Dear Larry and all,I think wisdom has to evolve somewhat from how we used to understand it before. That is partly due to modernity and the way we live our lives today. We no longer live IN nature. we now have the ability to subdue nature and live ON it. Before we had desires, but our desires were limited by nature. Before, if i want to travel to the americas, i have to get on a ship and travel for weeks in extreme discomfort, and finally get to my destination, if i do not die first of disease like scurvy etc etc. Today, i get on a nice air conditioned plane and i be wherever i wanna be in hours. This change of our circumstances may require a change in the way we view the world. It is like economics, before economics views nature as an externality (because nature was viewed as infinite, compared to human ability to exploit them, and thus, did not require it to be included in our equations of economic benefit, profit etc). However today, humans have grown with all their appendages of science and technology and our effects to environment has grown so much that we can no longer view nature as infinite. But economics has not changed to reflect this new paradigm.
Thus the ability to change and adapt, ability to recognize right and wrong, ability to think as a 'us' compared to 'me', ability to make sacrifices (sacrifices is when we do not do something out of choice and not out of predicament) - becomes much more a wisdom-choice compared to at the time of our fathers and mothers of the past.
and personally, I think our mind is a little screwed since we have been built wrongly partly due to our education. So I think we need to drop the older fellows and concentrate on the young mind and to help them think, help them to use the word 'us' more often the 'I', to use choose 'to be or not to be'....... hence I now concentrate on the young and learn more from them then I do from the older fellows.....
peace
yunus
PS I have been fortunate (on hindsight) being slightly dyslexic as a child and thus did not, or could not learn much of the brainwashing that took place when I as a kid...but alas, not easy since now one does find it difficult to fit in, especially in a place wanting to 'develop' fast, like Malaysia, where everything is about me, myself and I
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:00:23 -0700From: [log in to unmask]: ActivitiesTo: [log in to unmask]
Yunus, I watched Sir Ken Robinson's talk soon after it was presented in the TED Talks series (TED Talks stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design http://ted.com ). I was stunned to find the corelation to my thinking I had not found before. I am not in academia, but doubt that I would find it there either.
I feel we do not bring about change in the necessary large steps, for precisely the same reason we mostly cannot allow ourselves to think about religion in any other way than we now do (whatever that is). Tradition, while it may be consumately wrong, is comfortable, and we must be comfortable even if it is killing us.
Near the begining of the twentieth century (1910) at a meeting of the American Medical Association, it was stated that henceforth all physicians either performing surgery or delivering a baby would be required to wash their hands. A group of doctors filed suit stating that to comply would be the ruination of their practice (I wish this were a joke -- it is not). The public did not take notice of the meeting statement, but they did indeed notice the law suit. The public responded and began washing their hands. This coupled with the reinvention of the flush toilet nearly doubled life expectancy in a single century. The traditions of the public had not been threatened, but outside of their traditions the public had been frightened into seeing the simple sense such a declaration made. This example, if we fully understand it, could be utilized to bring about change by finding a way around traditions.
Larry KuenemanP.O. Box 160925411 Hotei LaneIdyllwild, CA 92549 USAH 951-659-2567C [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: Mohamed Yunus Yasin
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 1:57 AM
Subject: Re: Activities
I would agree with the so called 'formal education' system and its ability to promote or 'teach' wisdom. you may want to look at this talk by Ken Robinson http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4964296663335083307However the question is why and how do we bring about any change? Personally, a good way to start is with children. So I would be interested if you guys have any ideas on getting the child on their journey to wisdom (NOT teach, but - get them to take this journey)... I have been working with primary schools kids for the last 5 years (as a volunteer) and still going strong, it is easy to self motivate working with kids... peaceyunus
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:17:43 +0000From: [log in to unmask]: Re: ActivitiesTo: [log in to unmask]
For my money, wisdom necessarily entails a radically critical component. The mere extension of academic interests in isolated areas, and the maintenance of academic input as relatively esoteric (removed from everyday discourse and utility) is surely not the wisest way forward.
Let me put that differently – the multiplication of academic claims to global significance, usually accompanied by polysyllabic terminology and
serving the ambitions of career academics, does little to create a wiser, more humane and safer world. The attempt to turn “wisdom” into some new specialism misses the point. Every academic module, even if it’s called something like ‘Global Issues’, as long as it’s embedded in the same old credit-seeking mentality, misses the point if students are not personally moved by the content. In other words, wisdom (in my view) is as much ‘emotional’ as intellectual.
Colin Feltham
From: Group concerned that academia should seek and promote wisdom [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of tom abelesSent: 27 October 2008 16:48To: [log in to unmask]: Re: Activities
Hi Nick/allI was interested in your suggestion that universities should offer a "seminar" on global problems. It would be most interesting to understand which universities are not addressing such issues today in one or more courses across their respective institutions. That the same issues you cite for SGR added to global warming, world hunger etc are absent from university campuses in seminars, lectures, campus organizations and related activities would seem amazing.As an added thought, not since Ayn Rand's novels and her philosophy of objectivism (requiring metaphysics, epistemology and ethics as subjects of serious study- her defining of tems) has philosophy reached a more general audience rather than being tucked away in some dusty corner of the humanities where some departments even limit admitting Ph.D. students because of a paucity of teaching positions.If one is interested in seeing how "Wisdom" might be tested as a philosophical topic one might want to apply such precepts to the current controversy between neo-classical economics and the rising arena of heterodox or post autistic economics. A review of Lindy Edwards' 2nd edition of "How to Argue with an Economist" might be an interesting start. An extended review such as appears in the NYTimes Review or similar pub would be of interest to the journal I edit, On the Horizon, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/oth.htm . Or, in relation to SGR's efforts, one might apply concepts of "Wisdom" to analyze the controversy surrounding the issue of "Climate Change" and why the various sides can not agree on the facts and the possible responses. Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" which was brought before the British courts might serve as an interesting starting point.besttomtom abeles
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:05:23 +0000From: [log in to unmask]: ActivitiesTo: [log in to unmask]
Dear Friends of Wisdom,
Yesterday I attended the annual meeting of Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR). When it came to discussing the future, I made an impassioned speech from the floor arguing that SGR ought to do more to involve both staff and students at Universities - especially as, more and more these days, both academics and students can see that continuing as we are is likely to lead us to catastrophe. Chris Langley, research officer for SGR who has written reports on the military and its involvement with universities, made the point that there is, these days, an increasing dissatisfaction among academics with what universities are doing these days.
It is of course not just SGR which ought to be making contact with academics and students. We ought to be doing it too.
What can we do to make FoW more active and effective? Do please email suggestions - to the main FoW emailing list, not just to the discussion list. (If you click "reply" to this email, your reply will go to the "d" discussion list.)
Comparing SGR and FoW, it is clear that SGR is bigger, better organized, more focused, and more effective. SGR was formed in 1992, not from scratch like us in 2005, but from the merger of Scientists Against Nuclear Arms, Electronics and Computing for Peace and Psychologists for Peace. It has just short of 1,000 members, whereas we have just reached 200 members. It has a constitution, salaried officers, membership fees, and obtains funding (without which it could not do what it does). It has a Newsletter and an annual conference. It has produced reports on the involvement of the military in science, universities and schools, which are well thought of, and which have got through to British MPs and the media. Another initiative has to do with ethical scientific careers. SGR manages to take part in "career fairs" at universities in the UK. Increasingly - we were told yesterday - the press consult and quote SGR in connection with the issues they are concerned with.
FoW has much to learn, it seems to me, from SGR. We are a fifth of the size, we don't have a constitution, membership fees, funding, staff, Chair and coordinating committee. And we don't have specific projects that we are actively pursuing. (But Mat Iredale and I have drawn up a draft constitution.)
We do have a website, a Newsletter, an emailing group, active plans for a conference next year (which I hope to report on soon) - and an agenda of profound importance for the future of humanity.
What we need, most urgently, it seems to me, is specific projects that we are pursuing actively (analogous to the projects actively pursued by SGR).
Our overall task is to help transform universities and schools so that the basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom rather than just acquire knowledge - wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life (thus including knowledge, understanding and technological know-how). We want universities to give intellectual priority to problems of living, problems of knowledge emerging out of and feeding back into, rational tackling of problems of living.
What we need at this stage, it seems to me, is two or three specific projects that we can actively pursue that are exemplars, specific paradigms, of our general, immense project. Do please send in suggestions.
Here is one suggestion of mine.
1. Every university and school ought to have a seminar devoted to discussing global problems. Could we not take up, as a campaign, to get our own university or school (if we are associated with one) to bring such a seminar into existence? Even better, could we not ourselves create and chair such a seminar, with help from fellow enthusiasts? We could have a page of our website devoted to this campaign, and there record our efforts. Above all, keep a list those universities and schools that do have such a seminar (one that meets once a month say, on a regular basis).
I confess I have not myself done much so far to get such a seminar created at my own university - University College London (although when I worked actively at UCL I did create and chair an interdisciplinary seminar at UCL). All I have done is email the Provost (the name UCL gives to its vice President) on the 22nd Feb., 2008, making the suggestion. Here is a copy of my email:-
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Dear Provost,
I would like to congratulate you on the way you have nurtured various initiatives, seminars and institutions devoted to tackling global problems. One thinks immediately of the Global Health Seminar, the UCL Environment Institute, and of course UCL Global.
In line with these developments, I would like to see a permanent Seminar at UCL, which meets perhaps once a month, devoted to sustained discussion of global problems: problems of health, environment, climate change, poverty, war, population growth, tyranny, extinction of species, destruction of natural habitats, armaments, priorities of research and development, global democracy (lack of), depletion of natural resources, crime, naturaldisasters, sustainability, global justice. One could imagine the seminar sometimes being big affairs, involving the media, with well-known speakers. And on other occasions it might be smaller, more private, an affair for a group of specialists, and the seminar might devote itself to some rather more specific issue. Experts from other universities might well be invited to take part. The aim would be, not just to highlight existing problems, or criticize existing policies, but to come up with workable, realistic, effective new policies.
In my view, every University ought to have a seminar of this type, and given current trends, it is quite possible that in 30 years or so, they will. Setting up such a seminar at UCL would seem to me to be an excellent opportunity for UCL to lead the way.
It is quite possible that something along these lines is already being considered. If not, I would like to suggest that it be considered.
Best wishes,
Nicholas Maxwell
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There was no response, and so far nothing has happened - although UCL does have the Global Health Seminar which meets once a month, is open to staff and students alike, discusses a wide range of issues, including political and economic ones, and has a drinks reception afterwards for those who attend. It is lively and well attended.
We need, I think, a number of possible specific projects before us, so that we may choose one or two to take up in earnest. Then we could think of taking up some of the other matters - funding, forming a society with a constitution and perhaps membership fees, becoming more active in general as far as academia and the media are concerned.
Do please email to the general emailing list a specific project you would like to see FoW take up - one which, perhaps, you personally would like to become involved with.
Best wishes,
Nick Maxwell
www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk
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