AT
You have tried to communicate your vision to me and to others, as always
do, tirelessly and compassionately, only occasionally allowing your anger
at my resistance show through, as in your comment about bulls and china
shops.
Your system, your vision, your dream has hold of you, and you live within
it, see the world through it, and have sympathy for those who do not, can
not, yet see its beauty, completeness, and ability to manage the world in
its fullness and complexity.
You not only believe (for example) that there is "mind" and that it is
"abstract"--beliefs and language which you share with most Westerners--but
you have convinced yourself that "entropy production" explains the
workings of what Ryle and Koestler, among others have called The Ghost of
The Machine. That is: you take one fiction--"Mind"--and explain it by
another fiction--"entropy production."
So: the gulf between us on your "system" is too great for useful bridging.
It might be helpful, however, to point out to you what you do when you
come out of your system to make pronouncements about what is going on in
the "real" world.
>If it is my dream which trouble you, what of it troubles you?
>
>Is it because learners are encouraged to learn by themselves rather
>than surrendering themselves to those opportunists whose pirating
>of formal educational systems all over the globe is leading to the
>collapse of our civilisations?
This is the kind of messianic pronouncement that I find dangerous.
It appeals to others who see out there a vast conspiracy--which many of
the rest of us do not see, and which "entropy" and the "essentialities"
can not confirm.
First: learners can not learn by themselves. They need parents and
teachers and colleagues. You demonstrate here that you are teaching your
granddaughter.
Second: if entropic production demonstrates that the schools and colleges
of the world and the millions of teachers and students who attend them are
part of a conspiracy to prevent all of us from learning how to learn on
our own, then entropic production and the 7 essentialities are clearly
wrong, and the triumphs of our civilization, including the wonder of
Internet which allows you to try to teach the world supports my
generalization, rather than yours.
>Is it because learning of knowledge has to proceed creatively rather
>than for learners to soak up like sponges the creative outcomes of
>others should they have the decency to bear the learners in mind?
I believe you want others to hear you, and learn from you, and would
resent hearing a possible truth: that your response to me was a long and
thoughtful lecture, no different in kind that what goes on in many
schools: the attempt by the lecturer to have his auditors soak up and
accept his teaching
>Is it because reality involves chaos, order and complexity rather
>than only simple vanities, fabrications and corruptions through which
>a few become shamefully rich while billions of real people have to
>struggle with death and pain on a daily basis?
Billions of people struggle, indeed: and the grand schemes for solving the
problems of poverty, like Marxism, have proved to false. I sasee no
evidence that entropy will solve our problems: it has failed to do so up
to this point.
>Is it because through self-learning qualities such as benevolence
>and compassion may emerge rather than the persistance of arrogance,
>brutality and selfishness inherent to ignorance?>>
If you truly believed in self-learning, At, you would refuse to position
yourself as a teacher to the world, bearing a message, a new revelation:
you would say, I have nothing to teach you, look and learn for yourself.
And thank you again for trying to change my mind, which so many other
teachers have tried to do, often with as little success as you have had.
I know that I can not learn on my own, so I must pick my teachers
carefully.
Steve Eskow
--"Dr. Steve Eskow" <dreskow@magicnet.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>