CHILDREN, FUTURES, EDUCATION, WORLD-VIEWS,...
and the need to embody and share
Dear Colleagues, Friends, Strangers,
I was overwhelmed by the coolness and lack of life and humaneness in
the statements and metaphors of Francis Heylighen and so I had been sending
out a desperate cry without much second thought or sleeping over it 2 weeks
ago. The responses where overwhelming, I have now about 300 messages from
many places and not really the time to answer all people who replied to
me. But as Francis responded and most of the central issues I raised where
not even touched, but raised lots of concern, I feel it is mandatory to
try a synopsis and hopefully "hybrid" way, giving humans space and life
worth living.
But before, let me tell you how my "crying in the wind" came about, why I thougjt that a centre who had set out with LEO APOSTEL to involve kids (see: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CLEA/Default.html), let them play, paint and care about wholeness and world views, taht such a centre forgets about the need to embody knowledge, forgets to make it real and solid, avoids to make it possible to feel, grip grasp and jointly enjoy and share what we know, do not know, waht we do, and don't, only because technology and our paradigms do not allow!??
My concern is not only that FRANCIS in his answer only selected his "tech bits", to give a cute answer, cutting and pasting anything critical away. This is "normal" for someone being in research and looking for his projects and developments, BUT that also a very high percentage of YOUR responses was about how silly it is to thing beyond a certain time-span, that we can not know in 50 500 or 5000 years, all that is far from teh central issue, and that in this way such an activity as of the FOUNDATION FOR THE FUTURE loose ground, look silly and in vain.
Everybody seem to know what is not possible - but nobody seems to be willing to risk designing new ways and lands, asking impossible questions, and designing positive and possible / impossible futures. For me this is such a nightmare as we have no visions, no imaginations, no space, no future for creativity, no drive to paint the IMPOSSIBLE, and talke about it.
Tom Abeles remembered that we always cut out what we can't control
or manage. He posted the experience with the McARTHUR FOUNDATION 2050
project, were they started Having HUMANITY aboard, and than dropped Humanity.
This is so close to my experience of sectarianism of sciences and avoiding
all items or fields which can not give numbers or their "value" (have a
"price tag" - like kids, nature and other living things. So Humanity drops
out, social sciences fight anyway internally and kills itself on the way,
and biological sciences are only a skeleton of what it could be.. and in
teh end we call it interdisciplinary...
I find this revealing, as the event is called HUMANITY 3000, is Humanity
dropping out??
My problem:
We know by now that knowledge and consciousness has to do with a body,
with self with identity. But we stick to the minimal of what we can count
or loose ourselves in post-structuralist debate, or worse in the nightmare
of cyberculture. We have have experts to think about WORLD_VIEWS, like
the extraordinary booklet from CLEA: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CLEA/Reports/WorldviewsBook.html
and the various workshops: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CLEA/OnderZGemeenschap.html
Please note that CLEA and the Encyclopaedia Cybernetica is the number one to address in this field. So I feel it is ok that I question these experts, ask where we are going as SCIENCE and HUMANITY even beyond 3000.
The problem is: EVEN the WORLD VIEW booklet only raises questions,
has little to answer and offers only alternatives or solutions which look
to me like nightmares, solutions I do not want for my children's children...and
beyond..
and have been remarked in many of your responses as not co-creative,
not self-organised, not human,.. as hiding behind the concept of GAIA with
something dead, artificial, superhuman, artificial intelligence, which
avoids transparency and orientation, and instead offers management and
control without giving ideas for what, why, where, ... diverse cultures,
values, and stiles... no "ordered" cyberspace: see reamrk to Wiener's
5o years of cybernetics.
http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/ifsr/IFSRnov98pp.htm
I was so shocked not only by the first discussion paper, but by the answers and explanations. Models and metaphors without life and heart. If HUMANITY 3000 or 4000 is worse something, than to discuss orientations, maps, directions, alternative FUTURES,.. not ONE MODEL or ONE VISION - not matter how human or superhuman...
I received lots of concerns my humanistic or religious or philanthropic groups, people who are worried and concerned, who look for alternatives and not a disembodied intelligence.
francis writes below: ".... In the end, the borders between carbon and
silicon will become ever less relevant, and the one will merge naturally
into the other. Therefore, there is no real competition between humans
and
machines, and no danger of the one "taking over" from the other one."
Some of you felt really concerned about a "cyborg" merger but asked
if we are looking for futures or if technologies will beside by themselves.
You see I was in this technology market research, delphi, computers, technology, defence, and many other industries, I was shocked about how nearly 90% of you did stick to the "surface" of the issues and avoid to tackle the questions which were raised.
It was called ALTERNATIVE FUTURES, POSITIVE FUTURES, we called it with Willis Harman the PATHFINDER project in search for alternative ways and horizons, but nobody brought up alternatives, most of you seem to be stuck with numbers and what we know already... Nobody thinks about giving a pathfinder for the future a map, a knapsack, and a some (altentive) directions (orientations)
I am and was so agitated because we all know there is nothing we can do, that we can not anything, see not, have not, dare not...
you see it is a deep trap. And if I would not have had the please to
work with children now since more than 5 years, maybe even more than 10
years, it depends what you mean and count, and would have seen that kids
ask new questions, do not accept bloodless stereotypes of everybody knows,...
I searched for you for something old, a translation I had received
from Penttii MALASKA 5 years ago, but somehow lost somewhere. I was wondering
why nobody had picked it up what was written there, why nobody wondered
that the kids were tired with old the renown Futurists, given them models,
numbers, scenarios, probabilities, but not FUTURES. Nobody had wondered
that the Finish WEEKLY was covering a WORLD CONFERENCE by dropping a few
names in a little "Box", but the Journalist, after also interviewing
all the FUTURISTS, had felt that the story was how the KIDS reacted to
new questions and rooms for possibly shared futures and options, how they
jointly found the answers themselves !!, how they wondered and became more
and more comfortable with the idea, that what they learn in school is "too
flat", where they are, what they learn, what it is about with LIFE and
Professions...
I had always felt others should pick this up, but the Journalist has
done his job, the kids have done their job and it is up to us, to reflect
the mould we are stuck in.
ROBERT JUNGK had told me to do my workshops and developments with kids
and forget about the grown ups. BUT the grown ups control what the kids
learn - and so we need to brake this deadlock and dilemma!! The internet
is a way - but we have to do it real ! and we need your support !
EXCUSE ME - I am totally burned out after 10 years, and I want ot lay
it into the hands of kids, are their any kids left !??
Words of thanks and acknowledgement: Dear Francis, I took the liberty
to show in contrast/discussion to your invited discussion of your position
paper, where I see differences, where I feel we should go, what is at stake.
That does not mean all your work is bad or rubbish. ON THE CONTRARY - it
very important and very professional - what I mean is do all to get HUMANITY
and KIDS involved wide and transcend the topic, area, categories, and horizons..
discuss GLOBAL BRAIN and GLOBAL MIND - Integral and transformative concepts.
ONLY by addressing you and the ISSUES YOU RAISE and The SOLUTIONS you
see, we are able to jointly steer a common course on common maps, many
maps and models..
http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/spatialm.htm
http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/landscape.htm
and negotiate the issues in dialogue, "erörtern" seeing and negotiating
all positions in a joint co-creative exercise. see: http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/dialogue-culture.htm
http://newciv.org/cob/members/benking/voicetxt.html
Excuse me, but in the original first message I highlighted in my eyes important, pressing and immediate issues. Points I raised were somehow forgotten or put into distance.. - SORRY IT IS TOO IMPRTANT FOR ME - to just let go - with CYBERTALK.. where the issues are LIFE and survival.
Heiner Benking
PS:
we have put the translations of WFSF report in HELSINGIN SANOMAT (weekly)
now - on the web. You are welcome to vistit: http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/edu/educationfin.htm
or how it applies to optics and ethics, another piece not accepted
as there is so little space..
http://newciv.org/cob/members/benking/opto.html for something
different or new or not established or alien....
***************************
I have to dedicate to many children, their well-packed and innocent
questions. here are some of them or what came to to me in search for answers:
There is growing lamento that wisdom, imagination and virtue
is lost
when messages double, information halves, knowledge quarters,...
and noise without origin, quality, and purpose is everywhere.
QUESTIONS:
But how to overcome this downward spiral?
Can we design and embody places and spaces of meaning?,
Agree on common frames of reference/image schemas?,
Bridge the worlds of thought and extension?,
Come to grips and ground with new ways of overview and orientation?,
See dualism as the alternatives of one direction, back or forth, right
or left?,
Combine real and conceptual extensions, dimension, or directions?,
Overcome oversimplifications, dangerous an empty metaphors?,
Change distance and perspective, go beyond dualism and the flatlands"?,
Establish how little we know, what we know where, and what is in it?,
Learn to approach issues and topics like we negotiate the terrain?,
Create and Edit walls, boundaries, categories, like walls?,
in order to reflect, connect, transcend, and find new "orders"?,
and experience jointly how humility grows the more we feel and gaze?
You are invited earlier questions at:
http://heri.cicv.fr/council/speeches/benkingtxt.html
What We Know Where: Points for Discussion
from:
http://heri.cicv.fr/council/speeches/benkingtxt.html
Question: Can orienting metaphors be
used to bridge real and abstract/figurative realities to
ignite creativity by making use of data and imagery (see eidetics)
and conceptualize physical
and virtual spaces?
Question: Are there ways to tear down
walls between discipline specific schools of
thought?
Question: Is there a generative, critical,
and transformative design to discuss physical and
mental adaptability allowing us to be one with Nature and integrate
a focused approach to share
specific and global aspects and perspectives?
Question: Is architectonics an organizational
tool for information and knowledge
management, function, and pattern-recognition?
Question: Is there a way to conceptualization and embodying thought beyond the limitations of single words, terms, fields, areas, or domains?
Question: Are thematic terrain's just
as we first experienced in our neighbourhood now
subject to exploration, in new common orientation frameworks?
Question: Is this playful recreation
only for removing fixation or essential for mental and
physical mobility?
Question: Can the access to visualization and assimilation impact on how we act and reason (see also etymologically the connection between optics-ethics)?
Question: Can we share diverse perspectives and positions
in real and conceptual worlds?
***************************
Francis Heylighen wrote:
There have been a lot of reactions, from people on different mailing lists,SNIP ....
to my Humanity 3000 statement. I will now reply to the most important
reactions one by one.Let me first note that the statement was restricted to two pages, and
therefore it was impossible to pay attention to all the implications and
clarifications that would otherwise have been needed with some of these
quite bold statements. I hope that the following comments will add some of
the necessary context and details.Tom Abeles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>Heiner Benking posted Francis Heylighen's draft for the Humanity 3000
>conference and asked for responses. I have a few questions:
>
>1) What happens if Ray Kurzweil is right and before the next millenium
>the earth sees silcon based intellegence which can pass the Turing test
>and which will have the access and speed which will be far superior to
>carbon based processors?In the "global brain" view to which I subscribe (see
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/SUPORGLI.html), people (carbon) and computers
(silicon) will live in ever closer symbiosis, the one supporting the other
in those domains where the one is better than the other. For example,
though computers have a better memory for data, and faster processing
power, humans are better at recognizing patterns, using experience and
interacting with the world. In the end, the borders between carbon and
silicon will become ever less relevant, and the one will merge naturally
into the other. Therefore, there is no real competition between humans and
machines, and no danger of the one "taking over" from the other one.
Heiner Benking:
Any one interested in some responses or details please let me know
- I feel it is better not to repost again and again the same stuff...
but see this very important collection of work: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/NUTSHELL.html
from: Francis Heylighen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- Center "Leo Apostel"
Free University of Brussels, Krijgskundestr. 33, 1160 Brussels, Belgium
tel +32-2-6442677; fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
