaelectrovolts, which is about 133 times more than the weight of a proton. The experiments show that physical properties are a matter of measurement, which in turn is contingent upon measurement devices or massive apparatuses such as the Large Hadron Collider that allowed the acceleration of the protons in order to produce such a deep impact for 'something' consistent with the hypothesized Higgs element to appear in the first place. I owe this statement about 'objective' measurement and its condition to Isabelle Stengers, who contrasts [http://livingbooksaboutlife.org/pdfs/stengers.pdf the conversion-of-energy paradigm as a 'way of seeing]' (beginning with Leibniz and continuing well into the 19th century with the post-Kantian naturalists) to the conservation law of energy as the measurement of mechanical work; i.e., 'something' that, thanks to Joule’s calculation system, could be used to quantify conversion and hence put what was circulating as an 'aesthetic idea' without having one single author/ity into the realm of author/ized science (2010: 192-193).

	What begins after the experimental phase is the meaning-making process and the analysis of the communication that happens when matter 'speaks'. In other words, the material cannot be grasped outside the semiotic. Conversely, meaning not only possesses a materiality that manifests itself as the trace of difference but also has real, material consequences. Similarly, information is never disembodied but rather context-dependent; it is produced by at least two interacting bodies, none of which have a self-contained existence. Hence my endavour with this book to bring back matter into constructionist theory as it interacts with the linguistic and informational, which is a move that is similar to Foucault's interweaving of material practice and discourse but that above all remains indebted to the insights of new materialism. Its representatives are mainly feminists (some of whom I quoted before) who, for decades now, as scientists or cultural analysts (or both) have enlisted paradigms from physics, biology, neurology and other fields of the natural sciences to argue their case. With a background in theoretical physics and teaching cultural studies of science, Karen Barad, for example, fuses being and knowledge on the basis of Niels Bohr's materialist understanding of concepts in order to forge what she calls an 'onto-epistem-ology' and, like Stengers, to point to the inextricability of measurement, appartus and description (2007: 109). With regard to the CERN experiments, one would have to ask with Bohr: What do you ''mean'' by a 'boson' or 'particle' in general? And the answer would be that the Higgs boson has no pregiven existence, substance, position or movement prior to the measurement or discourse: '[http://livingbooksaboutlife.org/pdfs/barad.pdf Particles aren't inherently bounded and propertied entities running in the void. Mattering is about the (contingent and temporary) becoming-determinate (and becoming in-determinate) of matter and meaning, without fixity, without closure]' (Barad 2010: 253). Mattering or the agency of matter, we may add, is brought about by theory. This tenet is the core element of Barad's 'agential realism', which conceptualises agency without an intentional (human) subject acting upon a passive (nonhuman) object in a one-way causal relation or linerar temporality. It follows from there that, rather than speak of the Higgs boson as a '(some)thing', the experimental physicists should regard it as a phenomenon and, to draw on Barad's vocabulary once more, to 'get real' and think of reality as 'things-in-phenomena'; i.e., as co-constituted by 'intra-actions' between discursive and material agents (2007: 140). The Higgs boson is there but not ''simply'' there (there is no there there, as Gertrude Stein poetically intuited); it is nevertheless an empirical thing they can interact with, producing both a theory and a living phenomenon.		What begins after the experimental phase is the meaning-making process and the analysis of the communication that happens when matter 'speaks'. In other words, the material cannot be grasped outside the semiotic. Conversely, meaning not only possesses a materiality that manifests itself as the trace of difference but also has real, material consequences. Similarly, information is never disembodied but rather context-dependent; it is produced by at least two interacting bodies, none of which have a self-contained existence. Hence my endavour with this book to bring back matter into constructionist theory as it interacts with the linguistic and informational, which conencts sense-making and making one sense. It is a move that is similar to Foucault's interweaving of material practice and discourse but that above all remains indebted to the insights of new materialism. Its representatives are mainly feminists (some of whom I quoted before) who, for decades now, as scientists or cultural analysts (or both) have enlisted paradigms from physics, biology, neurology and other fields of the natural sciences to argue their case. With a background in theoretical physics and teaching cultural studies of science, Karen Barad, for example, fuses being and knowledge on the basis of Niels Bohr's materialist understanding of concepts in order to forge what she calls an 'onto-epistem-ology' and, like Stengers, to point to the inextricability of measurement, appartus and description (2007: 109). With regard to the CERN experiments, one would have to ask with Bohr: What do you ''mean'' by a 'boson' or 'particle' in general? And the answer would be that the Higgs boson has no pregiven existence, substance, position or movement prior to the measurement or discourse: '[http://livingbooksaboutlife.org/pdfs/barad.pdf Particles aren't inherently bounded and propertied entities running in the void. Mattering is about the (contingent and temporary) becoming-determinate (and becoming in-determinate) of matter and meaning, without fixity, without closure]' (Barad 2010: 253). Mattering or the agency of matter, we may add, is brought about by theory. This tenet is the core element of Barad's 'agential realism', which conceptualises agency without an intentional (human) subject acting upon a passive (nonhuman) object in a one-way causal relation or linerar temporality. It follows from there that, rather than speak of the Higgs boson as a '(some)thing', the experimental physicists should regard it as a phenomenon and, to draw on Barad's vocabulary once more, to 'get real' and think of reality as 'things-in-phenomena'; i.e., as co-constituted by 'intra-actions' between discursive and material agents (2007: 140). The Higgs boson is there but not ''simply'' there (there is no there there, as Gertrude Stein poetically intuited); it is nevertheless an empirical thing they can interact with, producing both a theory and a living phenomenon.

	Other allies are researchers from the fields of biosemiotics and cybersemiotics. As Wendy Wheeler has already contributed an excellent volume on [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Biosemiotics biosemiotics] to the LiviBL series and a recent special issue, edited by Søren Brier, of the open-access journal ''Entropy'' was dedicated to [http://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/special_issues/cybersemiotics-paradigms cybersemiotics], I only very briefly refer to those aspects which underline the imperative to approach the topic of energy from an interdisciplinary perspective as a living force involved in material interaction, intra-action and 'sign action' (semiosis) with all kinds of other agents. Biosemiotics starts from the premise that all living systems are meaningful systems with the capacity to write, read and interpret signs, understood largely as codes for establishing cooperative relations. As the name already indicates: life and semiosis are co-existing. Indeed, as Günther Witzany’s paper makes clear, [http://www.benthamscience.com/open/toevolj/articles/V002/44TOEVOLJ.pdf bio-communication of bacteria lies at the evolutionary root of cellular life] (2008: 44-54). Deep down in the sea, [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/bacteria-electric-wires/?cid=co4285734&pid=5168 microbes form living power cables]. This is why we need a critical ecology that is not only framed in thermodynamic terms but that also takes the capacity of interpreting and communicating of human and nonhuman systems into account. One precursor of such a theory is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqiHJG2wtPI Gregory Bateson] who must be credited, as Clarke reminds us, not only for 'a significant relay of cybernetic discourse from the natural to the social sciences' but especially for revisiting the orthodoxy that information is distinct from matter (2010: 165). While Bateson was sharing the Saussurean postulate that something is this because it is ''not ''that when he famously defined information as 'a difference which makes a difference' (1972: 453), biosemioticians prefer to draw on the semiotics of C.S. Peirce because it is more useful for developing a theory of signification that avoids the intentional fallacy and that can be better interlocked with the concept of autopoesis (see section 'Energy Forms’ above). When life itself is seen as differential, then we need not hang on to the negativity or meaninglessness associated with difference by Ferdinand de Saussure, for whom there are no positive terms in language, or by Freudian or Lacanian psychoanalysis. Becoming something rather than being this or (not) that is the game of the living. Rather than perceiving and thinking in black and white, we should be aware of the shades of grey and all the colours of the rainbow. Life consists of vibrant energy matter that cannot really be seen, classified or controlled. Shifting to becoming, communication, and differentiation also means focusing on processes and forms rather than substances (as is the case with the conservation law of energy in classical thermodynamics) in order to witness the interplay of body and mind in sign-mediated interaction for [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Cognition_and_Decision cognition and decision] as well as meaning-making of human and nohuman organisms alike. <br>		Other allies are researchers from the fields of biosemiotics and cybersemiotics. As Wendy Wheeler has already contributed an excellent volume on [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Biosemiotics biosemiotics] to the LiviBL series and a recent special issue, edited by Søren Brier, of the open-access journal ''Entropy'' was dedicated to [http://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy/special_issues/cybersemiotics-paradigms cybersemiotics], I only very briefly refer to those aspects which underline the imperative to approach the topic of energy from an interdisciplinary perspective as a living force involved in material interaction, intra-action and 'sign action' (semiosis) with all kinds of other agents. Biosemiotics starts from the premise that all living systems are meaningful systems with the capacity to write, read and interpret signs, understood largely as codes for establishing cooperative relations. As the name already indicates: life and semiosis are co-existing. Indeed, as Günther Witzany’s paper makes clear, [http://www.benthamscience.com/open/toevolj/articles/V002/44TOEVOLJ.pdf bio-communication of bacteria lies at the evolutionary root of cellular life] (2008: 44-54). Deep down in the sea, [http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/bacteria-electric-wires/?cid=co4285734&pid=5168 microbes form living power cables]. This is why we need a critical ecology that is not only framed in thermodynamic terms but that also takes the capacity of interpreting and communicating of human and nonhuman systems into account. One precursor of such a theory is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqiHJG2wtPI Gregory Bateson] who must be credited, as Clarke reminds us, not only for 'a significant relay of cybernetic discourse from the natural to the social sciences' but especially for revisiting the orthodoxy that information is distinct from matter (2010: 165). While Bateson was sharing the Saussurean postulate that something is this because it is ''not ''that when he famously defined information as 'a difference which makes a difference' (1972: 453), biosemioticians prefer to draw on the semiotics of C.S. Peirce because it is more useful for developing a theory of signification that avoids the intentional fallacy and that can be better interlocked with the concept of autopoesis (see section 'Energy Forms’ above). When life itself is seen as differential, then we need not hang on to the negativity or meaninglessness associated with difference by Ferdinand de Saussure, for whom there are no positive terms in language, or by Freudian or Lacanian psychoanalysis. Becoming something rather than being this or (not) that is the game of the living. Rather than perceiving and thinking in black and white, we should be aware of the shades of grey and all the colours of the rainbow. Life consists of vibrant energy matter that cannot really be seen, classified or controlled. Shifting to becoming, communication, and differentiation also means focusing on processes and forms rather than substances (as is the case with the conservation law of energy in classical thermodynamics) in order to witness the interplay of body and mind in sign-mediated interaction for [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Cognition_and_Decision cognition and decision] as well as meaning-making of human and nohuman organisms alike. <br>
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	As I have summarized in the section 'Energy Forms' above, nonlinear dynamic systems are open to external signs such as energy gradients and manage to dissipate those differences, producing order from chaos. This action requires semantic capacity and a certain degree of 'freedom'. To counter the entropic view of thermodynamics as it was applied to information in the cybernetic discourse of the 1940s, Bateson introduced the notion of 'bioentropy' to name these processes. Peter Harries-Jones explains that, unlike other ecologists of his time, Bateson refused to define the organisational power of ecosystems exclusively in terms of their physical properties of biomass and energy converted into work. Instead, his observation was that 'metabolisms rates were different in kind from physical flux. [http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/12/2359 Organisms had the ability to regulate their chemical activities or compensate for changes that result in an imbalance to their activities of reproduction, growth and movement]' (2010: 2672). Living organisms, in other words, are not machines.		As I have summarized in the section 'Energy Forms' above, nonlinear dynamic systems are open to external signs such as energy gradients and manage to dissipate those differences, producing order from chaos. This action requires semantic capacity and a certain degree of 'freedom'. To counter the entropic view of thermodynamics as it was applied to information in the cybernetic discourse of the 1940s, Bateson introduced the notion of 'bioentropy' to name these processes. Peter Harries-Jones explains that, unlike other ecologists of his time, Bateson refused to define the organisational power of ecosystems exclusively in terms of their physical properties of biomass and energy converted into work. Instead, his observation was that 'metabolisms rates were different in kind from physical flux. [http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/12/2359 Organisms had the ability to regulate their chemical activities or compensate for changes that result in an imbalance to their activities of reproduction, growth and movement]' (2010: 2672). Living organisms, in other words, are not machines.

	The story of energy connections I have begun to tell with this book seeks to induce a greater attentiveness on the part of human beings to the active power of things-in-phenomena and to the concomitant complex inter- and intra-actions between various living systems that together assemble our world -- and on which humanity depends for survival. In the process, I argue against a mechanistic and hence deterministic view of matter as predictable, as something to be fully controlled or 'hunted down', as a CERN spokesperson phrased it at the press conference. By the same token, also the present analysis is but a travelling sub(p)article in the ongoing energetic and mutually energizing relations we can forge between disciplines and cosmopolitan actors. In this adventure, energy matters as a nomadic concept for turning the humanities into [http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities the posthumanities], in ways that will make them more responsive to the challenges of our times.<br>		The story of energy connections I have begun to tell with this book seeks to induce a greater attentiveness on the part of human beings to the active power of things-in-phenomena and to the concomitant complex inter- and intra-actions between various living systems that together assemble our world -- and on which humanity depends for survival. In the process, I argue against a mechanistic and hence deterministic view of matter as predictable, as something to be fully controlled or 'hunted down', as a CERN spokesperson phrased it at the press conference. By the same token, also the present analysis is but a travelling sub(p)article in the ongoing energetic and mutually energizing relations we can forge between disciplines and cosmopolitan actors. In this adventure, energy matters as a nomadic concept for turning the humanities into [http://culturesofenergy.com/a-long-overdue-anthology-of-the-energy-humanities/ Energy Humanities] and, more broadly, [http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/series/posthumanities the posthumanities], in ways that will make them more responsive to the challenges of our times.<br>

	=== ===		=== ===

Rossini at 22:46, 14 November 2016

2016-11-14T22:46:27Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:46, 14 November 2016
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	=== Introduction: Energy as a Nomadic Concept ===		=== Introduction: Energy as a Nomadic Concept ===
	<blockquote><br>''Pourqui certains concepts scientifiques connaissent-ils une vie nomade, d'une science à l'autre? Que deviennent-ils lorsqu'ils passent d'une science 'dure' à une science 'molle', ou inversement? Conservent-ils le même sens? Contribuent-ils à unifier le champ des sciences? Ou bien en compliquent-ils plus le relief?'' - Isabelle Stengers, 1987<br><br>(Translation by Manuela Rossini: ''Why do certain scientific concepts lead a nomadic life, from one science to the next? What do they become as they travel from a 'hard' science to a 'soft' science, or the other way round? Does their meaning stay the same? Do they help to unify the field of the sciences? Or do they rather complicate the picture?)''</blockquote>		<blockquote><br>''Pourqui certains concepts scientifiques connaissent-ils une vie nomade, d'une science à l'autre? Que deviennent-ils lorsqu'ils passent d'une science 'dure' à une science 'molle', ou inversement? Conservent-ils le même sens? Contribuent-ils à unifier le champ des sciences? Ou bien en compliquent-ils plus le relief?'' - Isabelle Stengers, 1987<br><br>(Translation by Manuela Rossini: ''Why do certain scientific concepts lead a nomadic life, from one science to the next? What do they become as they travel from a 'hard' science to a 'soft' science, or the other way round? Does their meaning stay the same? Do they help to unify the field of the sciences? Or do they rather complicate the picture?)''</blockquote>
	<br>While I am writing this Introduction, the meltdown of the three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that took place in March 2011 is apparently still not under control and today, 20 August 2013, a Tepco official has for the first time declared a [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23764382 radioactive leak] from a tank of their nuclear plant, stemming from the earthquake and tsunami back then. It made new energy-saving technologies the centre of attention at CEATEC, Japan's largest information technology and electronics fair, in October of the same year. Environmentally-conscious scientists are starting to hope that better management of the island’s many forests and policy reinforcements will allow for [http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/4/7/1051 the sustainable use of woody biomass] or any other freely available natural resource (as documented by the non-profit organization [http://www.japanfs.org/en Japan for Sustainability] or the German [http://www.energyrichjapan.info/en/index.html Energy Rich Japan Project]) in order to generate the 858.5 billion kW (858'500'000'000 kilowatts) the Japanese population currently consumes per year (Sasaki et al., 2011: 1052). The techno-natural disaster under discussion has recharged the empty batteries of the anti-nuclear movement, and not just in Japan, and has also fuelled calls by political parties of almost all creeds for an 'energy turn' world-wide. (Yet on 16 June 2012, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda prompted the restarting of the reactors at Oi after a shut-down of all the nuclear power plants, while in my home country, Switzerland, higher than expected costs have overshadowed any green optimism about, and political will for, a quick nuclear exit. Five years after the event, the collection of essays edited by Richard Hindmarsh and Rebecca Priestley has documented media and public responses, social mobilization, energy policies and related dimensions of [https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138830783?utm_source=shared_link&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=sbu1_leh_3rf_6sl_1pol_oth15_x_x_thefukushimaeffect The Fukushima Effect] (Routledge 2016) in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, India, Russia, the UK, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, France, the USA and New Zealand from a global, geopolitical perspective. <br><br>In order to write the above paragraph, dozens of [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/technology/google-details-and-defends-its-use-of-electricity.html google clicks] were needed, each requiring an amount of energy equivalent to letting a 60 watt light bulb burn for 18 seconds. (Do the maths yourself: approx. 31 billion google searches are done every month.) Many dozens of clicks more were needed to search for open-access articles and other information for the production of this living book. Like all digital practices and social media, the Living Books about Life project depends upon energy-intensive infrastructures, partly coal-powered data centres (see [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/New-Greenpeace-report-digs-up-the-dirt-on-Internet-data-centres/ dirty-data report] by Greenpeace) and an equally energy-intensive cooling system for servers that never sleep. But this is not a book about renewable energies and ways of turning the land of the rising sun into the Kingdom of Solar Energy, or about how to join hands with Cheeky Cloud and make windmills turn round and round while unfriending Facebook’s Dirty Coal – as promoted by the [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/ITs-carbon-footprint/Facebook/ Greenpeace campaign] and [http://www.youtube.com/v/QPty-ZLbJt0?version=3 video]. Moralistic finger-pointing at big Western corporations, greedy capitalists or, worse perhaps, nature as an evil force will not do any longer – if ever it did. This is not to deny that some countries and human beings have much more power than others and that, [http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/124-GAIA-LONDON-SPEAP_0.pdf speaking in watts, humanity as a whole 'has scaled up'  and anthropomorphed into the kind of gigantic geoforce with 'twice the muscle of plate tectonics'], as Bruno Latour (2011: 3) calculates on the basis of Oliver Morton's book ''Eating the Sun ''([http://heliophage.wordpress.com blog])'': ''around 13 terawatts (13'000'000'000 kilowatts) of energy alone were needed per hour for machinery to maintain 'global civilisation' in 2006. It is to acknowledge this largely human-made situation and to acknowledge, at the same time, as Martin Faulstich said in his speech for the Energy Conference of the [http://www.worldresourcesforum.org World Resources Forum] (May 23, 2013), that 'there are [http://www.wrforum.org/events/wrf-events/no-technical-barriers-future-without-oil-gas-coal-says-martin-faulstich-wrf-conference/ no technical barriers] for a future without oil, gas or coal'. An energetic (r)evolution therefore depends on a climate change occurring on all levels of the material, social and cultural fabric of the world, including the micro level of the individual and his or her life-style, 'energy mentality' and values ~~as well as on [http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2013.778145 expectations] surrounding specific energies~~, and not just on a technological fix and a call for new legislation. A more connected and [http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2011/11/prismatic-ecologies-ecotheory-beyond.html prismatic (not just green) ecological approach], moreover, entails not only a political and ethical awareness of the fact that energy use, capitalism, imperialism and anthropocentrism are hard-wired into each other but also that reactors, tsunamis, electricity, and transmission cables, among other 'things', each have an agency of their own, affecting and being affected by each of the other aforementioned elements (see Chapter 2 on the North American blackout of August 2003 in Bennett, 2010: 20-38). <br><br>This book is hence not exclusively about the ''E(''nergy) of scientific equations, such as Einstein's famous formula ''E'' = mc<sup>2</sup>. Nor is it primarily about energy as an un/limited resource and consumer good. It is, rather, a book about energy as a nomadic concept and – on the basis of its defining capacity – a material-semiotic agent of trans/formation which is capable of shaping not only 'technologies, politics, societies and cultural world views' (Möllers & Zachmann, 2012: [http://www.transcript-verlag.de/ts1964/ts1964_1.pdf Introduction]) but each and every life. (On these connections in relation to the disasters in Japan, see [http://superstormresearchlab.org/2014/04/16/workshop-searching-for-the-historical-roots-of-the-3-11-disasters-in-japan/ workshop] at Arizona State University, 24-25 April 2014.) Travelling through time, a concept has a history and different names in different periods. It will therefore be useful to consider earlier terms such as 'vis viva'  (Leibniz) or 'élan vital' (Bergson), and non-Western notions such as the Chinese principle 'qì', as well as 19th-century artistic expressions of vibratory forces, as residual elements of the conceptual frame that has shaped what we mean by 'energy' in its broadest sense today. Tapping into energy as an idea, a relation and a dynamic substance, or perhaps rather an intensive flow and affect, I hope to add another atom to Vicki Kirby's 'quantum-anthropological' proposition for a 'meta-physis'' ''of life at large' (2011). More broadly and theoretically speaking, my aim here is to contribute to the project of [http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?SerieId=CPH critical posthumanism]. We could call it a modest proposal to embrace a cosmopolitics (Stengers, 2010 and 2011) in order to sustain the good vibrations of all that matters.		<br>While I am writing this Introduction, the meltdown of the three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that took place in March 2011 is apparently still not under control and today, 20 August 2013, a Tepco official has for the first time declared a [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23764382 radioactive leak] from a tank of their nuclear plant, stemming from the earthquake and tsunami back then. It made new energy-saving technologies the centre of attention at CEATEC, Japan's largest information technology and electronics fair, in October of the same year. Environmentally-conscious scientists are starting to hope that better management of the island’s many forests and policy reinforcements will allow for [http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/4/7/1051 the sustainable use of woody biomass] or any other freely available natural resource (as documented by the non-profit organization [http://www.japanfs.org/en Japan for Sustainability] or the German [http://www.energyrichjapan.info/en/index.html Energy Rich Japan Project]) in order to generate the 858.5 billion kW (858'500'000'000 kilowatts) the Japanese population currently consumes per year (Sasaki et al., 2011: 1052). The techno-natural disaster under discussion has recharged the empty batteries of the anti-nuclear movement, and not just in Japan, and has also fuelled calls by political parties of almost all creeds for an 'energy turn' world-wide. (Yet on 16 June 2012, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda prompted the restarting of the reactors at Oi after a shut-down of all the nuclear power plants, while in my home country, Switzerland, higher than expected costs have overshadowed any green optimism about, and political will for, a quick nuclear exit. Five years after the event, the collection of essays edited by Richard Hindmarsh and Rebecca Priestley has documented media and public responses, social mobilization, energy policies and related dimensions of [https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138830783?utm_source=shared_link&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=sbu1_leh_3rf_6sl_1pol_oth15_x_x_thefukushimaeffect The Fukushima Effect] (Routledge 2016) in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, India, Russia, the UK, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, France, the USA and New Zealand from a global, geopolitical perspective. <br><br>In order to write the above paragraph, dozens of [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/technology/google-details-and-defends-its-use-of-electricity.html google clicks] were needed, each requiring an amount of energy equivalent to letting a 60 watt light bulb burn for 18 seconds. (Do the maths yourself: approx. 31 billion google searches are done every month.) Many dozens of clicks more were needed to search for open-access articles and other information for the production of this living book. Like all digital practices and social media, the Living Books about Life project depends upon energy-intensive infrastructures, partly coal-powered data centres (see [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/New-Greenpeace-report-digs-up-the-dirt-on-Internet-data-centres/ dirty-data report] by Greenpeace) and an equally energy-intensive cooling system for servers that never sleep. But this is not a book about renewable energies and ways of turning the land of the rising sun into the Kingdom of Solar Energy, or about how to join hands with Cheeky Cloud and make windmills turn round and round while unfriending Facebook’s Dirty Coal – as promoted by the [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/ITs-carbon-footprint/Facebook/ Greenpeace campaign] and [http://www.youtube.com/v/QPty-ZLbJt0?version=3 video]. Moralistic finger-pointing at big Western corporations, greedy capitalists or, worse perhaps, nature as an evil force will not do any longer – if ever it did. This is not to deny that some countries and human beings have much more power than others and that, [http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/124-GAIA-LONDON-SPEAP_0.pdf speaking in watts, humanity as a whole 'has scaled up'  and anthropomorphed into the kind of gigantic geoforce with 'twice the muscle of plate tectonics'], as Bruno Latour (2011: 3) calculates on the basis of Oliver Morton's book ''Eating the Sun ''([http://heliophage.wordpress.com blog])'': ''around 13 terawatts (13'000'000'000 kilowatts) of energy alone were needed per hour for machinery to maintain 'global civilisation' in 2006. It is to acknowledge this largely human-made situation and to acknowledge, at the same time, as Martin Faulstich said in his speech for the Energy Conference of the [http://www.worldresourcesforum.org World Resources Forum] (May 23, 2013), that 'there are [http://www.wrforum.org/events/wrf-events/no-technical-barriers-future-without-oil-gas-coal-says-martin-faulstich-wrf-conference/ no technical barriers] for a future without oil, gas or coal'. An energetic (r)evolution therefore depends on a climate change occurring on all levels of the material, social and cultural fabric of the world, including the micro level of the individual and his or her life-style, 'energy mentality' and values, and not just on a technological fix and a call for new legislation. A more connected and [http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2011/11/prismatic-ecologies-ecotheory-beyond.html prismatic (not just green) ecological approach], moreover, entails not only a political and ethical awareness of the fact that energy use, capitalism, imperialism and anthropocentrism are hard-wired into each other but also that reactors, tsunamis, electricity, and transmission cables, among other 'things', each have an agency of their own, affecting and being affected by each of the other aforementioned elements (see Chapter 2 on the North American blackout of August 2003 in Bennett, 2010: 20-38). <br><br>This book is hence not exclusively about the ''E(''nergy) of scientific equations, such as Einstein's famous formula ''E'' = mc<sup>2</sup>. Nor is it primarily about energy as an un/limited resource and consumer good. It is, rather, a book about energy as a nomadic concept and – on the basis of its defining capacity – a material-semiotic agent of trans/formation which is capable of shaping not only 'technologies, politics, societies and cultural world views' (Möllers & Zachmann, 2012: [http://www.transcript-verlag.de/ts1964/ts1964_1.pdf Introduction]) but each and every life. (On these connections in relation to the disasters in Japan, see [http://superstormresearchlab.org/2014/04/16/workshop-searching-for-the-historical-roots-of-the-3-11-disasters-in-japan/ workshop] at Arizona State University, 24-25 April 2014.) Travelling through time, a concept has a history and different names in different periods. It will therefore be useful to consider earlier terms such as 'vis viva'  (Leibniz) or 'élan vital' (Bergson), and non-Western notions such as the Chinese principle 'qì', as well as 19th-century artistic expressions of vibratory forces, as residual elements of the conceptual frame that has shaped what we mean by 'energy' in its broadest sense today. Tapping into energy as an idea, a relation and a dynamic substance, or perhaps rather an intensive flow and affect, I hope to add another atom to Vicki Kirby's 'quantum-anthropological' proposition for a 'meta-physis'' ''of life at large' (2011). More broadly and theoretically speaking, my aim here is to contribute to the project of [http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?SerieId=CPH critical posthumanism]. We could call it a modest proposal to embrace a cosmopolitics (Stengers, 2010 and 2011) in order to sustain the good vibrations of all that matters.

	=== Energy Forms: TransForming Dynamics ===		=== Energy Forms: TransForming Dynamics ===

Rossini: /* Introduction: Energy as a Nomadic Concept */

2016-11-14T22:35:49Z

Introduction: Energy as a Nomadic Concept

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:35, 14 November 2016
Line 5:		Line 5:
	=== Introduction: Energy as a Nomadic Concept ===		=== Introduction: Energy as a Nomadic Concept ===
	<blockquote><br>''Pourqui certains concepts scientifiques connaissent-ils une vie nomade, d'une science à l'autre? Que deviennent-ils lorsqu'ils passent d'une science 'dure' à une science 'molle', ou inversement? Conservent-ils le même sens? Contribuent-ils à unifier le champ des sciences? Ou bien en compliquent-ils plus le relief?'' - Isabelle Stengers, 1987<br><br>(Translation by Manuela Rossini: ''Why do certain scientific concepts lead a nomadic life, from one science to the next? What do they become as they travel from a 'hard' science to a 'soft' science, or the other way round? Does their meaning stay the same? Do they help to unify the field of the sciences? Or do they rather complicate the picture?)''</blockquote>		<blockquote><br>''Pourqui certains concepts scientifiques connaissent-ils une vie nomade, d'une science à l'autre? Que deviennent-ils lorsqu'ils passent d'une science 'dure' à une science 'molle', ou inversement? Conservent-ils le même sens? Contribuent-ils à unifier le champ des sciences? Ou bien en compliquent-ils plus le relief?'' - Isabelle Stengers, 1987<br><br>(Translation by Manuela Rossini: ''Why do certain scientific concepts lead a nomadic life, from one science to the next? What do they become as they travel from a 'hard' science to a 'soft' science, or the other way round? Does their meaning stay the same? Do they help to unify the field of the sciences? Or do they rather complicate the picture?)''</blockquote>
	<br>While I am writing this Introduction, the meltdown of the three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that took place in March 2011 is apparently still not under control and today, 20 August 2013, a Tepco official has for the first time declared a [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23764382 radioactive leak] from a tank of their nuclear plant, stemming from the earthquake and tsunami back then. It made new energy-saving technologies the centre of attention at CEATEC, Japan's largest information technology and electronics fair, in October of the same year. Environmentally-conscious scientists are starting to hope that better management of the island’s many forests and policy reinforcements will allow for [http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/4/7/1051 the sustainable use of woody biomass] or any other freely available natural resource (as documented by the non-profit organization [http://www.japanfs.org/en Japan for Sustainability] or the German [http://www.energyrichjapan.info/en/index.html Energy Rich Japan Project]) in order to generate the 858.5 billion kW (858'500'000'000 kilowatts) the Japanese population currently consumes per year (Sasaki et al., 2011: 1052). The techno-natural disaster under discussion has recharged the empty batteries of the anti-nuclear movement, and not just in Japan, and has also fuelled calls by political parties of almost all creeds for an 'energy turn' world-wide. (Yet on 16 June 2012, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda prompted the restarting of the reactors at Oi after a shut-down of all the nuclear power plants, while in my home country, Switzerland, higher than expected costs have overshadowed any green optimism about, and political will for, a quick nuclear exit. Five years after the event, the collection of essays edited by Richard Hindmarsh and Rebecca Priestley has documented media and public responses, social mobilization, energy policies and related dimensions of [https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138830783?utm_source=shared_link&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=sbu1_leh_3rf_6sl_1pol_oth15_x_x_thefukushimaeffect The Fukushima Effect] (Routledge 2016) in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, India, Russia, the UK, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, France, the USA and New Zealand from a global, geopolitical perspective. <br><br>In order to write the above paragraph, dozens of [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/technology/google-details-and-defends-its-use-of-electricity.html google clicks] were needed, each requiring an amount of energy equivalent to letting a 60 watt light bulb burn for 18 seconds. (Do the maths yourself: approx. 31 billion google searches are done every month.) Many dozens of clicks more were needed to search for open-access articles and other information for the production of this living book. Like all digital practices and social media, the Living Books about Life project depends upon energy-intensive infrastructures, partly coal-powered data centres (see [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/New-Greenpeace-report-digs-up-the-dirt-on-Internet-data-centres/ dirty-data report] by Greenpeace) and an equally energy-intensive cooling system for servers that never sleep. But this is not a book about renewable energies and ways of turning the land of the rising sun into the Kingdom of Solar Energy, or about how to join hands with Cheeky Cloud and make windmills turn round and round while unfriending Facebook’s Dirty Coal – as promoted by the [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/ITs-carbon-footprint/Facebook/ Greenpeace campaign] and [http://www.youtube.com/v/QPty-ZLbJt0?version=3 video]. Moralistic finger-pointing at big Western corporations, greedy capitalists or, worse perhaps, nature as an evil force will not do any longer – if ever it did. This is not to deny that some countries and human beings have much more power than others and that, [http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/124-GAIA-LONDON-SPEAP_0.pdf speaking in watts, humanity as a whole 'has scaled up'  and anthropomorphed into the kind of gigantic geoforce with 'twice the muscle of plate tectonics'], as Bruno Latour (2011: 3) calculates on the basis of Oliver Morton's book ''Eating the Sun ''([http://heliophage.wordpress.com blog])'': ''around 13 terawatts (13'000'000'000 kilowatts) of energy alone were needed per hour for machinery to maintain 'global civilisation' in 2006. It is to acknowledge this largely human-made situation and to acknowledge, at the same time, as Martin Faulstich said in his speech for the Energy Conference of the [http://www.worldresourcesforum.org World Resources Forum] (May 23, 2013), that 'there are [http://www.wrforum.org/events/wrf-events/no-technical-barriers-future-without-oil-gas-coal-says-martin-faulstich-wrf-conference/ no technical barriers] for a future without oil, gas or coal'. An energetic (r)evolution therefore depends on a climate change occurring on all levels of the material, social and cultural fabric of the world, including the micro level of the individual and his or her life-style, 'energy mentality' and values, and not just on a technological fix and a call for new legislation. A more connected and [http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2011/11/prismatic-ecologies-ecotheory-beyond.html prismatic (not just green) ecological approach], moreover, entails not only a political and ethical awareness of the fact that energy use, capitalism, imperialism and anthropocentrism are hard-wired into each other but also that reactors, tsunamis, electricity, and transmission cables, among other 'things', each have an agency of their own, affecting and being affected by each of the other aforementioned elements (see Chapter 2 on the North American blackout of August 2003 in Bennett, 2010: 20-38). <br><br>This book is hence not exclusively about the ''E(''nergy) of scientific equations, such as Einstein's famous formula ''E'' = mc<sup>2</sup>. Nor is it primarily about energy as an un/limited resource and consumer good. It is, rather, a book about energy as a nomadic concept and – on the basis of its defining capacity – a material-semiotic agent of trans/formation which is capable of shaping not only 'technologies, politics, societies and cultural world views' (Möllers & Zachmann, 2012: [http://www.transcript-verlag.de/ts1964/ts1964_1.pdf Introduction]) but each and every life. (On these connections in relation to the disasters in Japan, see [http://superstormresearchlab.org/2014/04/16/workshop-searching-for-the-historical-roots-of-the-3-11-disasters-in-japan/ workshop] at Arizona State University, 24-25 April 2014.) Travelling through time, a concept has a history and different names in different periods. It will therefore be useful to consider earlier terms such as 'vis viva'  (Leibniz) or 'élan vital' (Bergson), and non-Western notions such as the Chinese principle 'qì', as well as 19th-century artistic expressions of vibratory forces, as residual elements of the conceptual frame that has shaped what we mean by 'energy' in its broadest sense today. Tapping into energy as an idea, a relation and a dynamic substance, or perhaps rather an intensive flow and affect, I hope to add another atom to Vicki Kirby's 'quantum-anthropological' proposition for a 'meta-physis'' ''of life at large' (2011). More broadly and theoretically speaking, my aim here is to contribute to the project of [http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?SerieId=CPH critical posthumanism]. We could call it a modest proposal to embrace a cosmopolitics (Stengers, 2010 and 2011) in order to sustain the good vibrations of all that matters.		<br>While I am writing this Introduction, the meltdown of the three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that took place in March 2011 is apparently still not under control and today, 20 August 2013, a Tepco official has for the first time declared a [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23764382 radioactive leak] from a tank of their nuclear plant, stemming from the earthquake and tsunami back then. It made new energy-saving technologies the centre of attention at CEATEC, Japan's largest information technology and electronics fair, in October of the same year. Environmentally-conscious scientists are starting to hope that better management of the island’s many forests and policy reinforcements will allow for [http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/4/7/1051 the sustainable use of woody biomass] or any other freely available natural resource (as documented by the non-profit organization [http://www.japanfs.org/en Japan for Sustainability] or the German [http://www.energyrichjapan.info/en/index.html Energy Rich Japan Project]) in order to generate the 858.5 billion kW (858'500'000'000 kilowatts) the Japanese population currently consumes per year (Sasaki et al., 2011: 1052). The techno-natural disaster under discussion has recharged the empty batteries of the anti-nuclear movement, and not just in Japan, and has also fuelled calls by political parties of almost all creeds for an 'energy turn' world-wide. (Yet on 16 June 2012, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda prompted the restarting of the reactors at Oi after a shut-down of all the nuclear power plants, while in my home country, Switzerland, higher than expected costs have overshadowed any green optimism about, and political will for, a quick nuclear exit. Five years after the event, the collection of essays edited by Richard Hindmarsh and Rebecca Priestley has documented media and public responses, social mobilization, energy policies and related dimensions of [https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138830783?utm_source=shared_link&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=sbu1_leh_3rf_6sl_1pol_oth15_x_x_thefukushimaeffect The Fukushima Effect] (Routledge 2016) in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, India, Russia, the UK, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, France, the USA and New Zealand from a global, geopolitical perspective. <br><br>In order to write the above paragraph, dozens of [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/technology/google-details-and-defends-its-use-of-electricity.html google clicks] were needed, each requiring an amount of energy equivalent to letting a 60 watt light bulb burn for 18 seconds. (Do the maths yourself: approx. 31 billion google searches are done every month.) Many dozens of clicks more were needed to search for open-access articles and other information for the production of this living book. Like all digital practices and social media, the Living Books about Life project depends upon energy-intensive infrastructures, partly coal-powered data centres (see [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/New-Greenpeace-report-digs-up-the-dirt-on-Internet-data-centres/ dirty-data report] by Greenpeace) and an equally energy-intensive cooling system for servers that never sleep. But this is not a book about renewable energies and ways of turning the land of the rising sun into the Kingdom of Solar Energy, or about how to join hands with Cheeky Cloud and make windmills turn round and round while unfriending Facebook’s Dirty Coal – as promoted by the [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/cool-it/ITs-carbon-footprint/Facebook/ Greenpeace campaign] and [http://www.youtube.com/v/QPty-ZLbJt0?version=3 video]. Moralistic finger-pointing at big Western corporations, greedy capitalists or, worse perhaps, nature as an evil force will not do any longer – if ever it did. This is not to deny that some countries and human beings have much more power than others and that, [http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/124-GAIA-LONDON-SPEAP_0.pdf speaking in watts, humanity as a whole 'has scaled up'  and anthropomorphed into the kind of gigantic geoforce with 'twice the muscle of plate tectonics'], as Bruno Latour (2011: 3) calculates on the basis of Oliver Morton's book ''Eating the Sun ''([http://heliophage.wordpress.com blog])'': ''around 13 terawatts (13'000'000'000 kilowatts) of energy alone were needed per hour for machinery to maintain 'global civilisation' in 2006. It is to acknowledge this largely human-made situation and to acknowledge, at the same time, as Martin Faulstich said in his speech for the Energy Conference of the [http://www.worldresourcesforum.org World Resources Forum] (May 23, 2013), that 'there are [http://www.wrforum.org/events/wrf-events/no-technical-barriers-future-without-oil-gas-coal-says-martin-faulstich-wrf-conference/ no technical barriers] for a future without oil, gas or coal'. An energetic (r)evolution therefore depends on a climate change occurring on all levels of the material, social and cultural fabric of the world, including the micro level of the individual and his or her life-style, 'energy mentality' and values as well as on [http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2013.778145 expectations] surrounding specific energies, and not just on a technological fix and a call for new legislation. A more connected and [http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2011/11/prismatic-ecologies-ecotheory-beyond.html prismatic (not just green) ecological approach], moreover, entails not only a political and ethical awareness of the fact that energy use, capitalism, imperialism and anthropocentrism are hard-wired into each other but also that reactors, tsunamis, electricity, and transmission cables, among other 'things', each have an agency of their own, affecting and being affected by each of the other aforementioned elements (see Chapter 2 on the North American blackout of August 2003 in Bennett, 2010: 20-38). <br><br>This book is hence not exclusively about the ''E(''nergy) of scientific equations, such as Einstein's famous formula ''E'' = mc<sup>2</sup>. Nor is it primarily about energy as an un/limited resource and consumer good. It is, rather, a book about energy as a nomadic concept and – on the basis of its defining capacity – a material-semiotic agent of trans/formation which is capable of shaping not only 'technologies, politics, societies and cultural world views' (Möllers & Zachmann, 2012: [http://www.transcript-verlag.de/ts1964/ts1964_1.pdf Introduction]) but each and every life. (On these connections in relation to the disasters in Japan, see [http://superstormresearchlab.org/2014/04/16/workshop-searching-for-the-historical-roots-of-the-3-11-disasters-in-japan/ workshop] at Arizona State University, 24-25 April 2014.) Travelling through time, a concept has a history and different names in different periods. It will therefore be useful to consider earlier terms such as 'vis viva'  (Leibniz) or 'élan vital' (Bergson), and non-Western notions such as the Chinese principle 'qì', as well as 19th-century artistic expressions of vibratory forces, as residual elements of the conceptual frame that has shaped what we mean by 'energy' in its broadest sense today. Tapping into energy as an idea, a relation and a dynamic substance, or perhaps rather an intensive flow and affect, I hope to add another atom to Vicki Kirby's 'quantum-anthropological' proposition for a 'meta-physis'' ''of life at large' (2011). More broadly and theoretically speaking, my aim here is to contribute to the project of [http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?SerieId=CPH critical posthumanism]. We could call it a modest proposal to embrace a cosmopolitics (Stengers, 2010 and 2011) in order to sustain the good vibrations of all that matters.

	=== Energy Forms: TransForming Dynamics ===		=== Energy Forms: TransForming Dynamics ===

Rossini at 14:58, 28 February 2016

2016-02-28T14:58:45Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:58, 28 February 2016
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	=== '''<br>Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics''' ===		=== '''<br>Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics''' ===
	<blockquote><br>In a natural universe governed by the laws of energy flow we must understand our true nature and how it is shared with other naturally occurring complex energy systems. - Dorion Sagan, 2009 ([http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/dorionsagan/2009/01/27/the-purpose-of-life-and-humanitys-place-in-the-biosphere/ blog])</blockquote><blockquote><br>The universal pattern of energy flow from atoms to galaxies to the universe itself is infinitely nested and scalar [https://www.facebook.com/TheResonanceProject/~~videos/1067475723285522~~/ Torus flow]. - The Resonance Project </blockquote>		<blockquote><br>In a natural universe governed by the laws of energy flow we must understand our true nature and how it is shared with other naturally occurring complex energy systems. - Dorion Sagan, 2009 ([http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/dorionsagan/2009/01/27/the-purpose-of-life-and-humanitys-place-in-the-biosphere/ blog])</blockquote><blockquote><br>The universal pattern of energy flow from atoms to galaxies to the universe itself is infinitely nested and scalar [https://www.facebook.com/TheResonanceProject/posts/1109732132393214 Torus flow]. - The Resonance Project </blockquote>
	<br> Energy flows are the building blocks of the universe – at least when seen through the scientific theories that followed classical thermodynamics. Energy moves in many channels and often nonlinear directions, and in all dynamic, far-from-equilibrium systems (Schneider & Sagan, see especially [http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3533936.html 'The River Must Flow: Open Systems'] of their book ''Into the Cool''). Energy streams engulf us all (listen to '[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk We Are All Connected]' in the Symphony of Science series, a sampling featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye). Again, these ideas are not new. They find their discursive ancestors in much earlier times and places, above all in Asia, and also in non-scientific communities: dating back to the 5th century BC, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi ''qi''] is a very old expression in Chinese culture for this idea. The sign, appropriately brushed as three wavy lines, is frequently translated as ‘energy flow’, or that which pertains to any living organism. Literally meaning ‘[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/The_Life_of_Air air]’ or ‘breath’, it is similar to Hindu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana ''prana''], which is the life 'ener-chi' one can access when practicing yoga. Such Eastern practices meet Western traditions in studies and therapies of [http://www.instituteforlifeenergy.com/ life energy processes] which draw on energy concepts from the natural sciences as well as the humanities. Finally, [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/827 ''i-no-chi'', the Japanese word for life'', ''means 'energy of breath'], as Nakeshi Naganuma explains (2009: 835). In his paper, written from the standpoint of [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology astrobiology], the scientist includes an extract from the Medieval essayist and poet Kamo-no-Chomei (1155-1216), which also testifies to the fluid and constantly changing existence of human and nonhuman life: 'The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools, scattering, reforming, never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth' (829). This notion is visualised on the same page with the drawing of Vitruvian Man as a vortex, consisting of molecules flowing in and out of the body. As these images suggest, change comes from the movement within a system, which is also expressed in Jane Bennett's definition of ''qi,'' or ''shi'' in her spelling, as 'the style, energy, propensity, trajectory, or élan inherent to a specific arrangement of things' (2010: 35). Here again, as already emphasised in the previous section of this book, we are made aware that open systems – including ourselves – owe their agency to the sum of the vital materialities that constitute them.		<br> Energy flows are the building blocks of the universe – at least when seen through the scientific theories that followed classical thermodynamics. Energy moves in many channels and often nonlinear directions, and in all dynamic, far-from-equilibrium systems (Schneider & Sagan, see especially [http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3533936.html 'The River Must Flow: Open Systems'] of their book ''Into the Cool''). Energy streams engulf us all (listen to '[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk We Are All Connected]' in the Symphony of Science series, a sampling featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye). Again, these ideas are not new. They find their discursive ancestors in much earlier times and places, above all in Asia, and also in non-scientific communities: dating back to the 5th century BC, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi ''qi''] is a very old expression in Chinese culture for this idea. The sign, appropriately brushed as three wavy lines, is frequently translated as ‘energy flow’, or that which pertains to any living organism. Literally meaning ‘[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/The_Life_of_Air air]’ or ‘breath’, it is similar to Hindu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana ''prana''], which is the life 'ener-chi' one can access when practicing yoga. Such Eastern practices meet Western traditions in studies and therapies of [http://www.instituteforlifeenergy.com/ life energy processes] which draw on energy concepts from the natural sciences as well as the humanities. Finally, [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/827 ''i-no-chi'', the Japanese word for life'', ''means 'energy of breath'], as Nakeshi Naganuma explains (2009: 835). In his paper, written from the standpoint of [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology astrobiology], the scientist includes an extract from the Medieval essayist and poet Kamo-no-Chomei (1155-1216), which also testifies to the fluid and constantly changing existence of human and nonhuman life: 'The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools, scattering, reforming, never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth' (829). This notion is visualised on the same page with the drawing of Vitruvian Man as a vortex, consisting of molecules flowing in and out of the body. As these images suggest, change comes from the movement within a system, which is also expressed in Jane Bennett's definition of ''qi,'' or ''shi'' in her spelling, as 'the style, energy, propensity, trajectory, or élan inherent to a specific arrangement of things' (2010: 35). Here again, as already emphasised in the previous section of this book, we are made aware that open systems – including ourselves – owe their agency to the sum of the vital materialities that constitute them.

Rossini at 14:49, 28 February 2016

2016-02-28T14:49:22Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:49, 28 February 2016
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	=== '''<br>Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics''' ===		=== '''<br>Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics''' ===
	<blockquote><br>In a natural universe governed by the laws of energy flow we must understand our true nature and how it is shared with other naturally occurring complex energy systems. - Dorion Sagan, 2009 ([http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/dorionsagan/2009/01/27/the-purpose-of-life-and-humanitys-place-in-the-biosphere/ blog])</blockquote><blockquote>The universal pattern of energy flow from atoms to galaxies to the universe itself is infinitely nested and scalar [https://www.facebook.com/TheResonanceProject/videos/1067475723285522/ Torus flow]. - The Resonance Project </blockquote>		<blockquote><br>In a natural universe governed by the laws of energy flow we must understand our true nature and how it is shared with other naturally occurring complex energy systems. - Dorion Sagan, 2009 ([http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/dorionsagan/2009/01/27/the-purpose-of-life-and-humanitys-place-in-the-biosphere/ blog])</blockquote><blockquote><br>The universal pattern of energy flow from atoms to galaxies to the universe itself is infinitely nested and scalar [https://www.facebook.com/TheResonanceProject/videos/1067475723285522/ Torus flow]. - The Resonance Project </blockquote>
	<br> Energy flows are the building blocks of the universe – at least when seen through the scientific theories that followed classical thermodynamics. Energy moves in many channels and often nonlinear directions, and in all dynamic, far-from-equilibrium systems (Schneider & Sagan, see especially [http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3533936.html 'The River Must Flow: Open Systems'] of their book ''Into the Cool''). Energy streams engulf us all (listen to '[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk We Are All Connected]' in the Symphony of Science series, a sampling featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye). Again, these ideas are not new. They find their discursive ancestors in much earlier times and places, above all in Asia, and also in non-scientific communities: dating back to the 5th century BC, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi ''qi''] is a very old expression in Chinese culture for this idea. The sign, appropriately brushed as three wavy lines, is frequently translated as ‘energy flow’, or that which pertains to any living organism. Literally meaning ‘[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/The_Life_of_Air air]’ or ‘breath’, it is similar to Hindu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana ''prana''], which is the life 'ener-chi' one can access when practicing yoga. Such Eastern practices meet Western traditions in studies and therapies of [http://www.instituteforlifeenergy.com/ life energy processes] which draw on energy concepts from the natural sciences as well as the humanities. Finally, [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/827 ''i-no-chi'', the Japanese word for life'', ''means 'energy of breath'], as Nakeshi Naganuma explains (2009: 835). In his paper, written from the standpoint of [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology astrobiology], the scientist includes an extract from the Medieval essayist and poet Kamo-no-Chomei (1155-1216), which also testifies to the fluid and constantly changing existence of human and nonhuman life: 'The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools, scattering, reforming, never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth' (829). This notion is visualised on the same page with the drawing of Vitruvian Man as a vortex, consisting of molecules flowing in and out of the body. As these images suggest, change comes from the movement within a system, which is also expressed in Jane Bennett's definition of ''qi,'' or ''shi'' in her spelling, as 'the style, energy, propensity, trajectory, or élan inherent to a specific arrangement of things' (2010: 35). Here again, as already emphasised in the previous section of this book, we are made aware that open systems – including ourselves – owe their agency to the sum of the vital materialities that constitute them.		<br> Energy flows are the building blocks of the universe – at least when seen through the scientific theories that followed classical thermodynamics. Energy moves in many channels and often nonlinear directions, and in all dynamic, far-from-equilibrium systems (Schneider & Sagan, see especially [http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3533936.html 'The River Must Flow: Open Systems'] of their book ''Into the Cool''). Energy streams engulf us all (listen to '[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk We Are All Connected]' in the Symphony of Science series, a sampling featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye). Again, these ideas are not new. They find their discursive ancestors in much earlier times and places, above all in Asia, and also in non-scientific communities: dating back to the 5th century BC, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi ''qi''] is a very old expression in Chinese culture for this idea. The sign, appropriately brushed as three wavy lines, is frequently translated as ‘energy flow’, or that which pertains to any living organism. Literally meaning ‘[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/The_Life_of_Air air]’ or ‘breath’, it is similar to Hindu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana ''prana''], which is the life 'ener-chi' one can access when practicing yoga. Such Eastern practices meet Western traditions in studies and therapies of [http://www.instituteforlifeenergy.com/ life energy processes] which draw on energy concepts from the natural sciences as well as the humanities. Finally, [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/827 ''i-no-chi'', the Japanese word for life'', ''means 'energy of breath'], as Nakeshi Naganuma explains (2009: 835). In his paper, written from the standpoint of [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology astrobiology], the scientist includes an extract from the Medieval essayist and poet Kamo-no-Chomei (1155-1216), which also testifies to the fluid and constantly changing existence of human and nonhuman life: 'The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools, scattering, reforming, never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth' (829). This notion is visualised on the same page with the drawing of Vitruvian Man as a vortex, consisting of molecules flowing in and out of the body. As these images suggest, change comes from the movement within a system, which is also expressed in Jane Bennett's definition of ''qi,'' or ''shi'' in her spelling, as 'the style, energy, propensity, trajectory, or élan inherent to a specific arrangement of things' (2010: 35). Here again, as already emphasised in the previous section of this book, we are made aware that open systems – including ourselves – owe their agency to the sum of the vital materialities that constitute them.

Rossini at 14:47, 28 February 2016

2016-02-28T14:47:54Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:47, 28 February 2016
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	=== '''<br>Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics''' ===		=== '''<br>Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics''' ===
	<blockquote><br>In a natural universe governed by the laws of energy flow we must understand our true nature and how it is shared with other naturally occurring complex energy systems. - Dorion Sagan, 2009 ([http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/dorionsagan/2009/01/27/the-purpose-of-life-and-humanitys-place-in-the-biosphere/ blog]) </blockquote>		<blockquote><br>In a natural universe governed by the laws of energy flow we must understand our true nature and how it is shared with other naturally occurring complex energy systems. - Dorion Sagan, 2009 ([http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/dorionsagan/2009/01/27/the-purpose-of-life-and-humanitys-place-in-the-biosphere/ blog])</blockquote><blockquote>The universal pattern of energy flow from atoms to galaxies to the universe itself is infinitely nested and scalar [https://www.facebook.com/TheResonanceProject/videos/1067475723285522/ Torus flow]. - The Resonance Project </blockquote>
	~~        ~~ The universal pattern of energy flow from atoms to galaxies to the universe itself is infinitely nested and scalar [https://www.facebook.com/TheResonanceProject/videos/1067475723285522/ Torus flow]. - The Resonance Project

	<br> Energy flows are the building blocks of the universe – at least when seen through the scientific theories that followed classical thermodynamics. Energy moves in many channels and often nonlinear directions, and in all dynamic, far-from-equilibrium systems (Schneider & Sagan, see especially [http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3533936.html 'The River Must Flow: Open Systems'] of their book ''Into the Cool''). Energy streams engulf us all (listen to '[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk We Are All Connected]' in the Symphony of Science series, a sampling featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye). Again, these ideas are not new. They find their discursive ancestors in much earlier times and places, above all in Asia, and also in non-scientific communities: dating back to the 5th century BC, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi ''qi''] is a very old expression in Chinese culture for this idea. The sign, appropriately brushed as three wavy lines, is frequently translated as ‘energy flow’, or that which pertains to any living organism. Literally meaning ‘[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/The_Life_of_Air air]’ or ‘breath’, it is similar to Hindu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana ''prana''], which is the life 'ener-chi' one can access when practicing yoga. Such Eastern practices meet Western traditions in studies and therapies of [http://www.instituteforlifeenergy.com/ life energy processes] which draw on energy concepts from the natural sciences as well as the humanities. Finally, [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/827 ''i-no-chi'', the Japanese word for life'', ''means 'energy of breath'], as Nakeshi Naganuma explains (2009: 835). In his paper, written from the standpoint of [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology astrobiology], the scientist includes an extract from the Medieval essayist and poet Kamo-no-Chomei (1155-1216), which also testifies to the fluid and constantly changing existence of human and nonhuman life: 'The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools, scattering, reforming, never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth' (829). This notion is visualised on the same page with the drawing of Vitruvian Man as a vortex, consisting of molecules flowing in and out of the body. As these images suggest, change comes from the movement within a system, which is also expressed in Jane Bennett's definition of ''qi,'' or ''shi'' in her spelling, as 'the style, energy, propensity, trajectory, or élan inherent to a specific arrangement of things' (2010: 35). Here again, as already emphasised in the previous section of this book, we are made aware that open systems – including ourselves – owe their agency to the sum of the vital materialities that constitute them.		<br> Energy flows are the building blocks of the universe – at least when seen through the scientific theories that followed classical thermodynamics. Energy moves in many channels and often nonlinear directions, and in all dynamic, far-from-equilibrium systems (Schneider & Sagan, see especially [http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3533936.html 'The River Must Flow: Open Systems'] of their book ''Into the Cool''). Energy streams engulf us all (listen to '[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk We Are All Connected]' in the Symphony of Science series, a sampling featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye). Again, these ideas are not new. They find their discursive ancestors in much earlier times and places, above all in Asia, and also in non-scientific communities: dating back to the 5th century BC, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi ''qi''] is a very old expression in Chinese culture for this idea. The sign, appropriately brushed as three wavy lines, is frequently translated as ‘energy flow’, or that which pertains to any living organism. Literally meaning ‘[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/The_Life_of_Air air]’ or ‘breath’, it is similar to Hindu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana ''prana''], which is the life 'ener-chi' one can access when practicing yoga. Such Eastern practices meet Western traditions in studies and therapies of [http://www.instituteforlifeenergy.com/ life energy processes] which draw on energy concepts from the natural sciences as well as the humanities. Finally, [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/827 ''i-no-chi'', the Japanese word for life'', ''means 'energy of breath'], as Nakeshi Naganuma explains (2009: 835). In his paper, written from the standpoint of [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology astrobiology], the scientist includes an extract from the Medieval essayist and poet Kamo-no-Chomei (1155-1216), which also testifies to the fluid and constantly changing existence of human and nonhuman life: 'The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools, scattering, reforming, never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth' (829). This notion is visualised on the same page with the drawing of Vitruvian Man as a vortex, consisting of molecules flowing in and out of the body. As these images suggest, change comes from the movement within a system, which is also expressed in Jane Bennett's definition of ''qi,'' or ''shi'' in her spelling, as 'the style, energy, propensity, trajectory, or élan inherent to a specific arrangement of things' (2010: 35). Here again, as already emphasised in the previous section of this book, we are made aware that open systems – including ourselves – owe their agency to the sum of the vital materialities that constitute them.

Rossini: /* Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics */

2016-02-28T14:47:04Z

Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:47, 28 February 2016
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	=== '''<br>Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics''' ===		=== '''<br>Energy Flows: Powering Cosmopolitics''' ===
	<blockquote><br>In a natural universe governed by the laws of energy flow we must understand our true nature and how it is shared with other naturally occurring complex energy systems. - Dorion Sagan, 2009 ([http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/dorionsagan/2009/01/27/the-purpose-of-life-and-humanitys-place-in-the-biosphere/ blog]) </blockquote>		<blockquote><br>In a natural universe governed by the laws of energy flow we must understand our true nature and how it is shared with other naturally occurring complex energy systems. - Dorion Sagan, 2009 ([http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/dorionsagan/2009/01/27/the-purpose-of-life-and-humanitys-place-in-the-biosphere/ blog]) </blockquote>
			The universal pattern of energy flow from atoms to galaxies to the universe itself is infinitely nested and scalar [https://www.facebook.com/TheResonanceProject/videos/1067475723285522/ Torus flow]. - The Resonance Project

	<br> Energy flows are the building blocks of the universe – at least when seen through the scientific theories that followed classical thermodynamics. Energy moves in many channels and often nonlinear directions, and in all dynamic, far-from-equilibrium systems (Schneider & Sagan, see especially [http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3533936.html 'The River Must Flow: Open Systems'] of their book ''Into the Cool''). Energy streams engulf us all (listen to '[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk We Are All Connected]' in the Symphony of Science series, a sampling featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye). Again, these ideas are not new. They find their discursive ancestors in much earlier times and places, above all in Asia, and also in non-scientific communities: dating back to the 5th century BC, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi ''qi''] is a very old expression in Chinese culture for this idea. The sign, appropriately brushed as three wavy lines, is frequently translated as ‘energy flow’, or that which pertains to any living organism. Literally meaning ‘[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/The_Life_of_Air air]’ or ‘breath’, it is similar to Hindu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana ''prana''], which is the life 'ener-chi' one can access when practicing yoga. Such Eastern practices meet Western traditions in studies and therapies of [http://www.instituteforlifeenergy.com/ life energy processes] which draw on energy concepts from the natural sciences as well as the humanities. Finally, [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/827 ''i-no-chi'', the Japanese word for life'', ''means 'energy of breath'], as Nakeshi Naganuma explains (2009: 835). In his paper, written from the standpoint of [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology astrobiology], the scientist includes an extract from the Medieval essayist and poet Kamo-no-Chomei (1155-1216), which also testifies to the fluid and constantly changing existence of human and nonhuman life: 'The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools, scattering, reforming, never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth' (829). This notion is visualised on the same page with the drawing of Vitruvian Man as a vortex, consisting of molecules flowing in and out of the body. As these images suggest, change comes from the movement within a system, which is also expressed in Jane Bennett's definition of ''qi,'' or ''shi'' in her spelling, as 'the style, energy, propensity, trajectory, or élan inherent to a specific arrangement of things' (2010: 35). Here again, as already emphasised in the previous section of this book, we are made aware that open systems – including ourselves – owe their agency to the sum of the vital materialities that constitute them.		<br> Energy flows are the building blocks of the universe – at least when seen through the scientific theories that followed classical thermodynamics. Energy moves in many channels and often nonlinear directions, and in all dynamic, far-from-equilibrium systems (Schneider & Sagan, see especially [http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo3533936.html 'The River Must Flow: Open Systems'] of their book ''Into the Cool''). Energy streams engulf us all (listen to '[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk We Are All Connected]' in the Symphony of Science series, a sampling featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye). Again, these ideas are not new. They find their discursive ancestors in much earlier times and places, above all in Asia, and also in non-scientific communities: dating back to the 5th century BC, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi ''qi''] is a very old expression in Chinese culture for this idea. The sign, appropriately brushed as three wavy lines, is frequently translated as ‘energy flow’, or that which pertains to any living organism. Literally meaning ‘[http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/The_Life_of_Air air]’ or ‘breath’, it is similar to Hindu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana ''prana''], which is the life 'ener-chi' one can access when practicing yoga. Such Eastern practices meet Western traditions in studies and therapies of [http://www.instituteforlifeenergy.com/ life energy processes] which draw on energy concepts from the natural sciences as well as the humanities. Finally, [http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/827 ''i-no-chi'', the Japanese word for life'', ''means 'energy of breath'], as Nakeshi Naganuma explains (2009: 835). In his paper, written from the standpoint of [http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Astrobiology astrobiology], the scientist includes an extract from the Medieval essayist and poet Kamo-no-Chomei (1155-1216), which also testifies to the fluid and constantly changing existence of human and nonhuman life: 'The flowing river never stops and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools, scattering, reforming, never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth' (829). This notion is visualised on the same page with the drawing of Vitruvian Man as a vortex, consisting of molecules flowing in and out of the body. As these images suggest, change comes from the movement within a system, which is also expressed in Jane Bennett's definition of ''qi,'' or ''shi'' in her spelling, as 'the style, energy, propensity, trajectory, or élan inherent to a specific arrangement of things' (2010: 35). Here again, as already emphasised in the previous section of this book, we are made aware that open systems – including ourselves – owe their agency to the sum of the vital materialities that constitute them.