Kester Brewin

Tag: Complexity

  • Emergent-US Article

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    At Will’z invitation I recently wrote this post for the Emergent-US blog, reflecting on Forster’s epigraph ‘only connect’, and his diatribe against the city of ‘anger and telegrams’. Abstract: blogging isn’t enough to keep anyone connected to ‘the conversation.’ We need physical networks as well as virtual ones.

  • The Dialectical Approach | Advent and Newness

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    I’m a big fan of McSweeney’s and The Believer magazine. On subscribing they sent me a copy of The Believer Book of Writers talking to Writers. The jacket explains that “Believer books has collected, in alphabetical order, twenty-three conversations and correspondences between much admired writers and the writers they admire.” It’s excellent. When people dialogue,…

  • Small Is Beautiful | Cellular Simplicity

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    An article in this month’s Prospect carries a review by Oliver Morton of Nick Lane’s ‘magnificent’ new book Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life. His thesis is an “antidote to the gene-centred view of life… Cells convert the energy they take in from the environment into a form that can be used…

  • Advent: Dirt and Creation

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    As we think about the coming season of Advent, I’ve been mulling about the process by which ‘newness’ comes about. I was talking with two Vaux accomplices on Sunday, who are both doing post-graduate studies variously around ideas of space. Both were commenting on the varied backgrounds of the people they were studying with, and…

  • Leadership and Ethics […] 5 – What Does This Mean in Practice?

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    In a comment on the last post on leadership ‘Emerger’ asked: “What does this mean in real life? The most I can draw out so far is that we facilitate conversation. I don’t think that in itself is enough.” He/she then goes on to propose some thoughts on work by Carver and Bell (“John Carver…

  • The Gift: What Separates Us From The Apes?

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    Very interesting feature in the journal Nature (article here; podcast here) about new research that shows that chimps have absolutely no altruistic bones in their bodies. Given carefully constructed opportunities to do a friend a favour… they just didn’t. This research doesn’t, of course, prove that true altruism exists in humankind. Many would say it…