Dear Tihamer,

Thank you for taking the time to read my essay, and for your comments. You certainly raise a lot of valid issues with the idea of education helping humanity steer the future: the challenge of making people value education (especially about "difficult" topics that deal with the issues we will have to face in the future), and the challenge of making sure that we teach the "right thing". I agree with you on both counts.

Your solutions are interesting: working towards a semantic "intelligent" web that can help us make the right decisions against our weak willpower, and the need to diversify off planet. I also agree that the optimal "21st century attitude" should be a blend of realistic optimism and a willingness to "work smart" to make things happen. Here's to the future!

Marc

One aspect of the future is not hard to predict. The technological systems provide goods and services to society by irreversibly using up limited natural material resources, producing immutable material waste and irrevocably devastating aspects of the environment. These systems are aging as friction does negative work on them. The service they provide is unsustainable.The challenge is on for humanity to steer the future usage of this infrastructure using the knowledge that has been acquired.

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Dear Marc,

I totally agree with your ideas and conclusions. Need to make a revolution in Education, especially in school. Need to educate primarily creators thinking about the future of Humanity. The system «Futurocentric Education» must necessarily widely introduce Philosophy and Ethics. Right you mark the need for change in mathematics education. Basis of mathematical education should be the principle of historicity and visibility. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." (Albert Einstein) «The truth should be drawn with the help of the cognitive computer visualization technology and should be presented to" an unlimited circle "of spectators in the form of color-musical cognitive images of its immanent essence.» (Alexander Zenkin «Scientific Counter-Revolution in Mathematics»). Information Era is "The era of people with mathematical mind"(Yuri Milner). "Shut up and calculate" any more won't pass, it is necessary to pass to "Understand and quickly calculate ". The Future requires an understanding and accurate calculation. I invite you to comment on and appreciate my essay.

High regard,

Vladimir

    Marc,

    Having had rating problems with my Firefox browser and with some 5 days remaining, I am revisiting essay I've read to see if rated. I find that I rated yours on 5/21.

    Have you had a chance to read and comment on mine?

    Jim

    Vladimir,

    Thank you for taking the time to read my essay. I am glad to hear that you agree with me that we should refocus education to leave more place for thinking about the future of humanity. I agree that "understand and quickly calculate" (with the help, if necessary, of powerful free math software such as Wolfram Alpha) should be the main goal of math education.

    I will comment on your essay on your forum.

    Marc

    Michael,

    I accept your challenge! :)

    I posted my review of your essay on your forum.

    Marc

    Dear Marc Seguin

    You succeeded to write very original essay about proposed topic.

    I agree that knowledge about future is important and that it is fine that it is united into one school subject. But, it is not easy to motivate people that they will accept this learning besides all other learning. But it will be fine to incorporate it to the other school subjects.

    One are of nearer future are electric cars. It can be presented to people, how cleaner would be cities, how healthier and nicer would be life with electric vehicles in majority. I think that larger interest given by such presentations can give such vehicles much sooner. I think, if we would be interested much more, such vehicles would exist in majority today already. We all can have impact on this, not only the car factories.

    You write also that you "spent 25 years exploring ways to teach introductory physics better." Thus, maybe you can be interested my paper about better visualization of special theory of relativity. Here is one good paper, which better introduces quantum mechanics (QM). Baez gave an example, how to more clearly introduce General relativity.

    My essay Best regards

    Janko Kokosar

      Janko,

      Thank you for taking the time to read my essay, and for the links: the article by Baez on general relativity seems particularly interesting!

      I have already read and rated your essay, but I didn't leave any comments. I will do so on your forum.

      Good luck in the contest!

      Marc

      Dear Marc Séguin,

      I take the extension of this forum as an opportunity to learn from your intellectual article. I wondered why I have not read it!

      For the first time, I am reading a piece that in my view is directly linked to the theme of this contest. Good job man! I found your assertion "striking an ever-evolving balance between technological advances and the

      social, psychological, spiritual, artistic and cultural aspects of the lives of the citizens of the world" clearly overwhelming. This is also my main goal of my article.

      You deserve an award in this contest. I have increased your leadership by rating you high.

      I will invite you to read my article STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM using this direct link http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2020

      Your comments and rating will be well appreciated.

      Expecting your appearance on my essay.

      With highest regard to you Marc,

      Gbenga

        I never thought of that before, but I was the same. Only later in life did I lose my indifference to history; as though first I had to acquire a past of my own. Then it became a favourite topic. - Mike

        Thanks Marc, Yours is one of the more innovative theses, which makes it riskier. I see a possible trilemma. My question depends on which of the three horns applies to your thesis. The first two assume that we already know where to steer, and how:

        1. Let's just do it. Already the thinkers have the knowledge and the movers and shakers the power, so let's get going and steer the future. Why bother launching a Worldwide Futurocentric Education Initiative (WFEI)?

        2. No, we cannot just do it. We've the knowledge but not the power. We're blocked by political opponents which requires us to "start by influencing the minds of the most people possible" (p. 3). For this, we will launch WFEI.

        Then what prevents those same political opponents from blocking WFEI?

        3. Actually, we haven't the knowledge. So we'll launch WFEI and get more people to think about the steering problem in their spare time.

        Given that our brightest minds, experts and professionals are lost on the question of where best to steer, or how best to steer, then how could ordinary folks (the rest of us) clear up the confusion?

        (Or did I misunderstand your thesis? Or err in my analysis?) - Mike

        Gbenga,

        Thank you for the very nice comments you made on my essay!

        I have read and rated your essay a few weeks ago, but I didn't leave any comments back then. I will now do so on your forum.

        Good luck in the contest!

        Marc

        Marc, as an educator I appreciate the need for teaching our youth not only how to enter their own near-term future (as citizens and workers), but also the long-term future as both creators and colonizers of that future. That education should indeed include both skills (and not just specific applications, but better background such as critical thinking skills) and an attitude of caring, cooperation, and critical measured optimism. My own essay addresses the issue of critical thinking, as well as training in volitional skills ("willpower), among other things.

        Best wishes on finding consensus on implementation, however - many "establishment" forces will lag behind or resist, so maybe the insightful sectors of various societies will need to develop informal social networking systems to impart this kind of education. However, future pressures may at long last stimulate a more systematic application as needed.

        James,

        Thank you for reminding me! I had read and rated your essay (about 10 days ago), but I never got to comment on it on your forum. I will do so shortly!

        Marc

        Excellent essay Marc,

        I agree with every point you make, and I echo some of your observations in my essay, that talks about the value of play for both education and research. You make an important observation about the general public's lack of interest in Science, or lack of intelligence about basic scientific realities, and I think it is a key issue to address. I've thought quite a bit about that myself.

        I was reminded again and again, at various points in your essay, about the experiences of my friend Floyd Holt, who developed something called the 'spaceship classroom' as a means to hold his students' attention, and who used his High School Physics classes as a platform for Futurocentric thinking. His emphasis to students was that they create the future, or must help build it.

        You are to be commended for putting so many good ideas in one place.

        All the Best,

        Jonathan

          Marc,

          I thank you for a serious review of my essay. Your comments below show more than a perfunctory look:

          "You seem to put a lot of hope in future scientific breakthroughs based on modifying the natural structure of atoms and subatomic particles: making atoms donate more electrons to boost the conductivity of the electrical grid (p.5), exploiting an hypothetical sub-quark level of structure (p.6), compacting the atoms in an astronaut body to shrink it in order to offer better resistance to cosmic rays in space (p.7), modifying the structure of the H20 molecule to make snow melt in winter on the roads (p.7)... I am a bit skeptical about the likelihood of such breakthroughs, but who knows, maybe a lot of currently held physics will be overturned so that these things become possible... In science, it is always important to keep an open mind."

          I did not mean to give the impression that these perceptions are genuine, but only that we need to stray from the orthodox perception with more imaginative thinking, somewhat like Einstein's fancy.

          I had trouble rating with my Firefox browser and changed to Opera so I am checking those that I have read. I find that I rated yours on 5/21.

          Thanks again for the attention you gave to my essay.

          Best of luck.

          Jim

          Hello Marc,

          Thanks for your thoughtful and gracious remarks on May 27. Unfortunately, work requirements have not allowed me time to respond before now. At this point, detailed comments will not be useful. I do want to say that I did read your essay, and I believe that it merits the high ranking it holds. Best wishes to you in the final round of judging.

          Laurence Hitterdale