On Life-Value Onto-Axiology, Neuroscience and the Self

This blog article was initially composed in July 2016 and completed in August 2016. It was not posted then as I sensed that doing so would have been premature. Given the recent spate of local, regional and international events, I sense the time is now right and ripe to bring Prof John McMurtry’s life’s work to a more general audience in a less sterile and more engaging conversational format based on email communications between myself and Prof McMurtry.

Hopefully, this missive would help open up avenues for a better understanding of the human condition, the challenges we face in understanding the brain, consciousness, the self, the mind, all of our social constructs, and would serve as the foundation for follow-up posts that would attempt to build a fully-life coherent account of our past blunders and hubris, and how we can better learn from the errors of our past, to help to consciously and coherently create a more socially-shared and participatory-prosperous future based on peace and harmony for people and planet.

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Integral Worlds Theory Deconstructed and Applied to a Deeper and Wider Understanding of the Life-Grounded Self Via Illustrations

Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent signifying our preparation for the symbolic “re-birth” of the founder of our Catholic faith – Jesus Christ. My family was honoured to be given the privilege to light the first candle to signify Jesus’ light coming into this world. And it was yesterday that the significance of my… Read More

The WAY to TRUTH is through LIFE-valued reasoning and understanding

1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in Goda; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you,… Read More

The (Un)Intended Consequences of Dysfunctional Belief Systems

If you have been following the latest happenings around the world, it would be frighteningly obvious that we have in our midst global twisters of social, political, economical and environmental crises all seeming to coallesce to create a perfect storm of creative destruction so as to herald a New World Order out of these Global Disorders.  What troubles me so… Read More

Why is a focus on the bottom line literally a race to the bottom?

The race to the bottom is a socio-economic phrase which is used to describe government deregulation of the business environment or taxes in order to attract or retain economic activity in their jurisdictions. An outcome of globalization and free trade, the phenomenon may occur when competition increases between geographic areas over a particular sector of… Read More

Is CORRUPTION the invisible hand of the free market?

In my search for understanding of why life-capital at the planetary and social levels of life organisation are being spoiled and deprived while money-capital in terms of the money indices like the global GDP and stock markets continue to increase over time, I am beginning to believe that we have a global corrupt system in which public office and public resources (life-capital) are being captured and abused by private entities for private money-capital gains. I will be using as my ground of understanding Prof John McMurtry’s life-value analysis in this discussion to shed light on this global corruption that seems to have its hands working behind the scenes invisible to the majority of us.

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Why is an Ounce of Prevention less valued than a Pound of Cure?

Over the past two decades of my study of and my practice in medicine, I have always been perplexed by the disconnect between the principle and the application of the proverb, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Given the meteoric rise of non-communicable physical, mental and social diseases and the cost of their treatment and their burden to society, I would have guessed that policy makers would have made health promotion and disease prevention a top priority, and resources locally, regionally and internationally would have been invested in elucidating the determinants of health promotion and disease prevention and implementing the wisdom of that enlightenment.

Truth be told, much has been discovered over the past decade on adverse childhood experiences and the long-lasting effects on physical, mental and social diseases. Also Sir Michael Marmot and his collaborators have investigated the social determinants of health and have shown unequivocally that social gradients of inequality in terms of access to the basic means of life growth and development does in fact affect life expectancies and disability-adjusted-life-years. Given this trove of empirical data to guide our policy and decision makers, one would have thought that major steps would have been taken at the local, regional and international levels to remedy the social deficiencies in our homes, our schools and workplace environments. This would then serve to minimize adverse childhood experiences, (in addition to the adverse experiences of the adolescents, adults and the elderly) and would also serve to optimize the social, economic and political environments to produce enabling policies that would inform and encourage healthier lifestyles and behaviours. Read More

Human Rights versus Corporate Rights: Life Value, the Civil Commons and Social Justice by JOHN MCMURTRY

ABSTRACT This analysis maps the deepening global crisis and the principles of its resolution by life-value analysis and method. Received theories of economics and justice and modern rights doctrines are shown to have no ground in life value and to be incapable of recognizing universal life goods and the rising threats to them. In response to this system failure at theoretical and operational levels, the unifying nature and measure of life value are defined to provide the long-missing basis for understanding the common interest, human rights and social justice—that is, the universal life necessities of humanity across cultures and the evolving civil commons infrastructures to ensure them. In contrast, the treaty-imposed corporate rights system miscalled “globalization” is structured to predate life means and support systems at all levels with no accountability beyond itself. Only the logic of life value, human rights and life-protective law, it is concluded, can comprehend or govern this inherently life-blind and cumulatively eco-genocidal regime.

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Enlightening humanity’s double blind-spots

If you have been following the recent posts closely, you would have noticed that much effort has been made to show that our life-blind prescriptions have been singularly responsible for most of the political and economic debacles in terms of their mismanagement of our “household” in their respective spheres of influence. Professor John McMurtry’s book ‘The Cancer Stage of Capitalism:… Read More