A Dream of Education for the Future

The Purpose of Education

Children need to learn what is needed to help them grow and achieve self-actualization (see also, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs). No matter what the future brings in terms of the energy status of our communities, if we fail to create a social structure that supports this goal, we have failed the potential and meaning of our species. See my prior vision of a social framework, "the Core of a Sapient Society"

In light of my more recent musings (c.f. "What is a Feasible Living Situation for Future Humans" and its sequel, "A Feasible Living Situation - Continued") in which I integrate the fact that our civilization is going to be soon running out of the high-grade energy (fossil fuels) supplies, that makes an industrial society even possible, with the needs of the human condition to strive toward self-fulfillment and enlightenment, the present task is to consider what the point of human existence can be in a future that looks (from our current perspective) grim and foreboding. If humans in the future are, indeed, more sapient, they will understand the priorities of life and center their collective activities around the support for all society members achieving self-actualization. We eat to live. And we live to become whatever our brains will allow. We seek to understand our being and our relation with the rest of the cosmos because, honestly, that is what it means to be human (in my view).

That puts education in the center of human social existence. All else is simply infrastructure support for human mental growth. In my vision of a feasible living situation for a sapient society, I make it clear that mere existence, subsistence, is not an option. If the latter is all that is truly possible then we should just devolve into the brutes from which we emerged and give up all pretense for intelligence and creativity and love and everything else that makes us the wonderful (even if stunted) transcendent species that we are. If we cannot find the happy state of living in and with nature and still exercise our minds to become 'more', then I will look for the exit right now.

But I don't believe that is the case. And I don't believe it (our coevolution of culture and genetics) was all for naught. Not for a second.

So even if societies in the future are reduced to the low-energy forms that existed prior to the industrial revolution, that doesn't mean that we have to live lives that are as difficult and unfulfilling as we might imagine they were back then. First point: people in the 1700's (as an example) were not unhappy on the whole. They might not have enjoyed flushing toilets and instant lights at the flick of a switch, but many of them did find meaning in life. We achieved some very brilliant things in those days. The real question is: can we find a sustainable living situation in which every member of society can find happiness in the sense of self-actualization, even if they are required to work more diligently to supply their basic needs? The answer, I think, will be found in an ability to work smarter, not necessarily harder.

A big difference between then and now is that then a great deal of labor contributing to the progress that was being made came from what might be characterized as essentially slaves. Even today, though we don't call the people in low paying but essential jobs, like farm workers, slaves, they nevertheless perform a huge amount of work that keeps much of the rest of the economy going while being paid substandard wages. They are kept slaves to the work, effectively. Back then, the common day laborer made up a significant proportion of the population; the middle class was negligible by comparison. Today, at least until recently, the OECD countries could boast a very large middle class and we would be hard pressed to actually characterize them as slaves. This is true even though most of them had been brainwashed into believing their jobs were part of their autonomy, when in fact, they simply served the corporate purpose for profits to repay capital. Slaves, not in the conventional sense, but bound to a system that did not necessarily contribute to, or support, their achievement of self-actualization.

If we understand human nature and start to see the beauty of the evolution of sapience as a fundamental value, then we might think differently about why we work and what makes us happy. At least, I suspect the more sapient members of society have already discovered this way of thinking.

Even in a small village of 500 (see the feasible living links above) where a fair amount of the day is spent sustaining life, the concepts of a University of Noesis can provide guidance to how we think about education and governance. Here are some thoughts on the matter.

Education produces two complementary results. It provides an individual intellectual stimulation with knowledge and understanding of the society's conceptions of how the world, at large, works. It should embed the student within the context of how the world works and how that affects the social milieu. We call this enculturation. The social values and mores are imparted to the developing individual (child, adolescent, etc.) but in an ideal world, those values are grounded in meaning from the relationship of the community with the extant natural world. One of the reasons we have such a romantic fascination with indigenous peoples around the world is that we can see how they relate their stories of culture directly to the world that they inhabit. Stories told about industrial society seem to have a boundary that ends with the sidewalks (a fun movie along these lines is The Truman Show with Jim Carrey).

The other result, deeply related to the first, is the knowledge and skills needed to contribute some useful services to society in order to earn a place at the table. In other words, how to earn a living by contributing to society in a meaningful way.

In today's world this concept has undergone a horrible mutation to become mostly education for the sake of getting a job and it really doesn't matter if that job provides a contribution to society as long as it has a good income. The latter factor is automatically assumed to mean it must be worth something to someone, otherwise they wouldn't pay for it! But a quick look at what people are willing to pay for these days, and the general lack of anything close to sapient judgment, will tell you that this is no more a consideration of what is good for society as it is what can we do to help ourselves with the least effort for the biggest payoff. Incorporating appeals to sex or power usually work to get people to buy anything these days. Taking advantage of our evolved natural desire for fat, sugar, and salt (from when these were in short supply) is another good way to make profits and provide people with meaningless jobs making the rest of us, at least those so inclined, obese. Those jobs are hardly working toward the good of society (see: Wikipedia on Fast Food Nation).

What then would education strive for in a world of sapient beings living close to the land and realizing that high powered energy subsidies are a thing of the past? What would a University of Noesis strive for at the village level?

Systems Thinking — The Theoretical/Intellectual Pursuit

The mind is most stimulated by abstract thoughts that mean something. We humans are adept at constructing elaborate models of the world in our heads where we can manipulate the variables and run the models in fast forward to think about what the future might hold in store for us. Any knowledge that we can acquire that will help us formulate the abstractions, the concepts that can be uncoupled for a time from the anchors in reality and manipulated in their own right, is something that excites us. And we start out in early life compelled to acquire it.

Unfortunately not too long into our modern experience of education, the natural tendency to learn principles and concepts is beaten out of us by a system that is geared to just one thing. It needs to teach us sets of rules that must be obeyed in order that we can get along in the giant machine of the corporated world. What could be done differently?

I have written quite a bit about systems science and systems thinking (see: Series Index, scroll to bottom to see the series on systems science).

The single most damaging omission in our current approach to education is the lack of systems thinking used to frame and organize the knowledge being taught and the subsequent lack of systems thinking developed in the students. It is the lack of comprehension of systemness that keeps most people ignorant of how the world really does work. It's lack is one of the main reasons so many people today cannot see the impending crises that we face.

In my sapience series I point out that a key component of sapience, even as much as it is underdeveloped in the current species, is the capacity to think systemically. Systems thinking is a natural way for humans to integrate what they perceive about the world. It is how we form concepts and abstractions in the first place. But, unfortunately, it is only weakly understood explicitly by the majority of people and so remains stunted in its development. Worse yet, in modern education with its unholy emphasis on specialization to the exclusion of more broadly pursued general knowledge, what natural capacity that exists in the human brain has been sacrificed in the name of the god profits. Schools routinely beat it out of students starting at an early age. By the time I see college-aged students they have been fully indoctrinated with the 'party line' of a society bankrupt of values putting human self-actualization above material wealth. I see a few who still have a spark of systems thinking trying to get free of the conventional view. But these are sadly few in number, and my ability to help them free themselves is hampered by lack of time and impositions of the 'system' of education that worries more about accountability (to make sure we teachers are following that party line) than the ultimate mental health of the students.

In the sapient society this will have to completely change. In indigenous tribes, even today, knowledge of how to live, what to do to make life pleasant and fulfilling, is very much a matter of thinking systemically. People have to have a strong tie to the environment and how all of it works, and how it affects the tribe and the individual. This is where we came from and it is why we have natural built-in systems thinking in the first place. We will have to rekindle the strengthening and sharpening of systems thinking as a key goal of education in the University of Noesis. Starting with a deep sense of how all things are connected and interact over various time scales of significance to many generations, students need to gain explicit knowledge about what those components of life are, and learn their actual interconnectivities. Moreover, they need to learn about dynamics and how things can change over time. All of this is factual and structural knowledge. The student has to be exposed to it and internalize it. Some aspects, especially the more general patterns of dynamics and interconnectivity, will be integrated into the tacit knowledge that will ultimately support wise decisions. Much of it will become explicit expertise. A great deal of it will become ingrained skills that will allow the student to become a valuable member to society. But all of it will have deep meaning to the student. The student will know what is needed and they will know that they know. And, as part of the self-actualizing process, they will feel deeply satisfied with their capacity to understand.

One of the greatest benefits of having deep systems thinking is the transferability of understanding between domains. The natural human ability to think in terms of metaphor, simile, allegory, etc. is all part and parcel to our ability to map mental images from one field of knowledge to a seemingly completely different field. The reason we can do this is simply the fact that we are able to perceive and conceive those deeper patterns of systemness in all things in the world. As long as one lives in a society that has a clear sense of values based on what is physically feasible (i.e. knowledge of feasible energy flows, requirements for life, and constraints imposed on the species) then one will grow up hearing the stories of life based on reality (embellished by imagination, I think — see below — but not based on it) and those stories will reinforce the systemic view of existence.

Systems thinking is the philosophy of sapience. It guides us in developing questions. It presses us to delve into deeper meanings. And it provides a general framework for learning about the real world. It will be essential as the basis for education.

Permaculture — How to Live

We humans, and our children need to learn how to live in a world that can provide our needs, if we know how to accept the gifts.

Systems thinking is at the heart of the methods for growing food we call permaculture. Ecology studies the natural systems in which complex living systems develop and thrive. Mankind emerged from a hunter-gatherer based existence in which reliance on natural systems to supply food was THE way of life. Because of man's developing cleverness our species learned to harness certain aspects of that natural ecology to improve the consistency and reliability of food production. Today we generically refer to this as the agricultural revolution. I expect that the actual development of primitive agriculture, in which the land was tilled, planted, and irrigated (if needed) by human and animal labor, took several thousand years to evolve from the earliest attempts to bring intentional control to the systems of nature. Animals were domesticated as a way to increase the reliability of protein supply. Grains were cultivated and selected to increase the reliability of vegetable supplies. Trees were selected and taken care of to increase the reliability of fruits and nuts. This was man at his inventive best.

Sapience, born of a long history of internal systems thinking and culturally disseminated knowledge, guided humans as they improved their survivability immensely over many generations. But somehow, as the demands for other kinds of thinking, namely tactical and logistical, became more important for maintaining a settlement (needed for farming) and managing a growing and increasingly specialized population, systems thinking along with its co-requisite mental capacity for strategic thinking, became less needed by most members of the communities and fell, if at all, to a few 'leaders' who took over the systems thinking for the whole society. At some point in our long history of developing agriculture and mechanization it became necessary to diminish any real systems thinking tendency in the general population so that they would focus on the day-to-day mechanical tasks of building tools, working fields, husbanding animals, and keeping track of things in general.

There is currently a reawakening of systems thinking in the domain of growing food. This is the permaculture movement (see the Wikipedia article for more details). This movement addresses something incredibly fundamental in the human way of thinking and the way of being. Working in the soil, planting and culturing food plants, is so basic and almost primordial in the human psyche. Even in my declining years the joy of getting my hands into rich soil and working it, despite the fact that doing so causes some untoward pains for the following few days(!) is so rewarding that I cannot help but believe that this 'toil' is deeply ingrained in us. Moreover, the mental stimulation of understanding and working with the natural relationships between soil, climate, pests (even), weeds (too) and our well being is incredibly satisfying once one gets beyond the superficiality of our so-called modern lives. Ask any hunter how they feel about the process of preparing, stalking prey, the kill, dressing the carcass and so on. Generally you will get a sense of the euphoria that they feel in participating in a truly ancient practice of nourishing the body, the mind (knowledge of the prey's behavior), and the soul (loving the land and nature). Believe it or not, this goes for red necks and weekend warriors as well. There is something about knowing how the natural world works and using that knowledge to support ones' self and family that cannot be gained, ever, by going to the mundane jobs of the modern world and bringing home the 'bacon'.

Permaculture is a way of living. It uses systems thinking in the way that is most natural to humans to organize our sustenance. It can be a spiritual practice more profound than any prayer or supplication. And it works wonderfully well given the right environment. Of course, if we choose our living situations unwisely, we will never know the joy of working with nature for our support. We will only become slaves to scratching out a subsistence life. We will only be able to fulfill the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And that is sad.

Machines — How to Make Life Easier

We are rapidly approaching the end of what we have called the machine age. But really it should be called the age of automation. Or, perhaps, the age of taking humans out of the equation!

We have gotten into the habit of using extrasomatic energy to do just about everything for us. Our machines have effectively relieved us of having to do any work for ourselves (see: "Our Energy Cocoon"). But, this is predicated on having a limitless supply of high powered energy such as is supplied by oil. That age is coming to a close.

Education should teach us how to find leverage in our world to make life easier without relegating us to a couch.

Humans are natural inventors and machine (tool) users. That won't end with the loss of extrasomatic energies like oil. On the way to the industrial revolution humans invented some spectacular tools that provide work leverage and extracted extrasomatic energies from the environment that were available. This isn't going to change just because we will no longer be able to have internal combustion engines (ICE) to motivate our machines as we do today. Sapient mankind will be no less inventive than we are now.

The key to the future is appropriate technology. Machines will still be a part of man's repertoire of survival skills. But those machines will be more in harmony with the environment we will actually inhabit. Does this include electricity? Will there be some kind of combustion-based motivation such as steam engines (from wood fuels for example)? I suspect the answer will be yes.

We humans have learned an incredible amount of definitive knowledge about how the world works. We know how to work metals (e.g. recycled from the abandoned cities of today). We know how to harvest energies from wind, water, and soil. All that is needed is a systems thinking mentality to design appropriate matching of energies actually available with machines that give us leverage and make us more efficient at whatever we do.

A key element in making our progeny successful in this endeavor is to not make the same mistake that the current species made in using success in leverage to justify increasing the population. Presumably eusapient peoples will understand that just because we have enough food doesn't mean we can have more offspring than the system will sustain. In fact, one of the main reasons why I think that humans must evolve greater sapience in that future time is that our current species isn't even capable of addressing this issue in any meaningful way today. Regulating our numbers to match the supporting capacity of the environment will require significantly higher wisdom than we have at present. Machines may be used to ease the burdens of labor involved in making a living. We can and should be able to take advantage of this capacity (our cleverness) to do so. But we cannot mistake this capacity for a reason to have as many children as we desire. In reality the promotion of having children arose from several levels of ignorance, a biological mandate that most of us have been unable to override, and the simple facts of old age and the need for care when one can no longer do the hard work of living.

But sapient beings with knowledge should be able to transcend these old arguments. Invent and use machines — yes! — but maintain the population at a sustainable level. That should be the meaning of machines and all technology. Doing so will contribute directly to the ability for individuals to achieve self-actualization.

Humanities — How to Make Life Worthwhile

Another advantage of applying systems thinking to living with nature and with invention of machines to make life easier is having time left over to enjoy human creativity to its fullest. Our children should learn how to enjoy life to its fullest.

Art, music, literature (stories), poetry (mental imagery) are all parcel to the human spirit. Sapience doesn't lessen the impacts of these even if it does involve a capacity to override the limbic system. If anything I think increased sapience must enhance one's appreciation for the aesthetic aspects of living. Take the layout of a permaculture 'garden'. It is beautiful in a way the rows of common agriculture can never be. Everything fits. It fulfills a role. It has meaning. It is a kind of poetry.

The highest level of Maslow's hierarchy involves the expression of our inner joys and meanings. A human who is freed from the kinds of stresses we commonly have today is able to let her soul fly. They can play and do it with media that capture the expressions. Painting, sculpting, writing, composing and playing instruments are all expressions of human joy in self-actualization. No one needs to be an impresario, a prodigy genius, to feel the expansion of life that comes from singing, dancing, and playing. One way of knowing the success of a future sapient society will be by how much singing one hears in the village.

These outpourings of expression of the inner self are for sharing. What can bring a community together better than sharing our aesthetics with one another?

Education — Helping Each Individual Achieve Self-actualization

I guess I am a dreamer. I suppose I am guilty of desiring Utopia,. Guilty as charged.

But dreaming is where reality begins. If I am right about the 'direction' of human evolution toward yet greater sapience then dreams of human life as an integral part of nature will not have proven a fool's game. And tomorrow's children may yet find education a wonderful and natural experience.

In that future village I see education as a village endeavor. No schools in the current sense, but families and the whole village would be engaged in educating the young to fit into the rhythms of life and the community in a way that they would be able to express the very best of human nature. Education would focus on how to live, how to live well, and how to enjoy a worthwhile life. This education would not be viewed as the end-all of learning, but just the beginning. Humans are not passive, constrained beings. We will most likely always strive to go beyond our seeming containments. I don't for a minute believe that these future villages will represent quiescent humans staying in their place, as it were, to achieve sustainability. No. Humans are expansive by nature and I don't think being more sapient will kill that quality. But what I do see is that with appropriate education and eusapient minds comes the wisdom to know when, where, and how to best test the limits. Humans have to learn how to expand but in balance with the natural world in which they live. No one, certainly not me, can say what that might be. That is for the future to determine.

But clearly the way we are currently going about expanding our presence in the universe now is unsustainable. We have been too eager and unwise in how we've gone about it. We need to take time to establish our base in this natural world. We need to become fully educated about how this universe works and what we can do within the requirements of the laws of nature. Perhaps, in my dreams anyway, mankind will become more fully sapient and the education will become natural.

---

 

Special Note to Regular Readers: As with many of my previous blogs I have made liberal use of links to Wikipedia articles to supplement my writing and to help you do further investigations if you wish. I made a donation to the Wikipedia Foundation to show my appreciation for this invaluable resource. If you find yourself taking advantage of these links, please consider giving your financial support also. Check out The Wikipedia Foundation support site. PS. I am making this solicitation on my own — no requests from Wikipedia! Thanks.

Comments

[David]

It's funny, but I just don't 'get' the gardening, food-growing thing. Perhaps it's to do with a need for instant gratification, and that crops just take too long to grow, but in my case I get more satisfaction from making 'things', so that as an antidote to the 9-to-5 office existence I couldn't be happier than when putting up buildings or creating machinery. I can see the appeal of making fire - it has often been observed that men *always* supervise the running of a barbeque - but my primeval urges don't run to cookery or food preparation for some reason. However, I might be persuaded to become passionate about brewing beer!

[David]

George, as well as looking back to before the industrial revolution, I would be interested in your view on the peoples of the world in existence today who might be considered by some to be relatively 'primitive'.

Channel 4 in the UK ran a TV series about the visit of three representatives from an isolated Tasmanian tribe to Britain, where they experienced our life for the first time. Their life in Tasmania was a real grass huts and grass skirts affair, without much influence from outside, but they were the happiest people you have ever seen, and had their own funny, off-the-wall philosophy. They concluded that life in the UK was amazing, but that there was, at heart, something deeply wrong with it.

I am interested to know whether you think that their relatively primitive, but clearly sustainable and happy life is something we should aspire to, or whether their ignorance of science and technology etc. is something that should be corrected - even if it makes them less happy! Are these people 'self-actualized'?

I could also bring up 'Brave New World' ideas, where most of the population exists in blissful ignorance. Is it better for people to know the truth even if it makes them miserable?

[Robin Datta]

The key to the whole essay is in the line
"This education would not be viewed as the end-all of learning, but just the beginning."

And another significant concept would be that education would be everyone's responsibility. When one sees someone fumbling around for lack of certain information that one has, one should be expected to transmit that information. And someone comes upon a new process, method or fact, one should share that with others (some already do, after communication with the patent office).

Some elements of the knowledge and technology already acquired will be applicable to a low energy society, in an ecologically sustainable way. These will be the basis of The Ecotechnic Fucure.

The fascination with fire and tools is something that Hominid males have been selected for over more than a million and a half years (for tools) and about half that time (for fire). Hence the enchantment of the tool section in the hardware store (which is quite absent in women) and the appeal of barbecues - we have been selected for these.

http://www.betterworldbooks.com/list.aspx?SearchTerm=The+Ecotechnic+Future

http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/4051

As for agriculture and education, the old Chinese saying goes:

For a return on investment in a year, plant rice.

For a return on investment in a decade, plant fruit trees.

For a return on investment in a century, educate men.

[porge]

To George Mobus the Dean of the University of Noesis,

This piece is absolutely brilliant and I have no disagreements.
I would say though that I believe that the potential for culture is greater than the genetic blueprint for each and every one of us.
I have said many, many times that the keys to our next step up the ladder of advancement lie in BOTH the education system and the MEDIA (see, "The Century of Self (Edward Bernays).
Without changing the "brainwashing" all the proper education in the world won't stick.

Anyone that wants to know how the world really works must first:
Stop watching Television and seek their own information. This takes about 2 months for the head to clear and is psychologically gut wrenching.( This is where the internet has had an enormous impact on the order of Gutenberg's printing press).
Think critically (Question Everything).
Become life long learners.( My greatest joys have come from figuring things out (Richard Feynman).
Try to relate everything to natural process (The only true laws.)( compound interest violates this philosophy and is one big reason that such socio-economic inequality exists)
George,
I have an eleven year old son and I want him to be educated at your University of Noesis.
One last thing though.....as the Dean you really ought to learn how to spell NOESIS!!!

[George Mobus]

Hi David.

"...in my case I get more satisfaction from making 'things'..."

And in all likelihood you would end up being the village smithy! Nothing wrong with that. Somebody has to grow the food. I suspect that food production, which includes things like canning, salting, etc. will occupy most of the people much of the time. But clearly, in the winter there will be plenty of other activities to pursue.

Brewing beer???? Now you are talking. If I made the cut I'll be in your village!

From what I have read about "primitive" peoples and their "happiness" I think that there is a pattern emerging that speaks to the attitude of happiness with what nature provides, family as the center of life, general contentment as long as the environment isn't changing radically (e.g. deforestation in Brazil), and the sentiment, expressed by several indigenous individuals exposed to modern life who express dismay at the modern mind's psychology (did you ever see "The Gods Must be Crazy"? Totally made up, but themed on this pattern).

Now I don't think that we should aspire to primitiveness. Humanity worked long and hard to gain knowledge of all sorts of phenomena that allow us to exploit leverage (machines). Just because we will have a much lower energy flow through to work with doesn't mean we need to go back to hunter-gatherer status (e.g. Olduvai theory). The trick for eusapience is to learn to live with less energy but as comfortably as possible and not attempt to push nature's boundaries the way we have in the past. We (our genus) needs to learn to live with an appropriate balance of science (systems science providing the guidance), engineering, and natural processes consistent with our minds and desires. Put simply we need to live wisely whatever that means. Self-actualization is actually just that, the self actualizing its potential. Human minds do not require advanced scientific knowledge to be actualized. But that such knowledge exists, and to the extent that it provides one with 'understanding' of the world and the self, it should be made available to any mind desiring it.

AFA Brave New Worldian thoughts. Remember, the occupants of that world were mere Homo caladus (or pseudosapients) -- the vast majority of the extant population today. Such people (as we?) could be made unhappy knowing the "truth". But I envision a eusapient able to handle whatever "truth" is out there. I imagine, for example, history lessons (stories actually) about the days when energy flowed freely and people made really stupid choices about how to waste it. I imagine the eusapient child wondering why her ancestors were so foolish. I don't think this translates into unhappiness that the then population no longer has access to such treasure as oil and coal.

With a better level of sapience I imagine not a "Brave" new world, but a "Content" new world.

But that is why the title includes the word "Dreams".

George

[George Mobus]

Robin,

Well said. But you will have to explain this to my wife:
"...Hence the enchantment of the tool section in the hardware store (which is quite absent in women)..."

She (as well as a number of women I know) loves tools, especially garden hand tools, but also a few handy hand tools for the house. I think the male disposition toward power tools (fire) has another etiology (if I may borrow that term) that is due to testosterone! I know that when I get behind a power tiller, a chain saw, or a wood splitter I feel powerful (also when I ride my dinky Honda 250 motorcycle at 60mph!!!) I guess my pseudosapience is showing!

George

[George Mobus]

Porge,

Thanks for the spelling alert! I fixed it.

And thanks for the comment, esp. about your son. As a matter of fact I am considering forming such a school in the not too distant future! Obviously I will have to solve the funding issue as I do not want to have to charge actual money. Rather, I see students as participants and contributors, where their learned skills and knowledge will bolster the school's existence. I have no idea how this might work in practice but if anyone wants to help me make this happen, feel free to contact me!

The older I get, the more I want to turn my attention to things that are fundamentally important for the human spirit, especially the spirit of the young.

As a colleague recently said -- Dream on George.

George
PS Porge, no TV's hooked up to antennas or cable allowed in TUN!

[porge]

George,
I am reminded of the Classical Greeks once again.
The entire city of Athens was set up to be one giant learning environment.
I can't believe we have drifted so far from these ideals and I contend it is because of material over abundance due to the enormous exosomatic(is this really a word?) energy source provided by fossil fuels.
In fine.......we don't have to be that good at stuff anymore.

Again I will say that the media is the most ubiquitous and penetrating conduit of culture and basically defines the ethos.
The problem is that the bad guys won and control the media and it really isn't tough enough yet for the masses to start any bottom up changes to turn the tide.
Panem et circenses until further notice.
I would love to be involved in making your vision a reality as I am sure would many others but how would you even get started??
Maybe start with a book??

I sum our situation up thusly.

Our culture has lost it's taste for QUALITY.

Kevin

[porge]

… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses

(Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81)

[Mark Twain]

George -

You wrote:

"It is the lack of comprehension of systemness that keeps most people ignorant of how the world really does work. It's lack is one of the main reasons so many people today cannot see the impending crises that we face."

Very true, and I would also add that another one of the main reasons so many people today cannot see the impending crises that we face is simply that they do not want to see it (for various reasons).

Regarding your discussion of systems thinking - I completely agree.

However, part of the problem is that there are already systems that people understand and believe in, and it is these systems that inform most people about how the world works. The systems I am referring to are religions. Of course, these are not systems in the scientific manner, yet I would argue that these are the systems that most people use to determine "how the world works".

I would even use a point you make (slightly altered by removing the final word):

"what natural capacity that exists in the human brain has been sacrificed in the name of the god."

The concept of God replaces our ability to think critically - for if there is an afterlife, if I will be rewarded in a place that is much better than this reality called life, then there is very little motivation to think systematically (except for thinking systematically about the dogma of the religion - following the rules of the particular religious system to achieve the greatest reward).

You note (and I agree with ):

"We will have to rekindle the strengthening and sharpening of systems thinking as a key goal of education in the University of Noesis."

I would extend this further and note that we will also have to weaken and dull the beliefs in religious systems as a key goal of education in the University of Noesis. One of these must be superior in our systems-thinking - religion or science. At the moment (and for almost all of human history), religion is dominant.

However, I estimate that ridding the human species of its reliance on religious-systems-thinking is much more difficult than your excellent point that education must be based on sound science-systems-thinking. Religious-systems offer a free lunch - as long as you follow these 10 simple rules (for the Judeo-Christian religious-system), then nothing else matters. That's an oversimplification, but it gets at the point: science-systems-thinking requires opening one's eyes to the interconnectedness of everything. Religious-systems-thinking only requires one to see the connectedness of the deity (faith) and oneself.

We are in agreement in regards to living within the carrying capacity and the limitations on population. This points to further problems with the religious-systems-thinking, since almost all religions bestow unlimited population growth as a basic right of the human species (and particularly to the believers of that particular religion). Since most would rather believe that god has given them a right to have as many children as they want, then I would argue that this tendency will be dominant and tempting for a long time.

I my mind - laziness wins. Religious beliefs are lazy beliefs, as compared to scientific beliefs. Hence, religious belief is incredibly dominant in the human species. If we define religious-systems as a belief in a god, spirit or life force, then the vast majority of the human species holds religious beliefs. I contend that these religious beliefs are (often) at odds with the very science-systems-thinking that you rightly encourage.

However, there does seem to be a trend in the last few decades of the human species turning away from these religious beliefs, as self-identification of religious belief has been dropping (though religious beliefs are still a large majority - 80-90% in the U.S.).

My point in bringing this up is to add to the great work you've done in your article. We must build a better system of education that teaches systems-thinking. However, before we can build that better system, we must deconstruct the existing religious-systems-thinking that dominates our species.

------

Your points on the Humanities are excellent and are not talked about enough, IMHO.

------

Your concluding points about "Helping Each Individual Achieve Self-actualization" are also excellent. I would extend your thoughts about this:

"If I am right about the 'direction' of human evolution toward yet greater sapience then dreams of human life as an integral part of nature will not have proven a fool's game. And tomorrow's children may yet find education a wonderful and natural experience."

In that future village, I see sapient humans not only living within the carrying capacity of their environment, but living well BELOW the carrying capacity of their environment. Perhaps a new belief in "quality not quantity" in regards to children. Of embracing the ancient African proverb that "it takes a village to raise a child" (as you propose). Of allowing more space within the system of Nature for evolution to take its course.

To me, sapience does not mean calculating the carrying capacity and then using that number as your maximum population (and trying to stay very close to it). It means something much more unselfish - realizing that our species is not the greatest form of life in the universe.

When our species begins to realize that fact, I will start believing that sapience is possible. Until then, I must come to the conclusion (using systems-thinking!) that our species (taken as a whole) is a plague, not a benefit.

As Agent Smith says in The Matrix:

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague and we are the cure."

(To keep this post from being a complete downer, I'll share something I keep posted above my desk:

The Path to Success:
Learn
Think
Dream
Create)

[twitter.com/bob_calder]

Here's something that you might find interesting:
http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=2002$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=tGdhNYGTGtunwzkKJ9aRhsA;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=194;dataMax=96846$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=0.844;dataMax=8.7$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=
It's a graph of children per female, by country, from 1955 to 2006 compliments of Hans Rosling. I use it in class to give kids a sense of scale and the global reach of policy.

I like the concept of teaching complexity. I'm at sea when it comes to how to go about teaching it.

[George Mobus]

Porge,

Something is in the works, but details may take a while to emerge! There is always hope.

George

[George Mobus]

Mark,

Can I alter your term, "religious-systems" to a more conventional phrase: religious dogma? I understand that religious dogma is a stand-in for systems thinking because it provides pat answers to many deep and complex problems for most people. A dogma, however, is given, as revealed truth, and does not require actually thinking about the systemic nature of the problems addressed.

I have found that the majority of people that I have known who seem particularly superior in their capacity for sapience have generally long past thrown off the shackles of dogma and let their inherent systems-thinking shine through. That is not to say they are not appreciative of spiritual expressions -- there are still many wonderful and beautiful aspects of life and the world that one cannot help but be 'grateful' for, even if one doesn't offer that gratitude to a super being but simply to nature itself. To me this is the basis for profound humbleness in the face of wonder. I think it may be the basis of your statement: " It means something much more unselfish - realizing that our species is not the greatest form of life in the universe."

That realization is, indeed, the antithesis of many religious dogmas about man's place in the hierarchy of life and angels! So I suspect that as sapience is selected for in the future, religions as such will find their proper resting place as having been a temporary binding of the real human spirit (religion means to bind back!) to a false, though possibly useful (in the context of the time) by an ultimately unbelievable belief structure!

I like your poster!

George

[George Mobus]

Hi Bob.

Very interesting graphical representation.

If I might suggest, you probably don't want to teach complexity in the conventional sense of the word teach. Rather I like to think that our role is to guide students through situations where they experience complexity and dynamics directly (with a fair amount of ambiguity thrown in for good measure). We can be there to help them develop systems thinking skills, or perhaps more rightly, sharpen the skills they already have. This has to be started at a young age though in order to capitalize on the brains early development capacities. The learning is experiential and that does more to advantage the brain's wiring than anything else. Later in life (like later in teenagehood) we can add the explicit skills, like mathematics and physics, etc., by which they will hone their critical thinking so as to be wary of often counter intuitive aspects of complex systems.

First, I think, children need a sense of what life is really like, and then we can show them how to deal with it and make something positive out of it.

George

[Tony]

Hi Mark and Mobus,

Your discussion about religion and sapience is very interesting. From my understanding, Taoism and Buddhism does not bestow unlimited population growth. Tao is close to the nature while Buddhism encourages learning transcendent wisdom by oneself (e.g. through reflection). But many adherents of these two philosophies/religions treat them as dogma/idolatry, probably due to lack of sapience among the people.

Then one way might be reinventing the philosophy based on science. I have re-interpreted the Tao as "nature", but it is written in Chinese (http://meaningofman.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/tao/).

Tony

[Tony]

If you are interested, I suggest you read English translation of Tao Te Ching (道德经 in Simplified Chinese, 道德經 in Traditional Chinese) and I Ching (易经 in Simplified Chinese, 易經 in Traditional Chinese). 易 can be interpreted as "dynamics", therefore I Ching is also known as the "Book of Changes".

[George Mobus]

Tony,

Got a "Page Not Found" error on the link. In any case I can't read Chinese so it wouldn't help!

My co-author on the systems science text book is a philosopher of Eastern philosophy and systems science who has done considerable work in relating both Taoism and Buddhism to systems thinking. I have suggested he actually write a chapter in the book devoted to a summary of his findings. It isn't the kind of thing one expects in a text book on systems, but expect the unexpected, I always say!

George