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Quantum Thinking
See also:  [Q/T: Learning]
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Quantum Thinking

Intro

Several years back, Jim Leher (of PBS NewsHour fame) gave the 
commencement speech at SMU (Southern Methodist University; Dallas, Terra).
And one of the most important things that he said was something like:

   If as you come up to get your degree that you
   start thinking "I am now educated", then this
   is the worst thing that you can think. It's 
   better to say "Now i know how to learn".
    -- not an exact quote.

In the same way all of us chickens here in the "New Millenium" the
post-9/11-era, etc -- we need to be learning all of the time. I
don't want anyone reading this to think that we have all of the
answers -- we're still just looking and learning; and hopefully finding.

Part of QT is that it isn't just about the quantum but about all
ideas and realities and ways of looking at the world around us. 
There are lots of different ways to approach the same problem,
and part of the problem in the past is that we want to simplify
things down until we can get our hands around the problem and
then throttle the answer out of it. Sometimes that works great,
other times we end up with Chernobyl or even 9/11. 

We should use all of our resources to find things out; wisdom
past, present, and future.

For example:


       Politics and religion are dead; the time has 
       come for science and spirituality.
       -- Sri Jawaharlal Nehru [Nehru]


It's exactly this sort of "cross-current" thinking that's needed.
And Nehru wrote that back in 1962! As Dave and i have approached
this subject from totally different backgrounds - having pretty
much only art and jazz in common (well and the fact that we are
both ape-descended humans on the 3rd rock from the sun, etc, etc),
we both see the need for a course that at least *tries* to bring
together all of the ideas of modernism, art and technology, etc.

It's not something that's going to be easy - there's far too much
negativism in the first place. People still keep banging the rocks
together and the fact that it DOES (although sporadically) produces 
fire is used to justify NOT changing the ways things are done. At
least the realtively new (old?) idea of creating a bridge between
the arts and sciences is a good, strong step in the right direction
-- well, at least it IS a direction.

Onward! Into the fog!

-- Frank.

Bibliography


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