China Goes Global 2014
Warm rain and gelato in Shanghai

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Along Panyu Lu, Shanghai, with Esther Dijk, from Canada.
Text & Photo © M Salman, CM Cordeiro 2014

It’s been a few days of royal tropical downpours in Shanghai, the warm kind of rain that leaves little room to deny a hot chocolate and a scoop, or three, of ice-cream.

After initially checking into the wrong hotel, and lamenting the fact that I will need to forgo both the hot chocolate, and one particular ice-cream parlour near that hotel that I had become somewhat addicted to when last in Shanghai, I was delirious happy as a butterfly on nectar, to have found this outlet just three minutes around the corner and out the door of where I am currently staying. Continue reading “China Goes Global 2014
Warm rain and gelato in Shanghai” →

Dichotomy in language: the nought of ‘love’

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Most of the world’s philosophers and religions have spoken in some form or other, about love. But language is characteristically evolving as a process of communication and relativistic as a tool of communication, which leaves it sometimes grossly inadequate in expressing our thoughts and understandings of the workings of the world. How would people for example, describe a state of (perceived) psychosis of one that is not in psychosis but of an alternate reality, inaccessible by others who are themselves limited by their own senses? And to what extent is that alternate reality, alternate? Would it not just – be – in a world of 96% unknown from biology to quantum science [1,2,3,4]?

Some of the most influential and renowned minds have tried to use the inherited apparatus of language, to explain their perspectives, of their understanding of life, of how things are. But due to the nature of language that is sometimes slow to evolve in order to iterate depth of insight, they have had their thoughts literarised because there are few more efficient means to communicate thought than through language. Subsequently words become signifiers for what is, and what is, is also relative to each individual’s expression circumscribed by culture. With time in language, conflation leads to confusion where in the literary canon, ‘love’ has come to accrue other meanings, in connotation with other concepts ranging from ‘god’ to ‘nature’.

‘Love’ percolating through the vocabularies of the world, the word, its concept and meaning, fracture.

Many people would most of all attribute love as something grounded in human emotions, that is most often seen in a dichotomous distinction from ‘hate’. Continue reading “Dichotomy in language: the nought of ‘love’” →

Marriage as legal construct and social policies on cohabitation: a Singapore – Sweden perspective

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In the highly globalised city of Singapore, strong conservative social traditions continue to prevail when it comes to cohabitation and partnership. Here, as an example of old meets new, East meets West, the ornate roof tops of Singapore’s oldest Taoist temple, the Yueh Hai Ching Temple meet the modern glass walls of skyscrapers in Philip Street in Singapore’s Central Business District.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

“Being married is so great, it’s so fantastic, it would be such an achievement to be married.”

That line came from a young woman who sat in a café that served French baguettes and kaffe latte to brunch not just two weeks ago, in Sweden. She grew up in Asia. She was highly qualified in academic credentials and currently has an ascending career in finance. But she’s in her late twenties and it was the general vibe from all back home in Asia, that it was about time she settled down and got married. Her parents were willing to engage a matchmaker to arrange a marriage if that was what it took to get her ‘settled down’ and feeling accomplished as a woman. Continue reading “Marriage as legal construct and social policies on cohabitation: a Singapore – Sweden perspective” →

SNEE 2014 conference in Mölle, Sweden

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Helsingborg, Sweden
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro 2014

The Swedish Network for European Studies in Economics and Business (SNEE), held its 16th annual conference on European Integration at the Grand Hôtel in Mölle from 20th to 23rd May 2014. The focal point of discussion was the ongoing developments in the area of European integration, specifically issues related to policy influencing economic developments in the region. Continue reading “SNEE 2014 conference in Mölle, Sweden” →

Brian Cox: quantum theory and the universe

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Brian Cox. Transcript on supernova explosions in the distant galaxies and the use of analogies to daily activities such as the baking of bread to explain the Hubble Law. How the use of analogies and metaphors in language can help in the structuring and understanding of a concept for those outside of the discipline of quantum physics.

[16:22]

now these are rare / you get one supernova per century per galaxy / so very rare / but there are a lot of galaxies / and this is a beautiful picture / i think again / from the hubble space telescope
Continue reading “Brian Cox: quantum theory and the universe” →

“Poetry of Science”: discussion between R. Dawkins and N. deGrasse Tyson

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“I will never require you to believe anything” – Tyson

“But Britain is not Europe as we are constantly reminded. That’s right, here we have the English breakfast and the Continental breakfast. That’s very different breakfasts that you can order here.” – Tyson
Continue reading ““Poetry of Science”: discussion between R. Dawkins and N. deGrasse Tyson” →

The End of Space and Time? by Robbert Dijkgraaf

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Robbert Dijkgraaf’s lecture given at Gresham College in 2012 that focuses on string theory, quantum gravity, and the interface between mathematics and particle physics, bridges ideas from the various disciplines of science and arts, could be said to be have played a pivotal role in influencing the manner in which I saw the Individual in relation to space and time. Dijkgraaf takes on an evolutionary perspective to space and time, that are “near to their end”.

From the transcript of the lecture:

“If you go back in more recent history, for instance, Richard Feynman, the famous particle physicist, he has said that if you really do not know mathematics – and do not be worried, there will not be many equations today – but if you do not really know mathematics, you cannot get across the real feeling of the beauty of nature.”

“Not only did we have this unification of space and time but the next ingredient was that space, the stage, so to say, is not rigid, it is flexible, it can curve, it can shape, and it does so under the influence of energy and mass, and that is the phenomena that we call gravitation. So, anything that carries mass or energy will curve the space and time around and thereby space and time became no longer the stage, but an active player in the game. Space and time are something which has physical properties and a future in physical laws, and in fact, it is the influence of this curvature that describes the motion of particles under the influence of gravity.”

“I think the evolving universe, the Big Bang, is part of our culture, and in fact, these images and the discoveries that are made are getting more and more exact and precise. We are living in the age of precision cosmology,…”

Continue reading “The End of Space and Time? by Robbert Dijkgraaf” →

The Hadza and the Swedes: leadership, social governance and sustainability; an unlikely comparison

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Cheryl-Marie-Cordeiro-by-Alen-Cordic-2012-158This article contains reflections at the intersection of several disciplines under Management & Organization that include leadership, organizational evolution, governance systems and sustainability. The background literature broadly follows from studies in the fields of Swedish management / leadership [1, 2], human nature [3, 6] and organizational evolution [4, 5]. An unlikely comparison of societal organizational characteristics is drawn between these two highly different social systems, the Hadza and the Swedes. The ideas are in contemplation towards a search for a congruent management of social structures that bridge the levels of socio-economic and political realities.
Continue reading “The Hadza and the Swedes: leadership, social governance and sustainability; an unlikely comparison” →

Sustainable, a word with many meanings

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Stockholm Strömmen

Stockholm Strömmen.
Stockholm is one of Europe’s five fastest growing cities and is the first European Green Capital 2010.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

Many years ago I watched a man restore an antique wooden door. He had first carefully sanded it down to its original paint layer, til it was soft enough to run your hand over it, til you could feel the warmth of the wood at its core. To get the door to match the rest of the interior of the house, he then began by adding a thin layer of linseed oil. Each brush stroke was carefully calculated in pressure, length and weight.

I soon realized that he carried with him a tacit knowledge that not many others had. But more than tacit knowledge was also a genuine interest in what he was doing. He breathed life back into an antique door that most others would have thrown away and replaced with a brand new one from Bauhaus. He worked with undivided attention and as I watched, I pondered who else would ever come to appreciate the efforts? What came through clearly was that the care he put into that antique door was also a personality trait that you could see run through almost all other things he did.

I realized that this door might well outlive us both, at the cost of some linseed oil.
Continue reading “Sustainable, a word with many meanings” →

On a tangent note to the evidence of cosmic inflation: Transcending the Cartesian mind body divide

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History of the Universe

New evidence “brings ‘Theory of Everything’ a bit closer to reality” (Wall 2014)
The bottom part of this illustration shows the scale of the universe versus time. Specific events are shown such as the formation of neutral Hydrogen at 380 000 years after the big bang. Prior to this time, the constant interaction between matter (electrons) and light (photons) made the universe opaque. After this time, the photons we now call the CMB started streaming freely.
Credit: BICEP2 Collaboration.

Helena Granström makes some interesting observations about what science, even the social sciences, have given us over these centuries – a conviction of the functionality of how things are (everything by science can / must be physically empirically quantifiable) but a loss of a true understanding of the intrinsicality of the being of things (here lies the realm of the less than 4% knowledge of the quantum world that even as I write this, a few weeks ago, sat a very bright PhD student in the room and asked, “Is quantum physics really a field of study? Who does quantum physics? What good does it have for us?” To which I was at a complete loss of words, except to reply, “Yes, it’s a real field of study. I think the CERN might be very upset to hear what you just said.”)
Continue reading “On a tangent note to the evidence of cosmic inflation: Transcending the Cartesian mind body divide” →