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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Academia * 2
    #26375075 - 12/11/19 01:24 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

One of the serious problems I have with our modern academic institutions is the degree of such extreme specialization and narrowness of focus. I am a great lover of knowledge and of sailing the seas of the search for truth, but when you’re so focused in that you’re composing libraries about one proton in one water molecule of those seas, I have to wonder how much perspective is being abandoned for what are really expedient purposes.

What are your own views on academia? Is there something worthwhile going on, or is it just a capitalist machine? When I was there, and with every contact I’ve had with it since then, it has just seemed like a well-oiled mechanism primarily benefiting business and industry, and not the student in any meaningful way at all. I learned very little of value when I was there. Granted, I am more critical than the average student, but still, it’s accurate, and my school is not unusual. In fact, they’re all pretty much the same. I know many people would disagree with this, and that is unsurprising.

So do you feel there is an honest search for truth at these places? That students are learning the things that really matter? That these places really are stimulating, liberal environments? Because everything I see indicates they are not, if they in fact were at some time in the past.



Quote:

"I visit and I see that prisons and schools are baby-sitting institutions so that we don't glut the labor market.  A lot of what is being taught as Western education is a total, phony hype, as everybody knows.  It has nothing to do with anything.  It's initiation rites, so you can play ball in the big league park, which has nothing necessarily to do with any great payoff."  --Richard Alpert/Ram Dass




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InvisibleYellow Pants
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Re: Academia [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26375183 - 12/11/19 02:22 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

I think you pretty much nailed it.  To some extent academia/education is in the eye of the beholder but taking a step back it seems the typical institutions are geared towards capitalism for better or worse.  Obviously it costs money to go get a higher education and so there is inherently a substantial economic variable.  Unless a person is fortunate which typically means elite academically in high school or “covered” by parents who themselves utilized the same economic system to their advantage when they were younger a person is forced to either go to school for career/economic reasons or suffer a massive debt to study something that likely could of been pursued for free.  Knowledge for the sake of knowledge therefore will come at a ridiculous price.


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OfflineCountHTML
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Re: Academia [Re: Yellow Pants] * 1
    #26375233 - 12/11/19 02:53 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

I think the value of college has grown since middle and high school education has eroded. More broadly, education is rarely approached or understood in context. The core, or heart of education is igniting the mind and a lifelong search of enlightenment and continual refinement of epistemology and worldview. We have an extraordinarily utilitarian view of education; basically, it is a means to an end of finding a job. Basically, we miss the point. Standardized testing has been a disaster.

Education must have a core, a soul.

As far as academia is concerned, I’d only go to graduate school or pursue a PhD. if I had a reason for doing so, or a goal in mind which requires the specialization. I think there is value in this hyper specialization but only when it is not in something specious or one of the areas of pseudo knowledge emerging now in the social sciences.

Academia is largely a soulless, rigid monolith and is not required to ignite the mind. One good teacher or professor can do that. We need to let good teachers do their jobs, stop stressing them out and, for gods sake, pay them more.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Academia [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26375485 - 12/11/19 04:30 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

Yellow Pants said:
I think you pretty much nailed it.  To some extent academia/education is in the eye of the beholder but taking a step back it seems the typical institutions are geared towards capitalism for better or worse.  Obviously it costs money to go get a higher education and so there is inherently a substantial economic variable.  Unless a person is fortunate which typically means elite academically in high school or “covered” by parents who themselves utilized the same economic system to their advantage when they were younger a person is forced to either go to school for career/economic reasons or suffer a massive debt to study something that likely could of been pursued for free.  Knowledge for the sake of knowledge therefore will come at a ridiculous price.





Yes, education for its own sake is, seemingly, a thing of the past. Does anyone honestly go to college anymore looking to get a well-rounded, liberal education? Are there any of these people left? All that really means anymore, in the eyes of the public, is that that person does not want a well-paying job. It's all in terms of money. This is where "education" has come.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Academia [Re: CountHTML]
    #26375508 - 12/11/19 04:39 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

CountHTML said:
I think the value of college has grown since middle and high school education has eroded. More broadly, education is rarely approached or understood in context. The core, or heart of education is igniting the mind and a lifelong search of enlightenment and continual refinement of epistemology and worldview. We have an extraordinarily utilitarian view of education; basically, it is a means to an end of finding a job. Basically, we miss the point. Standardized testing has been a disaster.

Education must have a core, a soul.

As far as academia is concerned, I’d only go to graduate school or pursue a PhD. if I had a reason for doing so, or a goal in mind which requires the specialization. I think there is value in this hyper specialization but only when it is not in something specious or one of the areas of pseudo knowledge emerging now in the social sciences.

Academia is largely a soulless, rigid monolith and is not required to ignite the mind. One good teacher or professor can do that. We need to let good teachers do their jobs, stop stressing them out and, for gods sake, pay them more.





Very good posts by the both of you. I think you hit a lot of high notes, Count. What was it Einstein said? If any curiosity is left after one's schooling it's a miracle, something like that. Our academic institutions definitely, certainly do not "ignite the mind" -- I don't think they even say they try to anymore. If you manage to learn how to learn when you are young, you're lucky, because you are the only person who will be teaching you thenceforward. Schools don't facilitate it much these days, as you point out.

I agree that, as a self-serving expedient, graduate school can be useful if some applicable field makes one passionate. On the other hand, Ph.D.s are proliferating so much these days that in a few years' time, even these degrees won't be worth much. I guess it goes back to that Ram Dass quote in my original post, to the effect that the whole thing is basically a valve for the economy. Without all this institutional rigmarole, the job market would be flooded and they'd have to invent some other mechanism.


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OfflineCountHTML
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Re: Academia [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26375647 - 12/11/19 05:50 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

I think it’s an extension of the idea of “people as mere economic inputs.” Starting from grade school kids are being conditioned, identified and tracked based on their aptitude to do certain kinds of work. Psycho-emotional well-being is of little concern, let alone attempting to inspire them. College, when I was in high school, was touted as necessary to even have a future. They failed to emphasize trade schools and the like.

The humanities, at their best, seem to ignite really well. For me it was always English teachers. I think this can then carry over into other fields, sciences and the like. I don’t think it’s a lack of discipline that kids deal with, but a lack of passion and inspiration.

The loss of any mind is a tragedy, and our education system fails on the regular. We fail to connect kids to that joy and the non-foreclosing process of gaining knowledge and wisdom. Kind of going off the topic of college but I think it’s loosely relevant considering that I believe high school, done right, should provide someone with everything they need educationally.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Academia [Re: CountHTML] * 1
    #26375867 - 12/11/19 07:24 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Well indeed, learning, in a healthy individual, ought to be considered one of the highest goods and most rewarding pursuits in life. As you point out, minds are lost, and I think this routinely leads to a situation in which people don't ever read a book again.

That's an interesting point about high school. I had never really thought about that before. But I suppose you're right. If the system had integrity from the bottom up, and could engage pupils on every level of their being, then I think after twelve grades they should be prepared for whatever follows. But then, as I pointed out, the whole apparatus by which the economy regulates its job applicants would be absent, and we would have a scenario in which some whole other arbitrary set of hoops would have to be constructed, which we would be discussing in a related thread in an alternate universe.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Academia [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26376064 - 12/11/19 08:49 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

it is a stage, and you get to write your own lines.
excel - do your best - see where it goes.

I have kicked myself for not staying with it longer, I grew critical too soon. I did not realize they were waiting for me to tell them how to do it better.

they are still waiting


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OfflineLoaded Shaman
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Re: Academia [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #26376383 - 12/12/19 01:14 AM (4 years, 2 months ago)

The problem with academia is propaganda and narratives are pushed as information and knowledge, when they are the furthest thing from it.

Conditioning versus understanding.


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"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." — Confucius


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Academia [Re: Loaded Shaman]
    #26376581 - 12/12/19 06:30 AM (4 years, 2 months ago)

is that not a problem in all things?
even within great musical bands, the battles of attitudes are endless.


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OfflineCountHTML
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Re: Academia [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26377349 - 12/12/19 02:19 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

We are not objective creatures. Education should help us correct for this by broadening our context and helping us check our assumptions. The proliferation of pseudo knowledge in the humanities departments right now is a terrible thing and a great disservice.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Academia [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26377366 - 12/12/19 02:27 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Re: DQ

I'm sure in a general sense you are correct that such institutions are flawed.
Perhaps it is up to the individual, to make use of them, rather than the other way around.

The great expense that a lot of scientific research requires, and the fact that universities are where the other people are that know how to use the complicated equipment, and most of the other smart people in any given science field are, that are willing to teach -- however makes them indispensable as regards science.

I suspect that all or most of the names in quantum research are university associated guys.

That new paradigms are often resisted, is most likely partly the fault of academia and partly the the fault of human ego. As we see it in medicine & possibly other fields as well.


Edited by laughingdog (12/12/19 02:29 PM)


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Invisiblenooneman
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Re: Academia [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26377371 - 12/12/19 02:31 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Our modern civilization would not exist without academia. We'd still be living much as people were 3000 years ago. All of the things upon which our modern lifestyles depend came about because of academia.

Take chemistry for example. Chemistry is the basis for computers, cars, and photography to name just a few, and we wouldn't know jack shit about it without chemistry journals and university trained chemists and researchers who have for hundreds of years been working very hard to create what we have now.

Even the renaissance has roots in Plato's academy. Even artistically, our modern civilization came about through academia.

Our understanding of civil engineering comes from university trained engineers and scientists who gained knowledge through experiments and published that knowledge in scholarly journals. That knowledge was in turn based on knowledge of math which required university trained mathematicians and math researchers who published their findings in scholarly journals which influenced the engineers. Without civil engineering, we wouldn't have modern cities, sky scrapers, bridges, sewers, etc. etc.

Almost all of the great thinkers and inventors in human history went to a university for some amount of time at some point in their lives. Many were extremely well educated and had high level degrees.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Academia [Re: nooneman]
    #26377475 - 12/12/19 03:17 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Re: The above two posts:

I am not saying the university system isn't necessary. I'm saying it's deeply flawed. Naturally, science could not exist without it. But if the whole thing has been co-opted by capitalism, and it's really all about money, then the whole concept of getting a liberal education is degraded to the point of nonexistence. And I feel that is a tremendous problem.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Academia [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26377663 - 12/12/19 04:45 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Science news, is the main news I read.
I find it interesting. This news is of course about research done by university educated, and/or funded people.
I find most of the other news not worth much attention.
Much of it is irrelevant, or sad, as far as I am concerned.

It is just a personal preference.

Your milage may vary.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Academia [Re: laughingdog]
    #26377669 - 12/12/19 04:50 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

My Dad was a professor, I imagine he would have agreed with you re: " ... the whole concept of getting a liberal education is degraded to the point of nonexistence."

And the state of our government & country certainly shows that the populace is not educated enough to think critically.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Academia [Re: laughingdog]
    #26377793 - 12/12/19 06:27 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

laughingdog said:
Science news, is the main news I read.
I find it interesting. This news is of course about research done by university educated, and/or funded people.
I find most of the other news not worth much attention.
Much of it is irrelevant, or sad, as far as I am concerned.

It is just a personal preference.

Your milage may vary.





I'm exactly the same way. I read science articles. I have turned off all other forms of news media. No use bothering myself with it.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Academia [Re: laughingdog]
    #26377796 - 12/12/19 06:29 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Quote:

laughingdog said:
My Dad was a professor, I imagine he would have agreed with you re: " ... the whole concept of getting a liberal education is degraded to the point of nonexistence."

And the state of our government & country certainly shows that the populace is not educated enough to think critically.





It's a bad snowball effect. If our educational system is all about the job, then no one is really getting educated.


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OfflineRJ Tubs 202
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Re: Academia [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26378644 - 12/13/19 07:51 AM (4 years, 2 months ago)

Our educational system is much more focused on memorizing information than teaching the skills to think and learn independently. I believe it's much more important for a teenager to learn critical thinking skills and how to identify logical fallacies than who the 23rd president was, or what natural resources Norway exports.


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OfflineOldnameforgotten
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Re: Academia [Re: RJ Tubs 202]
    #26379464 - 12/13/19 03:13 PM (4 years, 2 months ago)

When did we decide that schooling was the cause of lack of interest in intellectual pursuits?


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