Dear Friends of Wisdom,

 

                                       There is an interesting article in today’s Observer (28 August) by John Naughton about Yuval Harari’s latest book and his gloomy predictions concerning advances in AI and bioscience, and their consequences for the fate of humanity.  Our viewpoint is, of course, as usual, completely ignored.  It provoked me to dash off an email to The Observer – which they probably will not publish as it makes the dreadful mistake of referring to my own work.  We do need, however, in my view, to keep raising the central theme of Friends of Wisdom in public whenever we can – in the media, in public lectures, on so-called social media, and anywhere else that might get a hearing.  If we are to create a wiser world – and with all the power that some of us possess as a result of modern science and technology, wisdom has become, not a private luxury but a global necessity – it is essential that we transform our institutions of learning, our schools and universities, so that they become what at present they are not: rationally designed and devoted to seeking and promoting wisdom, and not just acquiring knowledge.

 

                                     Here, in any case, is a copy of my letter to The Observer.

 

Perhaps Yuval Harari and John Naughton are both rather missing the point (Forget ideology. The new threats to liberal democracy are coming from technology and bioscience, 28 August).  It is perfectly possible for humanity to come to its senses, and appreciate that a kind of inquiry that puts all the emphasis on science and technology is an intellectual and humanitarian disaster.  Almost all our current and impending global problems stem from our astonishingly successful scientific pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how dissociated from a more fundamental concern with our problems of living and what we are to do about them.  We may well come to realize just how damaging, how dangerous it is successfully to pursue knowledge dissociated from a more fundamental concern with what is of value in life and how it is to be realized.  A reformed academic enterprise that gives priority to problems of living over problems of knowledge would enable us to learn how to resolve our grave global problems effectively, intelligently and humanely – including those that might stem from AI and bioscience.  For a more detailed exposition of this argument,

see my From Knowledge to Wisdom (Blackwell, 1984) or the more recent How Universities Can Help Create a Wiser World: The Urgent Need for an Academic Revolution (Imprint Academic, 2014).

 

                   All good wishes,

 

                          Nick Maxwell

Website: www.ucl.ac.uk/from-knowledge-to-wisdom
Publications online: http://philpapers.org/profile/17092
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/view/people/ANMAX22.date.html