Robert A Heinlein Birth Centennial--A Bold Author in a Timid World

Robert A Heinlein was a prolific author who left a legacy in writing and endowment. For many readers here, Heinlein was too far before their time (born 7 July 1907, died 1988) to have been exposed to very much of what he wrote. For you, there is the book navigator pulldown menu, for brief synopses of most of his novels.

I had the privilege of hearing Heinlein speak shortly before he died. Although he had undergone surgery for occluded carotid arteries, and was nearly 80 years old, his mind was crystal clear and his voice was strong. It was fitting that Heinlein's mind was sharp at the end of his life, after a brief interlude of carotid vascular insufficiency. He was able to make the farewell tour and appreciate how much he was admired, respected, and loved.

Heinlein was one of the first authors I read, when I started reading science fiction. Along with Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Poul Anderson, Heinlein introduced me to the far imaginings and possibilities of speculative fiction--fictional worlds with no boundaries but science.

Heinlein was not afraid to face his critics, who were typically people who did not want to learn from another person's experience. When Heinlein stood before a large crowd during the Vietnam War era and declared "there will always be war," he was soundly booed, and branded a fascist by psychologically neotenous mind-children yet to experience real life. Naturally, Heinlein was able to take their measure and place their criticism where it belonged.

Heinlein was controversial and bold. He spoke his mind and stayed around to confront anyone who wanted to debate ideas reasonably, based upon logic, science and history. Most of his critics were not up to the task, but rather sniped at him from a safe distance. Unfortunately, it was these cowardly critics and their like who took over most of the universities and still control them today--still smothering campus atmosphere with lockstep PC oppressiveness.

My favourite RAH novels include Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Citizen of the Galaxy, and Tunnel In the Sky.

[Tunnel In the Sky] is the story of a High School graduating class's final examination. Course 410 is an elective senior seminar called Advanced Survival, and the students must successfully complete (i.e., survive) the final field exam to pass. Rod Walker and his classmates receive 24 hours notice to prepare themselves before being blindly transported to an unspecified planet, with unspecified climate and terrain -- and unknown hazards. At moments reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, this is a must read, really!

Tunnel In the Sky is similar to Alexei Panshin's "Rite of Passage." It is true that the "rite of passage" theme is used in science fiction frequently, which is one reason that I favour using science fiction as reading material for young teens--the scientific constraints of good science fiction teach logical thinking, and the frequent use of teenaged characters placed in trying circumstances allows SF to entertain teens as it educates.

Citizen of the Galaxy is another good example of Heinlein's use of the "rite of passage."

Citizen is an impassioned plea for life-long education. In many of Heinlein's books, a principal character is portrayed over time, beginning in relative ignorance, learning from experience, receiving the benefits of tutelage from an authoritative source, and then using those teachings to resolve subsequent problems. A formula, but one that works very well, repeatedly, in the hands of this master story teller.

Citizen portrays this young man's education in four stages: a disenfranchised child tutored by a man of wisdom, an adolescent in an artificial space-faring culture that may prefigure tomorrow, a young recruit in the Guard, and an unwilling adult but youthful player in economic, social, political, and legal machinations that clearly satirize 20th Century America's corporate civilization.

Heinlein's life is the antithesis of psychological neoteny. He took responsibility for himself and his ideas, and proceeded to find his forte` and pursue it without apology. He left his critics in the dust, forgotten. One of the lessons of his life is that anyone who chooses can do the same.

I Am Legend

This is the classic science fiction film "Last Man on Earth" starring Vincent Price, based on the book by fine multi-genre author Richard Matheson "I Am Legend."

The last human being living on an Earth now populated by zombie/vampires, Dr. Robert Morgan forces himself to go about his daily life. If you want to know why a wood lathe is a primary tool for survival for Dr. Morgan, watch the film.

Hat tip to a cute girl blogger with a lot of spirit and drive.

The End of Schools!

The futurist Da Vinci Institute has been working on a detailed report on the future of education for the past 18 months, using several thousand man hours, expert interviews, and various intensive techniques.

“We have identified 12 critical dimensions of the future learning system. However, only the first two need to be in place for the revolution to begin,” says [Thomas] Frey.

The conclusions have been expanded into a 20-page report that will be presented in detail ...[it] will explain the following:

1. * The dramatic shift will happen outside our existing education systems sometime within the next two years
2. * It will be greeted by many with open arms, welcomed by most inside our existing education system, but will eventually cause new systems to develop, and schools as we know them today will cease to exist within ten years. Their replacement will be far better
3. * This new system will be able to unlock the hidden potential within us, creating a new grade of human beings - human beings 2.0.
4. * It has the potential to increase the speed of learning ten-fold, and many will be able to complete the entire K-12 curriculum within one year.
5. * People graduating from the equivalent of high school or college in the future will be a factor of ten times smarter than graduates today

Source

Those are extremely optimistic predictions, given the dismal trends in education in the US generally. I cannot help but agree that any improvements that occur will have to come from outside the current system.

Da Vinci's Thomas Frey is generally optimistic about the future--not just the future of education. But he does not expect everything to change immediately.

Typically, Frey says, it takes time—a quarter-century or so—for new technology to take hold and be accepted. So it’s likely that the next big thing, whether in medicine, transportation or some other arena, already has been invented.

He notes patents filed with the U.S. Patent Office have reached record numbers in recent years. “Knowing that a certain percentage of those filings are cutting-edge technology, and knowing that it takes an entire generation for this to take off, we’re in for one hell of a ride,” he says.

Source

The new report on Education will be unveiled March 27th in Denver. Contact the Da Vinci Institute for information on attending.

Alternative educational curricula such as the Montessori Method or the Garcia Curriculum, focus on teaching of procedural knowledge--sometimes in preference to didactic knowledge. Such an emphasis is important in creating a sense of competence and self-efficacy in children. Only by doing that, will children build a healthy sense of self-esteem and comfidence in meeting the world on their own terms.

Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation 2.0" Free Download!

Eric Drexler's classic book on Nanotechnology is now out in version 2.0. It is available as a free download from Wowio. The new version includes updated information from Drexler as well as material from the famous Drexler--Smalley debates.

"Some seminal works stand out like beacons in the history of science. Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" and Watson and Crick's "A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" come quickly to mind. In recent decades we can add Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation," which established the revolutionary new field of nanotechnology. In the twenty years since this seminal work was published, its premises and analyses have been confirmed and we are starting to apply precise molecular assembly to a wide variety of early applications from blood cell sized devices that can target cancer cells to a new generation of efficient solar panels. We can now see clearly the roadmap over the next couple of decades to the full realization of Drexler's concept of the inexpensive assembly of macro objects constructed at the nanoscale controlled by massively parallel information processes, the fulfillment of which will enable us to solve problems -- energy, environmental degradation, poverty, and disease to name a few -- that have plagued humankind for eons."

-- Ray Kurzweil, inventor, and author of The Singularity is Near, When Humans Transcend Biology

from the Wowio description of EOC 2.0.

Check out other free downloads from Wowio "Free Books, Free Minds."


Hat tip Advanced Nano.

Developing Competence in Children--John David Garcia and the Moral Society

Is it possible to create a system of education that encourages children to develop to their potential? Can children learn to be competent and responsible, as well as learned? What type of educational and para-educational curriculum could best make use of the child's innate intelligence, while also instilling positive character traits and an emotional competence that would serve the child's well-being for the entire lifetime?

Many attempts have been made to improve on the failed model of education currently being practised by government schools. Montessori, the Waldorf System, the system developed by Glenn Doman (IAHP), homeschool curricula, and many others.

The most impressive "open source" curriculum I have seen, is the one developed by the late John David Garcia, an inventor/philosopher who spent his last years in Oregon promoting the creation of a moral and ethical society. Garcia's curriculum is built around the Physical World (theory and practice), the Biological world (theory and practice), the Psychosocial World (theory and practice), and the Integrative world in theory and practice.

The theory behind Garcia's educational curriculum is more broadly elucidated in this chapter of the online book, Creative Transformation. A child could be introduced to this curriculum at any age from 3 to 90, whenever deemed ready by the instructors. It is most important in young children to develop a sense of competence in meeting the world. A genuine sense of competence can only be developed by teaching the child effective tools--both internal and external.

It is important to present alternative educational pathways to parents--particularly those who are concerned about the quality of mass production government education. Longtime readers of this blog may recognize most of the ideas in this post from an earlier article dated over a year ago. It is vital to present these useful alternatives over and over again.

Psychological neoteny is rampant in western societies, due to parents, schools, and society in general, which all neglect the development of character and competence in children. The problem is a type of societal rot, and will not get better on its own.

Update: For a fascinating glimpse of the difficulties and rewards of instituting an intentional articulated curriculum into a public charter school, read this account from a high school humanities teacher.

Update2: Here is a real gift: a free online book describing in detail the Montessori curriculum from ages 3 to 12, written by a Montessori instructor. Definitely worth the price of a mouse click.

Kurzweil Predicts Human Immortality

At the recent SCO6 supercomputing conference, Ray Kurzweil predicted human immortality by way of nanomedicine, and more. "Nanobots" in our bloodstreams will repair cellular and tissue damage as fast as it occurs. Affordable computers will be a thousand times more powerful than a human brain . . . Kurzweil clearly believes in "singularity now!"

According to Kurzweil, here's what we can expect in the not-so-distant future:

—Doctors will be doing a backup of our memories by the late 2030s;

—By the late 2020s, doctors will be sending intelligent bots, or nanobots, into our bloodstreams to keep us healthy, and into our brains to keep us young;

—In 15 years, human longevity will be greatly extended. By the 2020s, we'll be adding a year of longevity or more for every year that passes;

—In the same timeframe, we'll routinely be in virtual reality environments. Instead of making a cell call, we could "meet" someone in a virtual world and take a walk on a virtual beach and chat. Business meetings and conference calls will be held in calming or inspiring virtual locations;

—When you're walking down the street and see someone you've met before, background information about that person will pop up on your glasses or in the periphery of your vision;

—Instead of spending hours in front of a desktop machine, computers will be more ingrained in our environment. For instance, computer monitors could be replaced by projections onto our retinas or on a virtual screen hovering in the air;

—Scientists will be able to rejuvenate all of someone's body tissues and organs by transforming their skin cells into youthful versions of other cell types;

—Need a little boost? Kurzweil says scientists will be able to regrow our own cells, tissues, and even whole organs, and then introduce them into our bodies, all without surgery. As part of what he calls the "emerging field of rejuvenation medicine," new tissue and organs will be built out of cells that have been made younger;

—Got heart trouble? No problem, says Kurzweil. "We'll be able to create new heart cells from your skin cells and introduce them into your system through the bloodstream. Over time, your heart cells get replaced with these new cells, and the result is a rejuvenated, young heart with your own DNA";

Source.

Kurzweil as author, is an example of an uber-synthesist. He sifts through mountains of information to find technology trends. He predicts the future, without bothering to have tongue in cheek.

His biological predictions may even be timid, but Kurzweil's predictions of nanotech healers and machine super-cognition may be more than a little optimistic--from his point of view.

Humans are certainly not ready for super-intelligence, and computers have no point of reference. Human intelligence is based on emotions, which are based on biological survival drives. Computers have nothing similar to build on, other than (anthropomorphizing alert!) an unconscious "need" for electricity, more memory, and faster processors. As soon as computers begin to understand the need for speed and power, we may all be in trouble. Computers are not bound by billions of years of kludgy evolution--they can evolve exponentially.

So it comes down to: how soon can engineers/scientists build emotions and drives into computers--computers with actuators and power to act in the physical world? Because that is when Kurzweilian things start happening. Only computers can program massively parallel computers. They simply need a good reason to do so.

Kurzweil uncharacteristically provides a caveat: terrorists may learn to use this advanced technology. But more realistically, modern terrorists would like nothing more than to take human societies back to the stone age, where merely talking about Kurzweil's predictions would get your head chopped off.

Cross-posted at Al Fin Longevity.

A Curriculum

Here is a curriculum to ponder. Beginning at age three, and proceeding to age sixteen, this curriculum is conceptually broad and intellectually challenging. Tucked within this chapter of an obscure online book, this curriculum lays the foundation for the type of student who could create the groundwork for the next level.

The Montessori Method is another attempt to create a complete education. Waldorf schooling is another well known approach. Another provider of innovative curricula is Glenn Doman's IAHP in Philadelphia.

Many intelligent and innovative homeschoolers have created a wide array of curricula with some success. Many people will mix and match various curricula to meet the needs of their children. Reviews for some homeschooling curricula can be found at the above link.

Over the years, much effort has gone into creating a truly evolutionary educational method that will bypass the fetid morass of government education. Government education as practiced today, on the other hand, represents the devolution of humankind to primitive level status. It is a race to see whether evolution or devolution will win. The governments of the developed world are putting their power and prestige into promoting devolution. Nothing illustrates the innate corrupting force of large government more than this travesty.

In the end, this is the best curriculum I have seen, for the purposes of trying to achieve the next level through education. It should be clear that I do not think education alone will suffice. Nevertheless, properly designed education opens the doors much wider for more of the newer generations. Next question: where are the teachers who could teach this curriculum?

Where did the curriculum come from? From an inventor-philosopher named John David Garcia. I have mentioned JDG briefly in a previous post, and will probably be referring to him and his work in the future. I was fortunate enough to meet him and spend a few days in his home discussing his ideas and our mutual interests, while he was still relatively strong.

John David Garcia's books are online, freely available. They should be of interest to anyone with a desire to create a more rational and harmonious society.