AS I SEE IT
Success is an Inside Job - to survive and thrive you need to cope with C.R.A.P. G.Waterworth Owen
I have spent many years in the wilderness
living with and painting indigenous people.
The days have always been busy exploring new territory, survival and the logistics of getting from A to B - a lot like Life.
However - long, quiet, star lit nights provide opportunities for the greatest expeditions exploration of the universe between our ears and beyond.
For centuries learned men believed Earth to be the centre of the universe !
And then along came Copernicus, daring to challenge the status quo, by saying: 1. The Earth spins, and 2. The Earth is a planet orbiting the Sun. Copernicus 1473 -1543
The Polish astronomer never liked the Earth-based view of the universe. Wisely, he never publicly announced his views until he was old. Why? Anyone who opposed Church doctrine was branded a heretic, and that would destroy your reputation, put you in prison, or even sentence you to death.
Luther refers to Copernicus as "a fool who went against Holy Writ". "There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was Martin Luther1483-1546 sitting still and at rest while the earth and and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must needs invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down.�
Bruno was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer who is best known as a proponent of the infinity of the universe. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in identifying the Bruno 1548-1600 sun as just one of an infinite number of independently moving heavenly bodies: he is the first man to have conceptualized the universe as a continuum where the stars we see at night are identical in nature to the Sun. He was burned at the stake by authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy.
In 1610, Galileo built his first telescope at age 46. He soon made discoveries which shook the foundations of the Aristotelian cosmos. In 1633, he was found guilty of heresy; his book was banned; he was forced to claim that he had been wrong, that the Earth did not move; and he was placed under Galileo 1564-1642 house arrest for the rest of his life. It is sometimes reported that after admitting that the Earth did not move, he said under his breath, "But it does move." In 1835, Galileo's book was removed from the famous Index of banned books. And in 1979, Pope John Paul admitted that the Catholic Church had erred in its treatment of Galileo.
Kepler 1571-1630. In 1610 Kepler heard about Galileo’s discoveries with the telescope and wrote a long letter of support, which he published. Always being subjected to persecution by the Catholics, Kepler had to relocate several times due to pressure from the Church, yet he would not convert. Newton 1643-1727. Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and proved that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, at last removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.
It took 180 years for that paradigm to shift! Schopenhauer 1788-1860 All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Planck 1858-1947 “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.�
Ghandi 1869-1948 "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."
Khun 1922-1996 Kuhn argued that science does not progress via a linear accumulation of new knowledge, but undergoes periodic revolutions, also called "paradigm shifts� in which the nature of scientific inquiry within a particular field is abruptly transformed.
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.� ~Einstein 1879 - 1955
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. arguing against the PC in 1977. “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” New York Times, 1936. “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895. “Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later.
“There will never be a bigger plane built.” A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that held ten people “The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.” Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916 “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.” The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903
“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878. “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” A memo at Western Union, 1878. “The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.” IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959. .
“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London. “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921. “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.
Professor James Lovelock, (born 26 July 1919) Scientist, eco-pioneer, environmentalist and futurologist is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis and his fondness for heresy.
“Enjoy life while you can. Catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam.” In his 2006 book The Revenge of Gaia, he predicts that by 2020 extreme weather will be the norm, causing global devastation; that by 2040 much of Europe will be Saharan; and parts of London will be underwater. “Sustainable development - I think these are just words that mean nothing.” “Recycling - is almost certainly a waste of time and energy, a green lifestyle amounts to little more than ostentatious grand gestures.”
“Renewable energy is the emptiest false promise of all.” “The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.” “Nuclear power, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food.” “About 80% of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100.” “Ethical consumption always, in the end, turns out to be a scam ... or if it wasn't one in the beginning, it becomes one.”
“Plastic bag campaigns seem, on the face of it, a good thing. But it transpires that this is largely a tactical response; it is merely more rearrangement of Titanic deckchairs.� “Humanity is in a period exactly like 1938-9, when we all knew something terrible was going to happen, but didn't know what to do about it. But once the second world war was under way, everyone got excited, they loved the things they could do, it was one long holiday ... so when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in those terms. A sense of purpose - that's what people want."
In his 2009 book - The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning and in an interview with Nature magazine, he defends his forthcoming trip into space, and suggests that the technology for reversing climate change may be within our grasp. In 2010 he says: “It is too late to try and save the planet. Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change. I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle as complex a situation as climate change." A fondness for heresy indeed !
“With monotonous regularity, apparently competent men have laid down the law about what is technically possible or impossible and have been proved utterly wrong, sometimes while the ink was scarcely dry from their pens.� ~Arthur C Clarke.
Success is an Inside Job to survive and thrive you need to cope with
C.R.A.P. Criticism Rejection Assholes Persecution Develop your ability to deal with it or else! Assholes will always get in the way of progress.