Lawrence DeBivort asked: > > On another front, what do you think about the > > distance-education/computer-based academic programs? REH replied: > No one will ever learn to accomplish complex performance knowledge on a > computer or any other academic program. It is just too hard and even with > accurate feedback, too complicated. They have tried for years to develop > machines that could create an adaquate feedback loop for vocal instruction. > The problem is the same with language. Art is subjective only to those who > don't know how to read its language. Unfortunately that includes computers > and most of the rest of the dumbed down scientific world. So those voice > teaching machines are useful to the competant already but, like books, > useless for the uninformed. While that may apply to vocal singers, I think it doesn't apply to other fields such as technical and language courses, where tele-learning can be very useful and effective, and has a great potential of increasing the availability and affordability of education to many people. Tele-courses _can_ include "learning by doing" -- e.g. circuit construction kits in electrical engineering, and interactive language software (written and spoken texts, with computer correction) in language courses. The final exams in such courses are in the University itself, but the learning process at home gives a great opportunity to people who couldn't afford the time and expenses of studying far away from home, and this also enables them to learn at their own pace. It requires more self-discipline than a regular study, though. > Astrology teaches the validity of interconnection and then mis-usues it in > banal predictions of the future. A more appropriate use would be the Media > which considers it Entertainment. Science, on the other hand, "cures" a > disease while killing the patient and ruining the lives of children for > several generations and refuses to call such short sightedness > irresponsible. Is that to say that neither have purpose in this world? Well, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. What you accuse science of, is rather due to lack of science, or in modern times, due to the sell-out of science. (Hence it is pretty ironical that corporate advocate Keith complains about "rotting universities" -- the corporate sell-out makes them rot more than anything else does!) Astrology, OTOH, teaches imagined (inexistant) kinds of interconnection -- with absolute "authority" and (unlike science) no search for improvements and furthering of knowledge --, which is about the worst that can be taught IMHO. Chris _______________________________________________________ "So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence." --Bertrand Russell
