Dear Joe and ToKers, my son Daniel Torday is a well-recognized contemporary
American author. His latest novel, "Boomer1" will be released in September.
I have had the opportunity to read the Advanced Reader Copy, and find the
central premise- that there is interpersonal and social tension between
Baby Boomers and Millenials- of great concern, particularly as it relates
to the discussions we are having within the ToK community. I see us all
being 'victims' of our misunderstanding of the basic elements of life in
our ambiguous origins and use of deception to cope with them (at the risk
of repeating myself). Once it is understood that life is a 'gimmick', or
trick we play for circumventing the Laws of Nature, not unlike human flight
violating gravity, various otherwise dogmatic aspects of our existence
become clear- the significance of the unicellular state, both
phylogenetically and developmentally, i.e. why we return to the unicellular
state over the course of the life cycle in service to the newly-emerging
science of epigenetic inheritance; *why we are mortal*, but actually are
not, if we consider that we are 70-90% bacteria, which live on after we
'die' as what is referred to as the necrobiome; the fact that life exists
between determinism and probability; or how life accords with Quantum
Mechanics. IMHO we need to understand these fundamental aspects of life
before addressing how to fix things, or we'll just go on arguing about
epiphenomena/minutia, never getting to the actually root causes of personal
and social unrest and strife.
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 8:16 AM, Joseph Michalski <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Colleagues:
>
>
> Please see the attached article from my newly arrived July 2018 issue of *Scientific
> American*. The three main hurdles to clear scientific thinking they've
> identified are: 1) shortcuts to deal with cognitive overload; 2) the
> well-know issue of confirmation bias; and 3) social goals (or what we refer
> to as influence as part of Gregg's J-I-I argument). I share the article for
> a few reasons.
>
>
> First, it's great to see a broad swath of the academic community (at least
> the psychologists and the research cited) largely reaching similar
> conclusions about cognitive biases - and how the work aligns with much of
> Gregg's framing and what I've been reading of others on our list-serv.
> Gregg and I have attempted to joke, with some irony, that we hope we're not
> just creating our own "echo chambers" and exercising our own "confirmation
> biases" by agreeing too much. Every group needs the outliers to help keep
> us honest!
>
>
> Second, I've mentioned before (using my own siblings in part as exemplars)
> the problem of discussing issues and struggling to be fair-minded,
> 'objective,' and receptive to alternative viewpoints, new info, etc. And
> yet the academy itself has been increasingly under attack in recent years
> as "liberal re-education camps" and "close-minded" by not embracing
> alternative viewpoints or shutting down speakers, especially on the
> right-wing end of the political spectrum, who challenge "liberal orthodoxy"
> or may be skeptical of any claims-making from university professors --
> scientific or otherwise. Nancy commented in part on this issue a couple of
> weeks ago in a quite insightful way. I'm thinking that the issue is
> actually much broader in the sense that these issues affect all of us, both
> inside and outside of academia. It's not simply a matter of any of us being
> "experts" in our fields or far more knowledgeable about the "facts" and
> "scientific evidence" in regard to our specialties. All knowledge has a
> relational component too, i.e., depends upon the social location of the
> actors relative to each other in combination with the cultural sources of
> justification systems invoked. This explains in large measure, in my view,
> the rise of the "alternative facts" and "fake news" critiques that have
> gained such popularity.
>
>
> Finally, note too the fact that our researches across the many fields
> within the academy -- but especially in the social sciences and humanities
> -- gradually have chipped away or at least provided insights about the
> standard forms of knowledge and justification systems that have helped
> certain groups to maintain their power and privilege for many generations
> (and across cultures). If I show you the lead article from the
> well-respected journal *Criminology* last month (which confirms something
> I've hypothesized about for years) showing the adverse effects of early
> childhood exposure to lead for healthy brain development and some adverse
> behavioral outcomes, then how does one "receive" and "interpret" that
> information? What are the implications for even something as basic as
> "equality of opportunity" for youngsters who grow up with high lead
> exposure in their environments, to say nothing of the many other factors
> that affect their "life chances" simply because they grow up in a certain
> neighborhood or attended woefully under-resourced schools or a thousand
> other factors beyond their control? Back to the article and the various
> mechanisms that we use to simplify the whole darn thing. I'm thinking a la
> Colonel Jessup's famous quote in *A Few Good Men*: "You can't handle the
> truth!" Can any of us? 😎 Best regards, -Joe
>
>
> Dr. Joseph H. Michalski
>
> Associate Academic Dean
>
> King’s University College at Western University
>
> 266 Epworth Avenue
>
> London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3
>
> Tel: (519) 433-3491, ext. 4439
>
> Fax: (519) 433-0353
>
> Email: [log in to unmask]
>
> ______________________
>
> *ei*Ï€ + 1 = 0
>
>
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