emergence
Dance is hard to see ... the purest form of knowledge?
Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 1:06pmA month ago I spent several hours watching an opening session in the development of the dance piece "Dance is Hard to See," and talking with choreographer Kathryn Tebordo and the dancers about what I had seen and what dance was, or might be, all about. "Dance is the purest form of knowledge" emerged from that conversation, which was a rich experience for me, one I have been mulling ever since. I'm very much looking forward to this coming Sunday's performance of "Dance is Hard to See," to seeing how it has evolved and talking more with Kathryn, the performers, and other audience members about, among other things, what it says about what dance is (see
Cell death, human death, and evolution
Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Sat, 10/10/2009 - 12:38pm"The quest for eternal life, or at least prolonged youthfulness, has now migrated from the outer fringes of alternative medicine to the halls of Harvard Medical School" ... Quest for a long life gains scientific respect
I wonder if the involved researchers at the Harvard Medical School and elsewhere are paying any attention to the broader implications of related research
Learning to live in/as an evolving system
Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Sat, 10/10/2009 - 11:37amPaul Krugman's The Politics of Spite is focused on a small issue (current Republican party practices) but speaks importantly to a much more general one, the use in politics of "scorched-earth tactics." So too with a recent news article: Another Landlord Worry: Is the Elevator Kosher? Describing a current controversy about shabbas practices, it quotes a New Yorker as saying “Just because there is one opinion doesn’t mean that it is everyone’s opinion. One of the wonderful things about Judaism is that there are competing opinions about everything.”
Multiple worlds, multiple interpretations: quantum physics and the brain
Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Tue, 09/22/2009 - 10:48amVery interesting seminar last night by Guy Blaylock on the multiple worlds interpretation of quantum physics. Nice example of the principle that a given set of empirical observations is always subject to multiple interpretations, ie that there is always a perspectival or "subjective" element in scientific stories. And an interesting dissection of reasons for preferring one or another several stories, a dissection that might in turn lead to some new stories.
Bio 103, Lecture/Discussion Notes
Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 9:37am| Biology 103, Fall, 2009, Bryn Mawr College |
Bio 103, Schedule
Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 4:35pm
|
Date |
Lecture/Discussion Session |
Lab Session |
Evolving Systems: August 2009 Core Group Meeting
The Emergence of Form, Meaning, and Aesthetics
August 18, 2009 Core Group Meeting
Background, Summary,
and Continuing Discussion
Background (Paul's version):
Evolving Systems and Education
Teaching Shamanism:
A Conversation About Education, the Unconscious and Stories,
Community Dynamics, and Life
The Taoist Story Teller and Culture: Do We Still Need Truth, Reality, and/or God?
The 2009 Metanexus meeting, plane rides to/from Phoenix reading Raymond Smullyan's The Tao is Silent and Ann Harrington's The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine, conversations last week with Bharath Vallabha (see Truth and Power in Education), Alice Lesnick, and Ben Olshin, and discussions in our K-12 summer institutes all seem to bear on the above question(s), and suggest an interesting approach to them.
