a teaching proposal
Overview
| John Muir's "everything is connected to everything else", like Isaac Newton's "every action has an equal an opposite reaction", seem widely known. Yet, the utterly pervasive consequences of these quotes' most central active factor — weight — go almost wholly unappreciated. Lack of appreciation for this basic concept makes our world, and all those who share it, suffer unnecessarily. |
| To redress a little of this ignorance, my multi-dimensional, mutually investigative course will delve into carefully approached lightness. Its goal is to show how lightness can become a universally positive experience, not just something useful for technology or lessening ecological impact, but how advantages reflect through art, literature, philosophy, music, and the rest of evanescent experience. |
|
|
|
Above, a lead-in
image of partially realized evolution, |
Aspects, in outline form
Introduction —
machines, and the place of weight and power —
leading to mathematical proofs of practical values for compassion
| The intellectual center will be illustrating how physics, art, and morality tie together in daily life, noting that this is not the physics of esoterica. No differential calculus is required, only basic arithmetic, and even for that there will be computer-assisted simplification, needing no x's and y's, but instead relationships built of words and visual concepts. |
| Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance will be an initial study source for the concept of quality, as part of why vehicles are such a useful focus for examination. Choosing not to use fossil fuels at all may be a better ideal, but much can be learned from how they work, and much can be bettered by choosing which conveyance to use when we "need" one. |
| Computer model building is not necessarily a complex art, but one whose decisions run through our lives. Formal models do not fail simply through "Garbage In Creates Garbage Out" [GI=GO]. What is chosen to be left out is as important as what goes in. Models' usefulness grows with their builders' effectiveness in tracing out all roots, analyzing which are the vital ones, but never forgetting the rest. Virtually all models do wind up being dependent on judgement calls for a few pivotal numbers, upon which results depend closely, balanced by their numerical outcomes are often being less important than the path relationships that they uncover. Knowing how to find these points can be valuable on many levels. |
| Models are a dynamic process, never completed, as we are not omniscent, but still useful to help those with power realize mistakes before they hurt all of us, and help the rest of us make more appropriate decisions. Appropriately designed and illustrated, they can help even the willfully ignorant begin to realize values they might not otherwise see. |
Problems —
negatives that are needed for understanding —
but will not be dwelt upon to excess
| Thresholds we have been approaching (or have passed) are not just rhetorical precipices. The speed we are approaching the fall(s) consistently is proportional to the total weight involved, including: |
| How total U.S. human-use energy flows now exceed net photosynthesis, with global climate instability (over-simply called "warming") becoming a just a leading symptom of system-level rebounds from energy wastefulness; |
| Killer SUVs and semi-trucks, symbolically and practically, as the most easy-to-recognize creators of consequences from excessive and unnecessary weight; |
| Soil erosion and salt buildup are among deeper and longer lasting costs, from heavily mechanized, distant-from-market agriculture; |
| Most biotechnology as brute force on the molecular scale, a self-replicating set of nightmares; |
| Species and ecosystem losses, including what went with the bison: |
| adaptations, soil, soil nutrients, and support species; |
| Human population numbers, and urban aggregation; |
| "Wilderness" as presently an unfortunate reminder that one cannot get away from the intrusions of wasteful use entirely--no place in the U.S. being free anymore of noxious fumes, overflights, other carry in noise, or star killing light |
| All of above are tied to key reasons why we have gone so wrong: |
| - (1) artificially cheap energy, which has avoiding passing on full social and environmental costs of use to either users or suppliers; |
- (2) lazy thought patterns from assuming that from seemingly getting away with what we have been doing so far, it can continue ad infinitum, and/or there are no better ways to accomplish the same goals.; |
| - (3) the misleading virtues of not changing, although we are in the midst of dynamic surroundings. |
Where we have gone towards right —
examples upon which more time will be devoted —
learning from the positive, there being already too much negative in the world
| Art - the simplicity of line is what captures the eye, and lasts - Minor White, "be still until the object of your attention affirms your presence" - design examples, from the web, museums, books, and my own photographs |
 |
|
Music |
| Poetry - the supreme example of the haiku, and its visual interfaces (e.g., Chinese wall hangings) |
| Philosophy -Scandinavian trespass concepts (disturbance of others or the land should limit land uses, not artificial "ownership" boundaries) -Viking redemption (doing right regardless of present or future rewards) |
| Formal "wilderness" reserves as a point for reflection and comparison, places without machines for individual sanity and beauty |
| Industry in General Moving to increased effectiveness and profits from doing anything both lighter and cleaner, at every step |
| 20th and 21st Century Inventions The flow of genuine progress from vacuum tube to transistor to computer chip to laptop and beyond |
| Sound reproduction - trying a set of headphones at the cost of good loudspeakers - less disturbance, less distortion and vice versa - the Klipschorn - 1 watt to produce 101 decibels in 1947, and still unexcelled, when sound should be shared - class E amplifiers (e.g., some designed by Carver), running cool to the touch - how the louder it is, the cleaner it has to be, with distortion closely related to energy waste |
| Building materials, insulation, and lighting - Frank Lloyd Wright, the next generation - the gothic cathedral, heavy seeming and rooted, but the openness came from lightening - pre-Perry Japan and the concept of beauty reflecting efficient function - the Shakers - the better Wright examples - our own space -- my home example, not fully evolved, but we're trying |
| Transportation's potential to be both fast and fun, if it would just
lighten up - reducing weight in cars as a consistent key to racing victories, and where and when that learning has emerged on the street - and on rail - e.g., the Japanese Bullet train, reflecting their ancient concept of what looks more beautiful is more functional, too, reaching more than 3 times the actual speed of American freeways, faster point to point than short-haul aircraft, with no injuries in 30 years (compare to highway carnage) - how, therefore, the potential for safety, comfort, and speed are inverse to the weight of the conveyance, both for users and surroundings |
|
Economic success of the Amish and medieval multicropping |
| Going into "outer" space - the only way out of the population growth dilemma (the Marshall Savage argument) - the importance of weight has always been especially visible (@$50,000+/kg to launch) - preliminary result: even the crude, chemically-driven, spectacular launching Apollo used less fuel per total passenger miles than the average auto or airplane - designs to get out there more efficiently tend to benefit down here as well [lighter computers started with NASA; their output has not just been "Tang", explosions, or another bureaucracy] |
In the end
|
Key internal goals —
course development
| - mentioning and discussing problems in sufficient detail to understand
their importance, but not dwelling excessively upon them - enough science and simple (really) math to buttress believability (and create questions appropriately directed for further study) - but presented in a more graphic and graspable fashion than remembered from most schools [including that numerical arguments will largely be placed inside brackets within texts, so they can be digested at leisure, as backup, or ignored completely if too frightening] - full translation (and hotlinks in digital text) of unfamiliar terms, with thorough indexing - backup referenced printed and digital materials that do not parrot spoken material, but parallel it in greater depth, including links to other sources of discussion and data - overall presentation cannot be linear, since all its parts are interconnected, but will be an upward spiral, with each turn building on the last and rest - content modifications can easily be made for specific group interests, since there are so many directions for emphases, hence, over time, discretely different versions should emerge |
Personal —
why I might be worth listening to, or looking to for guidance
| - Properly varied facets of education, formal—among the more obvious: chemistry (MS), physics, food science (PhD), systems engineering, computers, and ecology—and less formal including history, literature, psychology, music (from before Hildegard von Bingen to post-Björk), Tolkien and the Norse mythology behind his tales, science fiction, astronomy, meteorology, the practical mechanics of lighter cars, Pirsig, other Zen influences, photography, theater, and more, all with a wry sense of humor to keep the rest in perspective... |
 |