...Once
upon a time, ...in a galaxy far, far away
...Once
upon a time, ...in a galaxy far, far away
When I was a student, we had a visiting speaker once at the geological society meeting. An important fellow whose name I have forgotten, but I remember very clearly the old man who came very slowly into the room on his walking stick to sit in the front row, and who, after the meeting, said nothing and left. Ninety if he was a day. Our palaeontology lecturer, turned to us and said "That old fellow there, ..is (name: I never remembered it) ...he's come to hear the speaker. He was extremely bright in his day, and very highly thought of, but in his later years he went round the twist. He got this strange idea that the reasons ammonites and other shells spiral, and that the Earth rotates, are related. It was a great shame. He lost all credibility in the profession..".Strange to think of that, from the perspective of the present day,... how when young we believe in the certitude of knowledge. That's the tremendous advantage consensus has, and why there is security and certainty in what others generally believe. That in itself is the reason why consensus 'has to be right'. In youth we never question that. What is it then, that turns some people aside from the path and question that? Is it just sheer cussedness? No. It happens when we make a connection on a deeper level than just the intellectual. We make that connection through the power of analogy. We recognise that things are "just like", but "different" - the realisation that when Nature finds a successful way of doing something she keeps doing it over, ..and over, .. and over, in different, but similar, .. different/ similar, but similar/different ways.
Difference - yet similarity. It's the code we have to crack, and the dichotomy we continually have to weigh in all our dealings. The +ve and -ve of our neurological system equips us for making this balance. "Ratio". Ratio-ality. It's the highest functionality we have. It's the edge we walk every day, in the yes/ no of basic cognition, in the communication of speech and in body language. Children have it instinctively, and trust it, but we lose it as we grow up, as self-serving 'logic' takes over. We become less than rational. ... We become clever.
| "Children have this habit of thinking for themselves, and the point of education is to cure them of this habit" - Bertrand Russell |
| "I doubt whether classical education ever has been or can be successfully carried out without corporal punishment" - George Orwell |
(The Goodies, ... the Baddies... the Force)