We are more concerned with what goes on in our lives, like getting to work, where to eat, who to do what with. Not much thought goes into the ‘deep’ stuff that happens. Perhaps it’s just too much for us.

As distinguished American biologist, E O Wilson says in Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, ‘Natural selection built the brain to survive in the world and only incidentally to understand it at a depth greater than is needed to survive.’

H. Allen Orr has a cat, and he explains this further, in his review of Wilson’s book:

My cat Boris’s brain is not, therefore, infinitely adroit. It knows a lot about birds, mice, and how other cats behave, but is hopelessly lost when it comes to chess, the purpose of fax machines, or the multiplication table. Similarly our brains didn’t evolve to penetrate the deepest truths about nature but to get us from one day to the next. We have therefore no reason whatever for believing that we, Homo sapiens, have arrived at some acme of cognitive evolution, that our chimpish brains are the best that brains can be. Instead it seems far more natural to suppose that we, like every other species, are intellectually good at some things and hopelessly bad at others.

Because of skills developed over thousands of years, which focus on the here and now, we lack conceptual skills that would allow us to really understand complex issues. Our minds are not able to grasp more than we are biologically programmed to do so.

In each of the areas of climate, peace, poverty and conservation there are complex factors that come into play. Wilson says to tackle difficult problems we need a synthesis of knowledge from different specialized fields of human endeavor, from both the arts and the sciences. He uses the term consilience to describe this synthesis.

Add to this the modern world, where we have little time, and not much inclination to think through issues, the good and the bad, the maybes, shoulds and shouldn’ts. Much of what we do is spur of the moment - not considered enough. We look for a quick understanding or explanation, a way forward that seems reasonable but perhaps isn’t fully thought out. Wilson,

Beware of the idols of the mind, the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall. They are the real distorting prisms of human nature. Among them, idols of the tribe assume more order than exists in chaotic nature; those of the imprisoning cave, the idiosyncrasies of individual belief and passion; of the market place, the power of mere words to induce belief in non-existent things; and of the theatre, unquestioning acceptance of philosophical beliefs and misleading demonstration.

We rely on these ‘idols’ to provide us with a way of dealing with the world. We look for the short, quick fix to problems. What we need is more time to reason broadly and deeply, more to observe and experiment. Knowledge advances only through a process of trial and error. Wilson again,

Stay clear of these idols, observe the world around you as it truly is, and reflect on the best means of transmitting reality as you have experienced it; put into it every fibre of your being.

Please note these are page numbers
in the current draft of the book.

Aamodt, Sandra, 70
Adams, Mike, 81
Bartlett, Dan, 72
Bennett, Drake, 70
Bernanke, Ben, 68
Bernstein, Richard, 73
Blomberg, Craig, 16
Bloom, Howard, 91
Borgerson, Scott, 89
Borlaug, Norman, 80, 98
Boulding, Kenneth, 83
Brownlee, Shannon, 31
Buiter, William, 25
Bush, President George W., 40
Charles, Prince, 106
Christ, Jesus, 16
Collier, Paul, 43, 49, 85
Cowen, Tyler, 78
Cubeta, Phil, 54
Danner, Mark, 40
Darwin, 19
Davidson, Donald, 15
Drayton, Bill, 103
Dylan, Bob, 37
Fallows, James, 62
Feltes, Richard, 56
Finkelstein, Sydney, 66
Fischer, Joschka, 32
Freidman, Milton, 77
Gates, Bill, 47
Gatto, John Taylor, 26
Giussani, Bruno, 73
Glover, Julian, 79
Godin, Seth, 37, 100
Gore, Al, 100
Graham, Paul, 61
Gray, John, 19, 30, 31, 88
Haass, Richard N., 105
Handy, Charles, 52
Hansen, Jim, 107
Hausmann, Ricardo, 79
Hawken, Paul, 101
Homer-Dixon, Thomas, 76
Hoover, Herbert, 57
James, William, 24
Kaplan, Jeffrey, 57
Kaplan, Robert D., 91
Karelis, Charles, 70
Keats, John, 20, 22
Kelly, Kevin, 36, 39
Klare, Michael T., 74
Krugman, Paul, 71
Krupp, Fred, 53
Lawson, Nigel, 79
Leonard, Andrew, 78
Lessig, Larry, 52
Lewitt, Michael E., 101
Livingston, John, 72
Lomborg, Bjørn, 43
Lovelock, James, 92
Melton, Professor Doug, 88
Monbiot, George, 63, 74
Natsios, Andre, 80
New York Times, 69, 70
Obama, Barack, 24
Orr, H. Allen, 34
Orwell, George, 66
Page, Larry, 96
Pollan, Michael, 95
Quine, W V O, 33
Reich, Robert, 52
Revkin, Andrew, 97, 100, 108
Rodrik, Dani, 63
Rorty, Richard, 14, 15, 23, 99
Rumsfeld, Donald, 20
Sachs, Jeffrey, 63, 97
Sacks, Jeffrey, 18
Schlesinger, James, 88
Schmidt, Eric, 48
Sellars, Wilfred, 15
Shirky, Clay, 59
Skidelsky, Robert, 75
Small, Deborah, 41
Smith, Adam, 51
Solana, Javier, 39
Solnit, Rebecca, 60
Spence, Michael, 79
St. Paul, 108
Steffen, Alex, 104
Stelter, Brian, 69
Stern, Nicolas, 63
Stiglitz, Joseph, 50, 62
Stiglitz, Joseph E., 103
Strobel, Lee, 16
Summers, Lawrence, 86
Taleb, Nassim, 17, 30
Taylor, Bill, 66
Thompson, J. Walter, 58
Thoreau, Henry David, 35
Times, Financial, 68
van der Veer, Jeroen, 90
von Mises, Ludwig, 65
Wang, Sam, 70
Washington Post, 48, 56, 85
Weigelt, Keith, 47
Wilson, E O, 34
Wilson, Eric, 20
Wolf, Martin, 68
Yunus, Muhammad, 47
Zuckerman, Ethan, 49

Why Business Cards?
Ideas need to be passed along simply and clearly.
They need to be shared. Remembered.
We need something to carry these ideas. Easily.
Business cards.
Ideas on business cards.

We all face four issues: climate change, poverty, conflict in the Middle East and other parts of the world, and wildlife conservation.

The Book is a collection of ideas by many experts on what to do.

Here is a short draft: World View 

This site presents some of that discussion, and the business cards that accompany it. Comments welcome.

typeface: Expletive Deleted by Rich Gast

Greg Tallent
London South Bank University
Tel: +44 20 7815 7744
email

Why Business Cards?
Ideas need to be passed along simply and clearly.
They need to be shared. Remembered.
We need something to carry these ideas. Easily.
Business cards.
Ideas on business cards.

We all face four issues: climate change, poverty, conflict in the Middle East and other parts of the world, and wildlife conservation.

The Book is a collection of ideas by many experts on what to do.

Here is a short draft: World View 

This site presents some of that discussion, and the business cards that accompany it. Comments welcome.

typeface: Expletive Deleted by Rich Gast

*

Greg Tallent is a senior lecturer in business studies at London South Bank  University, with research interests in social responsibility. He studied engineering, then went on to being artist, music producer, jazz pianist, physics teacher, fashion  photographer, model agent, programmer and Internet entrepreneur, in no particular order.

He has recently launched: www.worldviewconference.com

The site is an easy way for influential writers and thinkers across nations to discuss their ideas and work - in a Twitter-like way. It is a forum for original thinkers in various fields and with diverse experiences.

Contributors are by invitation only - to keep the conversation clear, useful and ongoing.

Conversations are more interesting face-to-face, so we intend to hold regular meetings at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank. More on this as it develops. Map

If you would like to join the conversation please let us know. We are looking for people established in world affairs, and with a desire to put forward ideas for discussion that help improve the world.

Contact: Greg Tallent, Lecturer
London South Bank University
Tel: +44 20 7815 7744
email

We live in a society because we are gregarious creatures, we need other people. Society provides security and resources, makes our lives more interesting. Individuals, over thousands of years, have benefited from the dynamics of societies. We give a little, take a little. Selfish, yes, but with an eye on our neighbour’s welfare. Because, in the end, that makes a difference to us, too. It matters to our well-being. It’s in our nature to find the best way through a difficult situation, with the help of others.

If humans progress, we do so through a development of ideas about how we should live, and the means to realise those ideas. The ideas and the means come from many areas of knowledge and practice - from the poet to the entrepreneur, from technology to politics, from the arts to science, from the individual to the large corporation, the village to the metropolis.

The problem is we give a ourselves problems.

The major issues we face are climate change, poverty, conflict in the Middle East and other parts of the world, and wildlife conservation. To solve these problems we need to fundamentally change the way we look at the world - we’re going to have to change our values and our behaviour. We have been taught that we have a responsibility to ourselves and to the values in our own society, so we do not have much concern for people outside this group. We need to think outside our group, but this change is not likely to happen for the simple reason that it’s hard to do.

Instead, what we should do to help solve these issues, is change the economics of our societies. We need to change persuade our governments and our businesses to take into account the true cost of what we do, and to make this transparent. When we can see the real cost of damage to the environment, or the costs in human lives in war, or in the destruction of species, we will change our behaviour. This will take time.

We need to look broad and deep for ideas on how to do this because the problems are complex. This is reflected in the style and content of this book. It is a journey through the ideas of many different people, expert in their subject. They all suggest something we can do, now.

These experts have useful things to say about what we know, and what we need to do. Their ideas are sometimes difficult, but have been presented in a way we can all understand. Sometimes, you will read conflicting views, for example, the legacy of capitalism has its advocates, and its critics. The solutions are, indeed, complex.

There are three sections in this book, Peace, Prosperity and Responsibility. These are the three areas that make the most difference in a person’s life, wherever in the world they may be. The ideas in Peace are about the individual and what might make a difference in her world. In Prosperity, we talk about the economic behaviour in the societies in which people live. In Responsibility, we talk about the individual’s connection to society.

But, a book isn’t enough. We need something that we can carry easily and share with others. Business cards are easy to give out, and people tend to keep them, somewhere. The idea is that each item has a saying which people can put on a business card, and give to others.

This site, book and cards are a discussion of that direction.

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