Psybertron Asks

Futher to yesterday’s THES story on wisdom in education, here is another UK MSN News Story (via Cherryl Martin) – The Kids Are Alright – contrasting youth with experience and making the connection with media clamour for the surface beauty of youth – wittily linked to the Theo Walcott news story.

A brilliantly witty piece.

Notwithstanding the fact that skilled but uninhibited naivite might actually be an asset in a competitive sports context, (where the downside of being wrong is more important than life or death, only metaphorically unless you’re Bill Shankly), the parallel with the youthful beauty contest for the qualities valued by the media, is precisely part of the meme that undervalues the true qualities of wisdom far beyond the walls of academe.

Beauty is part of it, but we’ve stripped it down the the simplistic surface appearances, rather than the truly simple complexities of elegance.

Would that Thierry Henry were an Englishman.

Scholars, get wise, not just smart

Anthea Lipsett writing yesterday
in the Times Higher Education Supplement

Universities should help people acquire wisdom rather than knowledge �” this is the rallying cry of a growing band of acade­mics who want to revolutionise the nature of academic inquiry.

Friends of Wisdom, a group of scholars from across the world, argues that the preoccupation with accumulating knowledge is flawed and that the higher aim must be to apply such knowledge to benefit society.

Members of the association be­lieve that academic work should help humanity acquire more wis­dom, which they defined as “the capacity to realise what is of value in life, for oneself and others”.

Friends of Wisdom was started by Nicholas Maxwell, emeritus reader in philosophy of science at University College London. He said: “We hope to transform uni­versities so that their basic aim becomes to help people realise what’s of value in life �” wisdom. That would include technical knowhow and understanding,, but also other things as well.

“If the basic aim really is to help promote human welfare, then the problems that need to be solved are fundamentally problems of living, not problems of know­ledge,” Mr. Maxwell said.

The pursuit of knowledge was important, but it was secondary to acquiring wisdom, he added. The Friends of Wisdom want universi­ties to help people challenge politi­cians by raising public debate and giving individuals the power that comes from having the highest quality education.

“They must also promote a truly critical debate about what is genuinely of value in life and how it is to be achieved,” Mr Maxwell said. He hopes the group will ignite debate, and there are plans to host a conference of like-minded academics.

For more information, visit
www.knowledgetowisdom.org

I made my coment earlier that this subject is bigger than the education system, but it’s good to see this move being picked-up in mainstream press.

Just another personal update I’m afraid. Been buried in issues around work relocation to the USA for several weeks, but now it’s looking set.

UK house let. Boys’ UK university accomodation sorted. Visas obtained for Sylvia and I. Flights booked. US apartment booked. Start date confirmed. We’re off next week.

I should be offline between next Thursday (4th) (in UK) and the following Monday (8th) in Huntsville, AL.

Just one blog news item … Friends of Wisdom – I see this initiative has got as far as an article for publication in UK national press. Here’s hoping.

Struck by this quote about Waziristan (Pakistan, north of Balochistan), the piece includes some scarier Taleban material too.

“In North Waziristan, it is religion that overrides all tribal bondages and customs, making it the most conservative region.”

The story in neighbouring Balochistan is mainly tribal / local disputes over natural (gas) resources. I recall all the tribal militia check-points on the roads around Dera Bugti, not far from Quetta, when working at a gas plant 15 or so years ago – that was after the Russian Afghan campaign, and just about everyone seemed to own a Kalashikov. (And just about every mud-brick hut had a vcr and a satellite dish too).

Various grades of paranoia surrounding widespread RFID tagging of goods, being associated with movements of ourselves as consumers.

I’ve never quite got the paranoia generated by identification of the innocent (identity cards n’all that). Where I come from a discarded tin can already is a crime scene – a small one naturally.

Anyway, technology is always available to be misused. Nothing new.

Reading “The Unconsoled” by Kazuo Ishiguro, prompted by Alice’s comments about Ian McEwan on the Dawkins “Selfish Gene 30 Years On” thread.

Strange book as the TLS review commented. Some weird situations. First person narrator following two third parties moving out of the first person view, and continuing the first person narrative. Shouting to be heard above the noise in a library (!) Long conversations in a cinema (!), watching 2001, but with Clint Eastwood in the Dave Bowman role. Anonymous mid-European location, with disproportionate number of old school friends from back in the UK ? Confusion compounded by long streams of digression (?) by characters unloading their problems, long preludes to scenes about to happen, with little narrative certainty that they actually do, mixed with historical flashbacks; characters moving along streets between locations in the one city adds to the Joycean feel.

The plot line is a “Clockwise” out-of-control time-pressure not-quite-farce, a concert pianist arriving in a foreign city for a recital, but being confounded by events – real and imagined. The general idea being what really matters in all the confusion? The underlying story is about personal relationships and communication as tacit (mis)-understanding – man who spends long periods away from wife and growing child, and the relationship with that child. Older broken couple(s) who’s “understanding” can allow serious rows and breakdowns within the ongoing loving continuity.

Two thirds through – mainly in two long sittings (one of those, another west-bound transatlantic flight). Enthralling, though not yet mind-blowing. Mind-bending certainly – no clues noticed yet as to the eventual outcomes, or the turn of events at the much heralded climax yet to materialise.

Just reading the latest Edge magazine, and see a review by Stewart Brand of Kevin Kelly’s – “Speculations on the Future of Science”.

I’ve mentioned many times the vaue of recursion, often when people get hung up on cyclical logic, as if it is automatically a dead end, begging some question or other. Most recently I referred to the evolutionary value when something (like a brain) works on itself, and evolves intelligence, many of these thoughts driven by reading Hofstadter (who as I type is speaking at Tucson 2006). I see reading Brand’s piece on Kelly, that he’s talking about the evolutionary recursion of science working on science – science’s self-modification. That’s science as in new structures of knowledge and new ways of discovering knowledge, ie philosophy (of science at least).

Interestingly in the same Edge edition there is a piece by John Horgan reviewing the reconcilliation of scence and religion (referring to the same Event I mentioned involving Dawkins and McEwan). Nothing earth shatteringly original, but an intelligent summary including his atheistic involvement with the Templeton Foundation.

Post to the point from Euan Semple [quoting David Maister].

Post Note : Interestingly Dave Snowden comments twice encouraging proper publishing attempts.

A list of Amory Lovins’ myths, presented by Dave Pollard. I’m struck not by the oil dependency specifics, but by the genericity of the “rational” human behaviour myths. I think this is the same “autistic economics” story from Dave Snowden ?

Aparently that’s my Robert Johnson song – one of my favourites, along with Dust My Broom, I remember being performed by Scarecrow, mid to late 70’s, after the Clapton version … [via Rivets]

Also from Rivets this link to high-rise skylines of the world. You’d have to like modern man-made skylines to appreciate it, but I’ve never seen Hong Kong, or Shanghai with such clear light and skies. Shenzen is truly surreal for a huge city you’ve maybe never heard of before you drive into it.