In the hundred different environments of its inhabitants, the oak plays an ever-changing role as object, sometimes with some parts, sometimes with others. The same parts are alternately large and small. Its wood is both hard and soft; it serves for attack and for defense.

If one wanted to summarize all the different characteristics shown by the oak as an object, this would only give rise to chaos. Yet these are only parts of a subject that is solidly put together in itself, which carries and shelters all environments---one which is never known by all the subjects of these environments and never knowable for them.

-- Uexküll, A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, p 132

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I'm going to cheat a little, and use this as a place to 'dump' various articles I find interesting and that I might want to use in my research involving animals.

Maybe you'll find them interesting too.

Male Mice Woo Females With 'Love Songs' Similar to Songbirds

The Science Is In: Elephants Are Even Smarter Than We Realized

The Blood Harvest - on horseshoe crab harvest for biomedical purposes

Small animals perceive the world in slow-motion

Human melody singing by bullfinches (Pyrrhula pyrrula) gives hints about a cognitive note sequence processing - abstract

Human-introduced long-term traditions in wild redfronted lemurs? - abstract

The Behavioral Ecology of Color Vision: Considering Fruit Conspicuity, Detection Distance and Dietary Importance - abstract

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The creativity within the natural system we inherit, and the values this generates, are the ground of our being, not just the ground under our feet.

-- Holmes Rolston III, Value in Nature and the Nature of Value

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I offer myself as a nature guide, exploring for values. Many before us have got lost and we must look the world over. The unexamined life is not worth living; life in an unexamined world is not worth living either. We miss too much of value.

-- Holmes Rolston III, Value in Nature and the Nature of Value

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While writing the line "Further, this way of thinking offers...", it occurred to me how I used to take 'way of thinking' as a 'manner of thinking'. But as I work through Heidegger's What Is Called Thinking, I now also hear 'way of thinking' as saying: path of thinking. A way of thinking is not merely a manner of thinking, but it is also a course of thinking.

Somewhat relatedly, but also distant, is the phrase 'of course'. "Of course I think that is best." 'Of course' meaning 'obviously', but also 'of the path', 'of the way', 'of the way things move or flow'.

I say "relatedly, but also distant," because, of course, that which is a way of thinking is not always obvious.

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Let The Fire Burn trailer

"When gun fire broke out and tear gas was not enough to pull the MOVE members out of the house, the police decided to drop explosives on the house. A fire soon began to blaze, endangering the several children now trapped inside the house. In an infamous decision, the police made the decision to "let the fire burn", resulting in the destruction of over 60 homes and the death of 5 children and 6 adults. The investigation commission that followed found that law enforcement had acted negligently, but no criminal charges were filed."

-- from Wikipedia

May 13, 1985: Philadelphia

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I had never heard of this before today:

http://rabble.ca/toolkit/rabblepedia/fruit-machine

"It was a top secret system of persecution and oppression of queer Canadians, spurred by homophobia . It involved the calculated and systemic demotion and firing of queers in the civil service by the RCMP."

"The fruit machine was not only the systemic targeting of queers in the civil service, but also an actual contraption. It looked like a dentist chair, with cameras and sensor attached along with a black box that displayed images at eye level for the victim."

"Even after Trudeau decriminalized queer sex, the fruit machine kept secret tabs on Canadians in the civil service up until the 1990s."

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If we nonetheless leave science aside now in dealing with the question what it is to form ideas, we do so not in the proud delusion that we have all the answers, but out of discretion inspired by a lack of knowledge.

The word "idea" comes from the Greek εἶδω which means to see, face, meet, be face-to-face.

We stand outside of science. Instead we stand before a tree in bloom, for example---and the tree stands before us. The tree faces us. The tree and we meet one another, as the tree stands there and we stand face to face with it. As we are in this relation of one to the other and before the other, the tree and we are. This face-to-face meeting is not, then, one of these "ideas" buzzing about in our heads. Let us stop here for a moment, as we would to catch our breath before and after a leap. For that is what we are now, men [sic] who have leapt, out of the familiar realm of science and even, as we shall see, out of the realm of philosophy. And where have we leapt? Perhaps into an abyss? No! Rather, onto some firm soil. Some? No! But on that soil upon which we live and die, if we are honest with ourselves. A curious, indeed unearthly thing that we must first leap onto the soil on which we really stand. When anything so curious as this leap becomes necessary, something must have happened that gives food for thought. Judged scientifically, of course, it remains the most inconsequential thing on earth that each of us has at some time stood facing a tree in bloom. After all, what of it? We come and stand facing a tree, before it, and the tree faces us, meets us. Which one is meeting here? The tree, or we? Or both? Or neither? We come and stand---just as we are, and not merely with our head or our consciousness---facing the tree in bloom, and the tree faces, meets us as the tree it is. Or did the tree anticipate us and come before us? Did the tree come first to stand and face us, so that we might come forward face-to-face with it?

-- Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking?, pages 41-42

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