What is Technology?
We should begin with this question first – what exactly is technology anyway?  Remember: technology dates all the way back to primitive times.  Spears, bows and arrows, even rocks were a form of technology.  Essentially, technology is anything that improves quality of life and makes things easier.  Computers definitely do that!  So how can computers be potentially harmful?

Any technology can pose problems when we abuse it or use it incorrectly.  Weapons, for example, can be used for self defense and necessary protection or even hunting.  But weapons can also be used outside the mindful sphere.  That is, weapons or any form of tech can be misapplied in a number of ways.

In writing about computers and mindfulness today, I am not referring to malicious uses of the computer – rather I am thinking about how computers can slowly creep in and take over our lives.  Compulsive behavior is one of the major areas where computers can become a problem.  One of my friends runs a very successful Modesto computer repair business in which he sees examples of this type of thing all the time.

So how can you keep computers from taking over your life?  How can you maintain some autonomy from your laptop?

• Limit your computer time every day
• Try not to use computers for socializing
• Ensure that your computer setup is positive

These are just some quick ideas for mindful computing to ponder…

Personally, I am registered as “no party” and do not consider myself a member of any particular political group.  The idea of Republicans and Democrats and such just sort of confuses me.  In all honesty, I am never quite sure who stands where on what issues.

This post is about mindful voting.  I am not really sure what that concept means or how you can apply it in your life, but I wanted to attempt to explain it in some way.

What is mindful voting?  I hope - at the very least - after reading this post, you will at least think about your voting in the coming election a bit differently.  I am not here to sell you on John McCain, Barak Obama, Sarah Palin, or anybody else.

Instead, I want to offer an opportunity for you to simply meditate on your voting decision.  Who do you think is the best candidate?  What does your intuition tell you?

Chances are very good that you have already thought a great deal about this issue.  If you are ready to make a decision, then a state of mindfulness should deliver that to you with no problem.

Take a moment now to be mindful and to reflect and where you think the US government should go in the next four years.  Be mindful, vote mindful, and bring greater awareness into your political experience.

Today’s review looks at one of the more popular hair transplant surgery centers in Southern California - www.MyHairTransplantMD.com - where many men like you have enjoyed a radical change in their personal appearance.  For men and women alike, hair can make a huge difference in how you look to the world.  At “New Look MD” they provide just what their name suggests…. a brand new look and transformed self image for men who want to find greater happiness and peace of mind.

After reviewing the company’s website and talking with their representatives, I can honestly say that the team of doctors and medical specialists at “New Look” are ready to help you on your road to a better, happier life.  Check them out today at www.MyHairTransplantMD.com and see for yourself!

When you leave your employer, one of the first things you’ll need to think about is how you are going to replace your benefits - especially your insurance coverage. Today, there are many resources for self employed health insurance and self employed liability insurance on the web. Take your time when searching through these resources and be mindful of what’s important to you and your family (if applicable) - rates? coverage? special options?

On another note, you’ll need to keep your head straight so be sure to stay physically active and mentally focused. I am a firm believer in the power and importance of the entrepreneur’s mindset (a concept that applies to the traditional entrepreneur as well as the solo professional).

Money can become a huge problem in a small business - where cashflow is everything - so you should also think about the kinds of resources that might be available to you locally and are definitely available on the national level. The government is generally in favor of and strongly supportive of new small businesses - they are the lifeblood of our economy in many ways.

Since we’re all about mindfulness here on MindfulSource.com perhaps the most important point is to remember to balance work and life - don’t let your business take over and completely ruin your personal life. Exercise, healthy eating, and regular socializing are important for business owners and the self employed just as they are for the typical employees out there.

I visited the Health Insurance website and was pleasantly surprised by what I found there.  Instead of the typical online insurance resource, which makes very aggressive attempts to sell visitors on quotes and insurance products, the eHealthHelp.com website is actually quite informative and very well organized.

Here are some of the parts of their website I found especially helpful:

• Health Insurance Glossary
  This caught my attention right away.  In the insurance world, with so many confusing terms and complicated concepts, it’s nice to have the most common vocabulary spelled out for you.  The eHealthHelp.com folks did a very nice job with this.
• Charts & Graphs
  Just next to the website glossary visitors will find two very informative charts.  Honestly, I’ve never seen a health insurance website with so much good stuff in the way of quality information.  One chart provides a visual look at HMO structure and another creates a picture of a claims filing process.

I really feel like the eHealthHelp.com website is one of the best in its class.  One area where I do think they could use a little improvement is in the overall look and feel.  The design is not the most attractive I’ve seen, but considering the overall value of the information, it’s a positive trade off.

When you have a chance, take a moment to visit eHealthHelp.com and see for yourself.  If you’re in the market for health insurance products, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Unfortunately, while writing this review, the ZenniOptical.com website was down as the webmasters were making behind-the-scenes changes. Still, I will say that the company did make an effort to accommodate customers during the website shut down. A toll free number was provided for customers to call for customer service help. Maybe this doesn’t sound like much, but frankly many webmasters forget to add these small but important touches.

Instead of browsing live pages to write this review, I surfed through ZenniOptical.com’s Google Cache to see what the site looked like on a typical searching day. Based on the site’s general appearance, I can give these guys a thumbs up for general searchability, etc.

I don’t wear eyeglasses myself, but many of my friends and family members do so I can imagine how important finding quality eyeglasses on the web. Zeni Optical’s big push online is their $ 8 Zenni Optical Rx Eyeglasses which is a nice selling point. Again, since I don’t purchase eyeglasses too often I can’t really say much about the price – but it sure seems good!

Overall, I think ZenniOptical.com is worth checking out – especially once the site goes back up. Take a look at www.ZenniOptical.com today!

The sciences have a reply to our concern. Although other sources of knowledge, such as the Hopi creation story, can help us to discover the importance of certain values, they fail the test of correspondence truth. Western sciences typically espouse some version of scientific realism, which is the view that the claims of science accurately represent reality as it is, independently of our perceptions of it. Correspondence truth is just as it sounds. The claims of science are true because they correspond with the actual world-out-there. The Hopi story gives us an important practical notion that we are wise to think about, but evolution has the decided advantage of correspondence truth.

The obvious question remains, namely what exactly is so great about truth? Bruno Latour, a prominent science studies professor, points to the hybrid nature of many of our current problems. Climate change, for example, is a hybrid in that it is not simply a scientific problem, but also a social, political, religious, economic, etc. problem. To think of it as something that science alone can resolve is to utterly fail in grasping the nature of the problem. A scientific assessment of climate change, even if it corresponds with reality, does little with regard to addressing the aspects of this issue that do not lend themselves to a scientific solution.

Practical concerns represent an alternative to thinking about truth as simply correspondence with reality. After all, what do we really want science to do? Do we want to discover truth for its own sake, or do we want to solve problems and improve our lives? It seems that we want to do both, and limiting our notions of truth to correspondence is problematic in this regard.

While the scientists can explain why climate change is occurring, the Hopi seem better equipped to offer us a prescription for change. Hopi wisdom may lack the feature of correspondence, but it has decided advantages in offering a solution to aspects of problems like climate change that the sciences cannot even account for, never mind resolving them in any meaningful way.

Perhaps the distinction between practicality and truth-as-correspondence should remain, as there is clearly a distinct difference between the Hopi knowledge system and that of Western science. However, the practical fecundity of certain alternative systems of knowledge suggests that they may be on to something, and it does not seem wildly implausible to suggest that they are simply grasping at some other aspect of the world-as-it-is, which the sciences are missing.

It is not clear whether we should refer to this as truth, or correspondence truth, but it seems unwise to disregard knowledge that displays practical applicability as witchcraft or primitive mythology. As we continue our analysis of truth and knowledge, the lines of demarcation continue to blur, but our ability to address the hybrid problems of our world increases exponentially. We are perhaps best served by casting the net broadly with regard to what counts as knowledge. In doing so, we come closest to the Socratic ideal of approximating real truth, and of living the good life.

Many scientists have tended to take the view that only the methods and techniques of the West could yield real knowledge. This perspective was deeply affirmed by the tradition of logical positivism, which advanced key doctrines like the value-free nature of science and the notion that only experimentation could legitimately verify a claim. Because of this influential school of thought, we are left with a narrow definition of knowledge, at least when it comes to scientific truth about the real world.

Personally, it was not until I began to study the philosophy of science that I even thought to question the notion that science provides objective, value free information about the world as it really is. This notion of truth-as-correspondence with the world, or simply correspondence truth, is a keystone of science’s claim to be the sole source of knowledge concerning the world as it is. This claim is occasionally advanced in the wake of imperialism and subtly racist undertones, as non-Western knowledge is either reduced to the status of mythology and witchcraft or required to meet the Western standard of verification before it can be called “real” knowledge.

At first glance, this demarcation makes some sense. For example, there is a great deal of empirical data and explanatory value in evolutionary theory. It’s a plausible account of how life came to be as it is (this is debatable, of course), and it coheres with other beliefs that we have and the data that we ought to be able to explain. A Hopi creation story, in contrast, does not have these features. Hopi tradition claims that the Hopi emerged, fully formed, from the Grand Canyon. Thus, this geological wonder is a source of divinity and spiritual centeredness for the Hopi. Western science quickly dismisses this as mythology and superstition, comparable to voodoo and the Homeric gods of ancient Greece.

While its significant to note the features of evolutionary theory that the Hopi account lacks, it is perhaps unwise to dismiss the Hopi version of creation in its entirety. Although evolution certainly helps explain data that the Hopi cannot account for, it also supports a “might, makes right” version of creation that is potentially problematic to human flourishing. If, after all, we are merely the product of a natural process whereby the better-adapted members of species survive, while the lesser fit perish, what reason is there for things like social programs or genuine caring? Why help others at all? Isn’t struggle to survive the natural order?

More to the point, if the earth is simply the terrain upon which we live, what reason might we have for preserving it? If survival is the only real value, as evolutionary theory can be made to support, then everything we do should be assessed in virtue of this criterion. Value is simply that which helps us survive, and disvalue is that which does not.

Hopefully you find something deeply wrong with placing survival as the center of our value system, and it is at this point that we may begin to see the knowledge inherent in the Hopi account. The Hopi creation anecdote places humans in a dependent relationship with the Earth. The Earth is the source of our existence, and should be treated as a divine entity on this version of creation. Although it lacks the depth of explanation that evolution offers, it also has features that evolution lacks, namely an attitude toward nature that is more conducive to sustainable use and the absence of values that support exploitation and lack of caring for other humans.

Clearly, there is something of value in Western science. The knowledge provided has explanatory power and predictive capability that is sorely lacking in other knowledge systems. However, to rule out all other epistemological frameworks as simply incapable of producing real knowledge is a grave mistake. Whether all knowledge is equally good remains an open question, but the value and significance of alternative frameworks is denied at incredible costs to our pursuit of the highest goods.