The Pamir Paradyne Proposal by The Pamir Paradyne
Pitch
Is the phenomena known as the Calendar of the Body a form of ideasthesia? And, if so, is there a biogeochemical basis which can be enhanced?
Description
Summary
"God sleeps in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals, and thinks in man." Arthur Young.
The Pamir Paradyne Proposal
Can common environmental signals, specifically found within the Pamir Mountain biome, be technologically enhanced to allow for a greater degree of anticipatory understanding of the effects of climate change within that region?
To begin, the importance of communication, at the human level, is well described by Dr. Steven Hawking:
"For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk. And we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together. To build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking. And it's greatest failures by NOT talking. It doesn't have to be like this! Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.". (Spoken through enhanced digital means.)
A strong case can be made for the need to further extend Dr. Hawking's view on communication into the inter-species and even into the greater biome spectrum if we are to become a truly responsible and resilient apex species.
This proposal asks that the following relevant interdisciplinary studies be considered for funding:
1) Biogeological:
Build a knowledge base of the unique local soil mineral content (a)(b)(c) as well as mineral levels within the indigenous plants/people.
In brief; Does the local population carry a unique physiological mineral load due to local mineral content of the soil/food?
2) Plant Bioelectromagnetic Signals: Certain plant based electrical signals can be used as objective indicators of climate change as well as general /local environmental stresses. This type of bioelectromagnetics (a) can provide tools with which seasonal fluctuation in the plant/environmental signals can be collected and compared with traditional knowledge of the Calendar of the Body.
With today's advanced bioelectromagnetic technologies, such as galvanic reactions (and other means/methods), it may be possible to develop a positive feedback training method for teaching the Calendar of the Body.
In brief; Can digital enhancement of bioelectromagnetic signals/communications, found in the local biome, be utilized as objective signals/tools in the teaching of the Calendar of the Body?
(Wiki)
3) Ethnobiology: Developing an advanced understanding of the unique evolutionary responses, that the local population has experienced due to the unique local mineral/plant/human ecological matrix, may provide insights into the nature of communications both within humans and at the greater biome level.
One evolutionary response to the unique environment of the Pamir Mountains may be, or may not be, a higher rate of development of climate related/induced synesthesia/ideasthesia.
In conclusion, the ethnobiological complexity presented by the Calendar of the Body phenomena is superb and this proposal attempts to unfold that complexity from the ground up....literally.
Category of the action
Adaptation
Who will take these actions?
The authors of this challenge, Dr. Kassam et. al., would be ideal as science advisors to a media actor (investor).
The geological information can be gained through records and the assessment of mineral loading within the plants, people and animals may be achieved through outsourcing the work.
What are other key benefits?
From this suite of studies, it may be possible to replicate this approach in other major biomes with the eventual emergence of a whole planetary vocabulary being developed.
We currently are communicating with the planetary biome, at a global biogeochemistry level (a.k.a. anthropocene), yet we are simply doing a poor job of such an important act of communications.
Hopefully, this work may expand our ability to do a better job of communications at the greater biome level.
What are the proposal’s costs?
A basic galvanic skin response (GSR) electronic package can be built to order for this effort. The components for the GSR are rather cheap. And, the MIT Media Lab has experience in this area.
A low cost and rugged basic music synthesizer can also be custom built for this effort.
Interfacing the above equipment with a local wireless data server would be ideal and such a data link system could provide the dual benefit of providing community owned cell phone availability.
As there are multiple valleys and elevations to take into consideration, it would be best to deploy 10 or more equipment packages per valley so as to provide a robust data flow from each valley/elevation.
In general, a start-up first year budget of $1.5M would insure good technology coverage and monitoring of the data flow. A yearly budget of $.5M would keep the project active.
Low cost tethered balloon and/or kite based communications cell network platforms will be initially used to reduce infrastructure cost. Please see 'Kite Based Sensor Array' for more details. Obviously, these tethered platforms can also provide meteorological monitoring platforms to assist in acquiring a well rounded spectrum of environmental data.
Grant level funding support may be gained through the PPCR and other paths. Such as:
-"Major International Research Initiative Launched to Improve Food Security for Developing Countries - Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." (a).
- ‘Conservation Bonds’ Take Green Financing to the Next Level
- "Transforming the Traditional Municipal Bond Market to Finance Environment-Friendly Green Projects"
- Green Bond Principles 2014: Voluntary Process Guidelines for Issuing Green Bonds:
Also, the sale of flax linen produced through this effort could become popular within the fashion industry.
Time line
The first year would be focused upon:
1) building the physical network
2) generating the initial raw data base
The following year would be dedicated to translations (and verification of translations) of the signals isolated within the raw data as well as observing sociological adaptations stimulated by the overall effort.
Related proposals
To date, most of all the other proposals can be folded into this effort.
Specifically:
-The proposal Climate co-knowledge generation between communities, ag services and PPCR appears to be an ideal management approach to the deployment/funding of this Pamir Paradyne proposal.
- In the proposal 'Recalibration of traditional calendars through participatory data collection' Tom and Cynthia are planning to "...distribute simple weather stations to farmers and schoolchildren". Even small toy kites can be used with light weight simple weather stations. This coupling of two simplistic tools may be a usefull way to keep the kids interested in collecting data.
References
"The calendar of the human body is highly performative, and therefore required regular application in order for knowledge of its use to be effectively retained" ( Ecology of Time: Calendar of the Human Body in the Pamir Mountains).
"...the human capacity to acquire and use language is an aspect of human biology, and that it can thus be profitably studied from a biological perspective." (Prolegomena to a Future Science of Biolinguistics)
What Plants Talk About - Documentary (50 min. review of plant communication)
By:
The Pamir Paradyne
