Hi Selma,
Though I haven't read Turk's book, I really liked the video. I'd have to
read the book to more fully grasp his views on work and education,
though his views on greedy corporations rang clear enough. If logic of
the digitized, always scientifically measured capitalist world must
prevail, then the desires of corporation owners will always take
precedent, while the language, visions and realistic numbers for
sustainability will remain largely foreign, incapable of arriving at
value. It's a convenient denial. Plenty of studies are out there to show
sustainability is profitable, but the returns simply aren't immediate
enough, nor egregious.
I do believe nature is being forced to become the decider on this one,
because education can't possibly produce a generation of aware,
responsible, accountable and compassionate people soon enough to reverse
the ill-effects of this greed. The school system isn't going to change
until society wakes up to how they've failed young minds. This likely
won't happen till poverty and disaster overcome us, and we have little
left but open hungry minds with crystalline hindsight and a lot of world
to salvage and rebuild. That sounds harsh, but how do you see it, Selma?
Do you think education, which has been the historical motivator for
change, is still likely to change minds in time? Is it possible that
this time around, given global warming acceleration, experience out of
chaos will be the best teacher? Will that result in more defensive
posturing, or do you see mind adapting more brilliantly with even better
educators, despite diminished financial resources for this sector?
I believe minds will become more aware, and that it's part of the
programming, but I obviously have concerns about how soon we will be
facing the consequences of corporate greed, how much of a damper that
will be on education, and how we're going to evolve our way out of
short-term gain tactics to arrive at the mind-set that actually works.
The most significant aspects of the video, for me, were actually those
which questioned reality and explored cultural extinction. Consciousness
being capable of physical creation arouses hot debate on this list,
despite quantum physics having been the most groundbreaking pulse of
science since the early Twenties. If it isn't measurable, how can it be
real? is the gist of where most of these conversations have gone.
I just caught the last half of a CBC radio show called Quirks and
Quarks, which featured some leading physicists answering to what
constitutes the top ten unanswered questions of all time.
The first fellow, Dr. Julian Barber, a physicist and writer from the UK,
felt that the question, /Does time exist?/ ranks way up there. He said
that despite everyone in the scientific community acknowledging it as
real, no one has definitive proof of its existence.Yet, it contravenes
science's requirement of having to see, or witness, its existence.
Dr. Bill Rooters from Massachusetts, cited "What's behind quantum
mechanics?" Though everything now fits into this theory, which strangely
focuses a great deal on the square root of negative one, he thinks the
next big breakthrough will go one step deeper to explain how nature
computes these probabilities. If quantum theory could be unified by
something else /yet unidentified/, he said.
Perhaps I'm wrong about nature having to take the lead. If quantum
mechanics and the interconnectedness of all things were to become more
commonly accepted, education might take a different direction.
Dr. Sabina Stanley, U of Toronto, felt the question, What would it take
to get to the stars?, remains a favourite. Today we cannot get even a
rocket to light speed. Perhaps we will have to fold space to bring
Andromeda to us!
Dr. Anton Zieleger, a prof. of physics in Vienna, thinks "How real is
reality" is most significant. He also believes there'll be another
theory, deeper than current quantum mechanical understanding, forthcoming.
Dr. Paul Delaney, astronomer and physicist at U.of T., stands by the
old, "Do other Earth-like planets exist?" He believes that with 200
billion stars in the Milky Way alone, with billions of other galaxies
out there, the Kepler satellite space telescope should close in on
something within 4-5 years, which will of course revolutionize our
thinking in countless ways. Then we get to send a big "HELLO", and wait
30,000 years for a reply.
Dr. Michael Luke, U of T., feels "What's empty space made of?" deserves
an answer. First, there's no such thing as empty space; if that were the
case, he says, the universe's particles would be massless, with no
stable atoms or life possible. Higgs explained this saying that
particles interact with space to create mass. Hawking bet $100 that
Higgs is wrong, yet particles are measurable, and dark space carries
energy which is tearing the universe apart. There are great hopes for
the Hadron Collider to answer what constitutes empty space.
Well, till later,
Natalia
Selma wrote:
I have just read an interesting book _The Raven's Gift_ by Jon Turk. I
am forwarding a youtube in which Turk talks about the subject of the book.
I would be interested in your comments: do any of you see any of this
as applying to the subject of work? Education, perhaps, since he
mentions early education specifically here? What about income
distribution, since that also comes up in reference to "greedy
corporations".
Selma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyVWxPBtsdI
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