APOLOGIES FOR ANY CROSS POSTING
Final Announcement
Online Summer School
Sustaining Human Existence in Changing Conditions
and Human Conceptual and Mental Development
Beyond Religion, Philosophy and Science
May - August 1999
The Institute for Human Conceptual and Mental Development (IHCMD) is holding an Online Summer School, May to August 1999, on Sustaining Human Existence in Changing Conditions and Human Conceptual and Mental Development.
The Online Summer Program is part of the Human Conceptual and Mental Development (HCMD) Project of the Institute. The Program will be limited to fifty (50) subscribers. It is free of charge. No prior experience or expertise is required. The prerequisites are an interest and concern about the issues and active engagement and participation in the Online Program.
The focus of the Program are changing conditions and persisting and growing human, social and environmental problems we face today, individually, as societies and as a species globally. The objective is to understand their nature, their historical and contemporary causes, how to address them and sustain human existence in changing conditions.
The questions behind the Program are: What is it about us human beings that make us act and behave in destructive and counterproductive ways? Why do we understand and manage our existence in the way we do? What kind of understanding is guiding human behaviour and actions? How is this understanding gained? What kind of understanding and mental skills and practices are required to sustain human existence in changing conditions within the parameters set by nature?
The assumptions underlying the Program are: At the end of the 20th century, the problems and conditions of human existence can no longer be understood and addressed, and existence can no longer be sustained by traditional and conventional assumptions, perceptions and practices. Scientific and technological development and social change, reorganization and restructuring within prevailing views of the nature and conditions and ways of comprehending and managing existence cannot address the problems we face or sustain existence within narrowing natural parameters.
The Online Summer Program is an introduction to a view of the nature and conditions, and a way of comprehending and managing human existence that contradict and conflict less and fall short less in responding to changing natural conditions and demands. It is an introduction to an understanding and a way of managing existence that are socially less divisive and conflicting, and that provide and demand greater individual conceptual and mental independence, control and responsibility.
The Program presents a conceptual framework beyond cultural, socio-economic and professional-occupational differences of competing and conflicting perceptions, practices and interests. It presents a common conceptual framework necessary to cooperate in dealing with growing problems and changing conditions, sustaining human existence within narrowing natural parameters, and preventing in the long term the premature demise of the human species at its own hands.
The Program will discuss and differentiate between natural conditions and change, which lie beyond human controls but to which human beings must respond and adjust, and socio-cultural conditions and developments, the results of human choices, decisions and actions which must be corrected where they conflict with and fall short in responding to changing natural conditions and demands. It will examine and distinguish between human problems and difficulties in understanding and managing individual mental existence, and limits and shortcomings of socio-cultural assumptions, perceptions and practices in explaining and responding to changing natural conditions and demands.
The Online Summer Program consists of the presentation and discussion of a series of nine (9) interrelated discussion papers. The papers will discuss, respectively:
1. The fundamental and common nature, conditions, demands and challenges,
especially of human mental existence.
2. Initial conceptual and mental conditions and challenges and early human
responses at the dawn of human consciousness.
3. The historical path of development of human assumptions, perceptions
and practices through the ages, from animist to polytheist culture,
Greek metaphysics and philosophy, reasoned monotheism and secular-
scientific culture.
4. Secular-scientific culture, its assumptions, perceptions and practices.
5. Shortcomings and consequences of the assumptions, perceptions and
practices of secular-scientific culture where they contradict and
conflict with and fall short in responding to changing natural
conditions, demands and challenges.
6. Socio-cultural developments and changing natural conditions at the end
of the 20th century.
7. Traditional and conventional analyses and responses, their limits and
shortcomings.
8. Answers and solutions; changing the focus and practice in human
conceptual and mental development.
9. Implications; changes in the conditions of existence, in social,
economic, scientific and technological development, in education,
health care, public administration, in human relations and
interactions, and in interacting with the natural environment that will
result from changes the focus and practice of human conceptual and
mental development.
Registration for the Online Summer School begins Tuesday, April 6, 1999 and continues until Saturday, April 24, 1999. To register for the Online Summer Program send an e-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, with the body of the mail containing a single line:
SUB IHCMD-L1 yourfirstname yourlastname
(For example: SUB IHCMD-L1 John Doe)
You will receive a message of instructions. Please follow the instructions.
For more information or assistance contact Axel Dorscht at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. For information on the Institute for Human Conceptual and Mental Development (IHCMD) and the Human Conceptual and Mental Development (HCMD) Project see the IHCMD web site at <http://www.ncf.ca/~ab097/ihcmd.htm>.
Axel Dorscht
Online Summer School Organizer and Host
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Dr. Axel Dorscht | Institute for Human Conceptual
Tel: 1-613-233-8354 | and Mental Development (IHCMD)
Fax: 1-613-233-8354 (call first) | 9 Second Avenue, Suite 2
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Ottawa, ON K1S 2H2 Canada
Website: <http://www.ncf.ca/~ab097/ihcmd.htm>
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