Synthesizing knowledge

[coberst]

Synthesizing knowledge

 

As I see it, our fundamental problem in regards to knowledge is that our society, which focuses on maximizing production and consumption, has ignored the importance of synthesizing knowledge. The fixation on specialization leads to a society that fragments; a cleverly synthesized knowledge can facilitate social unity. Such a synthesis cannot be static but must be dynamic; it must constantly integrate new understanding into a new and thus living synthesis. We cannot arrive at absolute knowledge but we can maintain a dynamic synthesis.

 

Our educational system trains us to become proficient producers and consumers with little serious regard for the problems inherent in developing a moral understanding for constructing and dealing with our social environment.

 

Anyone who attempts a synthesis utilizing the theories of the world’s great thinkers is always faced with the fact that the thoughts of many great thinkers are constantly being criticized and new ideas supplementing or replacing the theories of these thinkers. Because this is true, every synthesis becomes quickly dated. However, it is important to recognize that we all require a platform upon which to judge the knowledge that is being created and this platform can only come from a comprehensive study of someone’s synthesis.

 

It is my judgment that we should find those thinkers who are capable of synthesizing and carefully examine their thoughts without regard to criticism of some of the pillars that support the synthesis.

 

“Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. As awareness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget.”

 

Ernest Becker has woven a great tapestry, which represents his answer to the question ‘what are we humans doing, why are we doing it, and how can we do it better?’

 

Becker has written four books “Beyond Alienation”, “Escape from Evil”, “Denial of Death”, and “The Birth and Death of Meaning”; all of which are essential components of his tapestry. Ernest Becker (1924-1974), a distinguished social theorist, popular teacher of anthropology and sociology psychology, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for the “Denial of Death”.

 

Becker provides the reader with a broad and comprehensible synopsis of the accomplishments of the sciences of anthropology, psychology, sociology, and psychoanalysis. Knowledge of these accomplishments provides the modern reader with the means for a substantial comprehension of why humans do as they do.

 

Becker declares that these sciences prove that humans are not genetically driven to be the evil creatures that the reader of history might conclude them to be. We humans are victims of the societies that we create in our effort to flee the anxiety of death. We have created artificial meanings that were designed to hide our anxieties from our self; in this effort we have managed to create an evil far surpassing any that our natural animal nature could cause.

 

Becker summarizes this synoptic journey of discovery with a suggested solution, which if we were to change the curriculums in our colleges and universities we could develop a citizenry with the necessary understanding to restructure our society in a manner less destructive and more in tune with our human nature.

 

I think that it is important for each of us, after our schooling is complete, to begin to comprehend some kind of synthesizing of knowledge. What do you think about this matter and can you suggest how one might go about this process of creating a comprehensive synthesis of knowledge?

[taijishengnv]

yes, I'm boring of it, but we need the knowladge of every kind do you notice that all coustmes created is a very interesting in every field, It is a reflaxtion of human wisdem.:)

[HydrogenBond]

Specialization can create a problem with respect to the reality of things. It sort of narrows the range of focus taking it out of the context of the big picture. In its own context, it can appear correct. But in a larger context, this may not be the case.

 

I done this example before, but it gets this point across. We begin with a photograph. This is the big picture. Specialization zooms into one aspect of the photo to look at all the details in that sector. Integral thinking zooms out to see how all aspects of the picture relate. These two points of reference can be complementary or can produce results that conflict.

 

As we zoom in, we see what appears to be a female dancer with anguish on her face. From this close perspective we can see she has bargain mart sweats. Based on this differential view one may logically conclude she is a second string dancer who is struggling, maybe at a practice gym.

 

In the next frame we zoom out a little, to get more of the picture in. What we now see are others dancers. Some are stretching, some chatting and some much better dressed. Based on this broader data, we may still conclude our original dancer is struggling and second string, but now she appears to be at a dance tryout and not just practice

 

In the next frame we zoom out further and notice the backdrop and stage of a top notch dance theatre. Now our poor struggling dancer is better than we originally thought, when we zoomed in too close. The anguish is not because she is bad but because she is trying out with world class dancers.

 

Finally in the final frame we see the entire picture. Near our dancer is the dance coordinator for a major ballet company. He is focusing all his attention on our dancer. This is why she is struggling with anguish, because he is a perfectionist. It turns out she isn't some hack dancer but is the prima ballerina.

 

This example illustrates a potential problem with speciality thinking. It can be totally logical and scientifically consistent within the narrow field of observation, but it can still be out of touch with reality. If each frame was only seen by one person, and the person with the last frame suggested to the person with the first frame, the women is a world class prima ballerina, this would appear inconsistent with their observations. But the specialist might be considered right, since he has more detailed data.

[coberst]

HydrogenBond

 

Well said!

[Thunderbird]

In art its called composition in, science its called systems theory.

 

 

 

CAMPBELL: No, there are other kinds of peak experiences. But those were the ones that come to my mind when I think about peak experiences.

 

MOYERS: What about James Joyce's epiphanies?

 

CAMPBELL: Now, that's something else. Joyce's formula for the aesthetic experience is that it does not move you to want to possess the object. A work of art that moves you to possess the object depicted, he calls pornography. Nor does the aesthetic experience move you to criticize and reject the object -- such art he calls didactic, or social criticism in art. The aesthetic experience is a simple beholding of the object. Joyce says that you put a frame around it and see it first as one thing, and that, in seeing it as one thing, you then become aware of the relationship of part to part, each part to the whole, and the whole to each of its parts. This is the essential, aesthetic factor -- rhythm, the harmonious rhythm of relationships. And when a fortunate rhythm has been struck by the artist, you experience a radiance. You are held in aesthetic arrest. That is the epiphany. And that is what might in religious terms be thought of as the all-informing Christ principle coming through.

This same "radiance" or as Corberst put it "ecstasy"

can be felt by seeing the composition of the natual world though scientific modeling, or just study, the moment when all the parts come together and you suddenly see the whole. The epiphany, or as I like to call it the cerebral orgasm.

[jedaisoul]

As I see it, our fundamental problem in regards to knowledge is that our society, which focuses on maximizing production and consumption, has ignored the importance of synthesizing knowledge. The fixation on specialization leads to a society that fragments; a cleverly synthesized knowledge can facilitate social unity.

In what way can "a cleverly synthesized knowledge" facilitate social unity?

 

Such a synthesis cannot be static but must be dynamic; it must constantly integrate new understanding into a new and thus living synthesis. We cannot arrive at absolute knowledge but we can maintain a dynamic synthesis.

Agreed.

 

Our educational system trains us to become proficient producers and consumers with little serious regard for the problems inherent in developing a moral understanding for constructing and dealing with our social environment.

I would suggest that most people are neither interested nor equipped to follow an intellectual path in life immediately after leaving school. Some never are, but many mature, particularly when their materials needs are largely catered for. I think it is important that poeple who wish it should have the opportunity to explore and discover the intellectual world. I question the benefit of trying to teach it in school to children who, in general, are not mentally ready to assimilate it.

 

Anyone who attempts a synthesis utilizing the theories of the world’s great thinkers is always faced with the fact that the thoughts of many great thinkers are constantly being criticized and new ideas supplementing or replacing the theories of these thinkers. Because this is true, every synthesis becomes quickly dated.

True.

 

However, it is important to recognize that we all require a platform upon which to judge the knowledge that is being created and this platform can only come from a comprehensive study of someone’s synthesis. It is my judgment that we should find those thinkers who are capable of synthesizing and carefully examine their thoughts without regard to criticism of some of the pillars that support the synthesis.

I agree, in the sense that I'm more interested in the validity of an idea than who thought it and when.

 

“Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. As awareness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget.”

"Heroic dedication"??? Methinks someone has been partaking of the medicinal sherry?

 

It's a common practice to look back upon some golden era in the past, and bemoan the present. There is evidence of a drop in standards. When I first read the novels of Aldous Huxley, I was amazed at the breadth of vocabulary and the precision with which the words were used. Reading such works enabled me to acquire a similarly broad vocabulary and a sensibility to the use of words. The trouble was, no one I spoke to understood what I was saying. That's when I realised that such works were written by an intellectual elite for an intellectual elite.

 

I still bemoan the loss of precision in the usage of the english language, but nowadays much more is written in a language accessible to the "common" man. So ordinary people have more opportunity to seek an absorb knowledge today than they have ever had.

 

What evidence is there that fewer people are taking an interest in intellectual life than in the past?

[coberst]

Jedaisoul

 

In what way can "a cleverly synthesized knowledge" facilitate social unity?

 

Becker says that science has provided us a comprehensive knowledge of human nature that indicates that we are not innately the horrible creatures that Hobbes speculated we to be. It is the societies that we structure that make us do the things we do. We need a new secular morality that must be based upon scientific knowledge but is also acceptable to most people. We need an ideal that all people can rally about. We need a unity of knowledge that can be kept up to date and that can represent the shared pool of understanding whereby we can reason together to attempt to reach our ideal.

 

I am convinced that we must learn how to dialogue and such dialogue demands a much more intellectually sophisticated citizenry than we now have. The population needs to be educated in light of this ideal and this knowledge so that we can reasonably dialogue together in an effort to create a society that will make it possible to continually approximate this ideal.

 

Government would not be the force guiding this effort but the citizens who share this pool of common knowledge would be the controlling factor. Becker thinks that the university needs to be modified to provide the type of knowledge needed for this effort.

 

I think that Becker’s synthesis of the problem is correct but I disagree with his solution. The universities will not be modified to teach this knowledge but the people must recognize the nature of the issue and those that are qualified must take up the effort to become post-schooling scholars who study the knowledge required after their school days are over.

 

In such a manner we could slowly develop a small part of the working citizens into intellectual elites who can help in raising the intellectual sophistication of the nation in an effort to guide the society into developing a society conducive to reaching the ideal described.

 

 

I would suggest that most people are neither interested nor equipped to follow an intellectual path in life immediately after leaving school. Some never are, but many mature, particularly when their materials needs are largely catered for. I think it is important that people who wish it should have the opportunity to explore and discover the intellectual world. I question the benefit of trying to teach it in school to children who, in general, are not mentally ready to assimilate it.

 

I would guess that 50% of the population could easily become a good deal more intellectually sophisticated should the correct culture be developed that would place a premium upon learning rather than the present anti-intellectual bias our culture displays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Heroic dedication"??? Methinks someone has been partaking of the medicinal sherry?

 

It's a common practice to look back upon some golden era in the past, and bemoan the present. There is evidence of a drop in standards. When I first read the novels of Aldous Huxley, I was amazed at the breadth of vocabulary and the precision with which the words were used. Reading such works enabled me to acquire a similarly broad vocabulary and a sensibility to the use of words. The trouble was, no one I spoke to understood what I was saying. That's when I realized that such works were written by an intellectual elite for an intellectual elite.

 

I still bemoan the loss of precision in the usage of the english language, but nowadays much more is written in a language accessible to the "common" man. So ordinary people have more opportunity to seek an absorb knowledge today than they have ever had.

 

What evidence is there that fewer people are taking an interest in intellectual life than in the past?

 

 

I often read individuals in the business of education bemoaning the deterioration of the intellectual sophistication of the new generation. One such instance is the book “The Closing of the American Mind” by Allan Bloom

[Thunderbird]

In what way can "a cleverly synthesized knowledge" facilitate social unity?

 

 

Agreed.

 

 

I would suggest that most people are neither interested nor equipped to follow an intellectual path in life immediately after leaving school. Some never are, but many mature, particularly when their materials needs are largely catered for. I think it is important that poeple who wish it should have the opportunity to explore and discover the intellectual world. I question the benefit of trying to teach it in school to children who, in general, are not mentally ready to assimilate it.

 

 

True.

 

 

I agree, in the sense that I'm more interested in the validity of an idea than who thought it and when.

 

 

"Heroic dedication"??? Methinks someone has been partaking of the medicinal sherry?

 

It's a common practice to look back upon some golden era in the past, and bemoan the present. There is evidence of a drop in standards. When I first read the novels of Aldous Huxley, I was amazed at the breadth of vocabulary and the precision with which the words were used. Reading such works enabled me to acquire a similarly broad vocabulary and a sensibility to the use of words. The trouble was, no one I spoke to understood what I was saying. That's when I realised that such works were written by an intellectual elite for an intellectual elite.

 

I still bemoan the loss of precision in the usage of the english language, but nowadays much more is written in a language accessible to the "common" man. So ordinary people have more opportunity to seek an absorb knowledge today than they have ever had.

 

What evidence is there that fewer people are taking an interest in intellectual life than in the past?

 

Jedaisoul

If you talk to teachers about the education systems they are forced to adhere to today you will find that children in school are not taught about the importance of thinking for themselves.

 

When I attended high school in the seventies we had teachers that took time to express views and personal passions about the world.

Today with the “ No child left behind initiative’’ teachers are not allowed the time to do this.

 

The policy is in effect saying the child's mind is not a flame to be lit but a vessel to be filled. This backward thinking along with the media sound bight environment is resulting in a generation of kids with attention spans that are incapable of reading retention and communication skills.

[jedaisoul]

This backward thinking along with the media sound bight environment is resulting in a generation of kids with attention spans that are incapable of reading retention and communication skills.

I'm not sure that what you say applies here (UK). However, I'm not sure it is relevant anyway. My comments were made in response to:

“Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. As awareness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget.”

This is not about schooling, it's about "modern man". So my question stands: "What evidence is there that fewer people are taking an interest in intellectual life than in the past? "

[HydrogenBond]

Specialization makes knowledge less accessible. The reason this is so, is each specialty creates their own language or jargon. Unless one is willing to learn this new language, the information may not be fully accessible. If one talked to a mechanic and he was using his specialty jargon, one may be at a loss. He can even take advantage of this language barrier to sell stuff one doesn't even need. If he has to simplify, so you can understand, he is now dealing with idiot. In one's specialty world, they are the jargon master. But dealing with the mechanic, they fall a couple of steps and may not feel that comfortable in that position. Synthesis should try to make a common language of meaning that cuts to the chase.

 

Picture if all the science, coming out of each country, could only be read in that native language. There is no requirement of universal translation between languages, but one has to learn that language or else they may not be allowed to play. Going into this, one may be able to understand, but one can sound like they are dumb trying to translate and communicate. This sounding dumb may be misunderstood for ignorance. Either way, after enough treatments it is easier to stick to your own language.

 

This may be unavoidable. The amount of information has increased drastically, so there is the need to differentiate it into smaller and smaller parts and label these for distinction. But if one has to learn another language to gain this information, making it as easy as possible, would mean the minimum set of words that is able to transfer the most information, sort of like the abstract of the paper. One only has one paragraph to translate to get the most impact. But this requires the specialist synthesize.

[nutronjon]

You have presented the best reasoning for returning to liberal education, I have ever read.

 

In 1958 we passed the National Defense Education Act, and not only changed public education, replacing liberal education with education for technology for military and industrial purpose, but we have changed our culture and national values as well. I believe this has brought us to economic and moral crisis, and if we do not immediately realize what we have done, this could be the end of the democracy defended in previous wars. Democracy is a state of mind, and only when it is defended and nutured in the classroom, is it defended.

 

The challenge of democracy is to understand universal laws, and with such knowledge create our own laws. Democracy is rule by reason, as our laws are to be based on knowledge of universal laws. Democracy is a state of mind, and a social organization that empowers everyone to contribute their best to society. Today, we lack this understanding of democracy and why some thought it was worth risking everything, to live with democracy. With the 1958 National Defense Education Act, we stopped educating for democracy and stopped defending it in the classroom. Well this is a rather complex subject, but we have been imitating our enemy and are no longer the democracy we once defended, but what we defended our democracy against. This is both an education and bureaucratic change, imitating our enemy and craushing our liberty. This is a rather complex subject and I hope there is interest in carrying this discussion further.

[coberst]

On the opinion section of this morning's NY Times you will find this article "Why We Borrow Until It Hurts

Leveraging Lets Us Gain in the Short Term -- and That's When We Stop Thinking"

 

"When people borrow and spend money, it's really the reward centers of the brain that become activated," Zweig said. "When you borrow money, you are thinking not about the long-term consequences but the short-term result: You have more cash in your pocket. The pain you are going to experience down the road of having to pay -- that's in the future, it's remote, it's abstract."

 

Our present economic problems are directly a result of our schools failing to teach CT, i.e. teachng us how to think rather than just teaching us what to think. If we have not learned to think critically we cannot focus our intellect beyond tomorrow.

[nutronjon]

May I add to what you said, that religion also teaches us what to think, rather than how to think, and democracy- the responsibility of governing ourselves, requires we know how to think.

 

When we entered WWI, a teacher quoted a poet from India to discribe our enemy. "Whatever their effeciency, such great organizations are so impersonal that they bear down on the individual lives of the people like a hydraulic press whose action is completely impersonal and therefore completely effective in crushing individual liberty and power." Before we changed public education, we changed our bureaucratic structure. We adopted the German model of military bureaucracy applied to citizens. Today our government can do far more than it ever could, because like in the military, the decisions are made by a handful of people, policy is set, and from there everyone follows the book/policy. And unlike kings who die, this bureaucracy never dies, and it can regulate the most minute details of lives.

 

Because these committees are dismissed once policy is made, no one is left to be accountable for the policy, to correct errors, or make changes. It takes an act of congress to change anything. Now, we go from the secretary who knew everything, and could empower people with information, to the receptionist who knows nothing but the procedure she was taught and everyone calling must follow. This receptionist is helpless to do anything but explain the procedure and she just assumes everyone will follow it without question, because this is the way things are done. I am talking the whole of society is now using this model, not just government. Effectively this is the computer run society of Star Trek, only the computer is organic. The computer is programmed human beings, dependent on policy. Tocqueville warned this would happen to Christian democracies in the 1830's.

 

The other side of this is the change in education. We went from the Conceptual Model of education to the Behaviorist Model. The Conceptual model taught increasingly complex concepts, and teachers were to test for understanding of concepts, and pay less attention to the child's memory of details such as names and dates. There were not right or wrong answers, as there are today. A child's arguement could completely disagree with the teacher, and still be right, as long as the child demonstrated comprehension of the concept. This education internalizes authority and makes our pleasures intrinsic.

 

The Behaviorist Model is also used for training dogs, and we might notice, dogs do not vote. Now you get people voting strictly based on their immediate, short term, self interest, and democracy is destroyed. Like religion, this education teaches children what to think, and holds the authority external to the child. The authority either rewards or punishes the child, depending on the child knowing the right or wrong answer. And the No Child Left Behind Act, puts the teachers job on the line, and the school budget on the line, if the children do not know the right answer. The act also requires schools to give military recruiters childrens names and addresses.

 

 

We are what we defended our democracy against, and this came about largely for military reasons. If we do not act now, the democracy that was defended in two world wars, will be a forgotten memory when the old folks die. Obama was raised by his grandparents, however, few young people can transmit our older national values to their own children. My own children told me I was out dated, and honestly believed what they learned in school was far superior to what I taught. I made the mistake of trusting the schools and that they could better prepare them for the future than I could.

When we announced a National Youth Crisis, I began researching education for the answer, because I knew we had changed public education.

[coberst]

nutronjon

 

Whoo! A kindred spirit. I have been posting on Internet forums for more than four years and I seldom encounter a fellow who agrees so with my views.

[LaurieAG]

The challenge of democracy is to understand universal laws, and with such knowledge create our own laws. Democracy is rule by reason, as our laws are to be based on knowledge of universal laws. Democracy is a state of mind, and a social organization that empowers everyone to contribute their best to society. Today, we lack this understanding of democracy and why some thought it was worth risking everything, to live with democracy. With the 1958 National Defense Education Act, we stopped educating for democracy and stopped defending it in the classroom. Well this is a rather complex subject, but we have been imitating our enemy and are no longer the democracy we once defended, but what we defended our democracy against. This is both an education and bureaucratic change, imitating our enemy and craushing our liberty. This is a rather complex subject and I hope there is interest in carrying this discussion further.

 

Hi nutronjon and Coberst,

 

Two aspects of post 9/11 life that seem to neatly squeeze and transfix many people at the moment (being easter and all) are the deregulation of financial controls (or effective controls) coupled with the increased regulation of personal freedoms and rights.

 

While the present extremes are both unacceptable, unworkable and unsustainable to anybody who looks with an open mind, who will provide an alternative?

[coberst]

LaurieAG

 

Nutronjon has a phrase “educating for democracy” that captures the domain of action that is very important here. We no longer educate our young people for democracy.

 

It seems to me that until we have a bottom-up demand to do so there is little hope for changing our public policy of educating for technology. Public policy is in the hands of Corporate America and while that is the case there is little likelihood of change.

 

How is it possible to develop a bottom-up demand for change in our educational policy?

 

Only when a sizable group of citizens recognize the problem will change be possible. Our educational system will not produce individuals with the sophistication to recognize the problem until it changes its policy. Thus adults must manage to pull them selves up by there own boot straps. Adults must become more intellectually sophisticated through self-learning to recognize the problem and thereby to force the change.

 

Adults must take up the responsibility to educate them selves for democracy so that they can provide the bottom-up demand for change that is required.

[nutronjon]

Coberst, your thread about illusion, unleashed some serious emotions for me.

The complex discussion we are having reminds me of what Tocqueville predicted in the 1830's. This is in conclusion of his book "Democracy in America". He speaks of the evolution of Christian democracies....

 

I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an unnumbrale multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is a stranger to the fate of the rest,- his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close to them, but sees them not; he touches them. but he feels them not; he exist but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.....

 

Thus, it (the tutlary power of government) every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.

 

After having thus sucessively take each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most originial minds and the most energetic charactrs cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom for by it to act, but they are constantly restreained from acting; such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nother better than a flock of imid and industrious anamils, of which the government is the shepherd.

 

I hope I am saying things politically correctly.:hihi: Like it isn't my words but what Tocqueville said, and we are not realizing this despotism are we? ;)