Determinism is an ages old debate in philosophy involving deep elements of freewill and morality. Now Artificial Intelligence has raised the debate to a different, if not a new, level. While we struggle to understand the human mind and the brain-body functions of ourselves and our domestic and laboratory animals, what is being done with…
A strategy of doing is a planetary imperative because each human being is contributing to changes in earth’s physical and political ecology. Too much of what we are doing, individually and collectively, is not sustainable. We are part of a community and that is our ecology; the place where we interact with ever changing relationships….
Years end and years begin. Eternity is always just around the corner. But the exciting element of existence is that there is always another corner with new expectations. I hope that 2019 will be better for you than all the rest. The future awaits and will emerge. May it meet all of your expectations. I…
The following post was first posted: Friday, September 19th, 2014 – Volume 10; Number 39 Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground. Theodore Roosevelt Civic Responsibility “The Roosevelts” aired on PBS this past week providing fascinating insights about a family that looked past its great wealth and accepted civic responsibility…
Genetic engineering has been with humanity for longer than anyone can imagine. What is now becoming increasingly clear is that engineering new life forms will require more than mere manipulation of what we think we know about genes and the proteins they make. Life is never simple at any level from molecules to ecosystems. A…
June and July have seen an effort to complete a draft of a book on education. Hence no essays posted to this blog since May. The draft was put to bed on July 31. My intent for the month of August is to make an intense effort to revise the draft. The paragraphs below tell…
This morning I began reading a long known but neglected book about education. My beginnings have included the book’s introductions by scholars and contemporary friends of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian intellectual giant who died in 1997 after writing from experience or Praxis of teaching in South America and being both jailed and ostracized. Not many…
The Planetary Imperative came into forcus today when I opened www.raingarden.com to figure out what to do with a URL that has been a disappointment, though with much potential, for nearly 20 years. It has been retitled “Lucrative Website For Sale.” Rain Gardens will hardly save the Earth, but restricting water runoff is a step…
Education Reform has been a long way in coming to American schools. Unfortunately almost nobody seems to realize that the problem with education may just be the schools. We try to continue doing what we have always been doing for better than two centuries and expecting better results. It may be time to try something…
