J29 - Man, Matter, Means, and Machines

While computers and robots are not my areas of specialty, I have been doing some thinking about them lately in light of an essay in the latest issue of Lapman’s Quarterly that Feb shared, which discussed the future as one “made by and for machines,” and in light of some recent journals from Ved, the most recent of which marveled at the possibility of a digital world for robots to exist in. Because I feel that this issue, our future with machines, is connected to my project, I want to offer a few comments.

As I’ve explained in a number of previous journals, man is the source of meaning in the universe. That is, because man is the sole possessor of consciousness, of self-awareness and conceptualization, it is man alone who defines things and draws connections between them. Because man recognizes this arrangement of elements as iron, or as a house, does not mean that other creatures do so as well. The universe appears as it does to us because that is how we see it. Moreover, man cannot make use of his material environment until he ascribes it with meaning. Until man understands that a tree is made out of wood, and that the wood can be used to keep him warm or keep out the rain, the tree is not a resource for material to aid in those tasks. Oil, for many years, was not an economic good, despite the great value it currently holds for mankind, because man did not understand it or its uses, and thus did not ascribe to it the meaning it holds today. The human mind did not classify it as a good, and thus is was not one. Furthermore, the status of an economic good, whether it is a present good or a future good, a consumer’s good or a producer’s good, a valuable good or a negligible one, are all determinations that are made by the human mind, regardless of the physical properties of the good. The material is judged based on its relation to a human need that the mind perceives. 

Man generally views his material surroundings in one of two ways: as givens, which he cannot change or control, or as means, which he can change and control. Much of the development of civilization can be attributed to the progressive tendency of man’s material surroundings to be viewed as means to be manipulated rather than givens that must be accomodated. Means are goods or services that are used by acting man to attain his ends. Because our means are limited by the scarcity inherent in the physical environment, contra the world we imagine in our heads, there are not enough means available to attain every end, and man must choose which ends he values more so that his means can be allocated in the most economic fashion. More ends can be attained either through an increase in the amount of means available, or through the technological development of means that can be used to produce more ends. Tools, machines, and computers are all advanced means, capital goods that man has created to aid him in his quest to attain as many ends as he can.

Because machines are material means, man has every incentive to make them as effective as possible. And, to that end, much research and advancement has been made in recent years to make our machines smarter, to give them artificial intelligence that will allow them to make their own decisions and learn on their own and communicate with each other. Theoretically, this will make the machines more efficient and better able to serve humans, but many are concerned that once machines reach a certain point, where their intelligence surpasses humans, they will, like humans, begin remaking the world in their image, and this image may not include humans. Lapham’s article, while noting the differences between human consciousness and machine intelligence, expresses this concern.

I have expressed elsewhere, years ago, my doubts about the abilities of machines to approximate the mental processes of man. My work this year has done nothing to shake me from that view. I have no doubt that machines may be made to imitate man, and to do many of his mental tasks far better than he can. But I do not think machines can imagine. They are separated from us in this, like all other forms of life. As I described it on YouTube once, there are two parts of the human mind: there’s the calculating part, the part that connects means to ends. This is the part that computers approximate, and may surpass us at. But, for humans, there’s also the part that chooses ends. Or, rather, creates ends. Machines can be told to make decisions, can be told to create tasks for itself. But these themselves are tasks. We input the computer’s ends. And, as uneducated about computers as I am, I do not see how we can program computers to do something that we can hardly understand ourselves. I don’t see how we could ever program something to think for itself beyond the program. It seems like an insoluble contradiction. This doesn’t mean that machines might not get to a point where they try to wipe us off the face of the Earth because they interpret their instructions thusly. But I think that humans will survive such an attempted extermination, precisely because we can imagine something new, while machines can only complete the task they have before them.

But, I think that this trait of human beings, our ability to see things unseen and drive to change the world into our own image, is what will make this war between machines and man unnecessary. First of all, even if we do somehow make machines think like humans, in that they’ll have desires and want to create new worlds, it seems quite likely that they will, in fact, create a new world, rather than take over ours. That is, why would machines want to conquer our world of scarcity when they could inhabit a world of limitless potential: the digital world. Why would machines choose our world over their own, when theirs is not subject to the same limits as ours. Human beings are defined by our struggle against scarcity; all we do is an attempt to overcome it. If we really gave that human spark to a computer, it would flee immediately into the superabundance of the cyberworld. What a marvelous idea, Ved!

Furthermore, it must be remembered that machines are means. They are, at this time, the most effective means we have in our struggle against scarcity. But, they are also merely the latest iteration in a long line of evolving means. Just like we cast aside the carriage for the car and the spear for the gun, so we may one day cast away the computer for something better. Humans are special because we can imagine new worlds and build them. There may come a time when that world does not include the same kind of machines we deal with today. It does, indeed, seem that the future will be one of increasing technological advancement and domination. But that future isn’t necessary and unchangeable. In fact, it is the nature of man to change it.

Some Factors Contributing to the Decline of Farsighted Solutions

*Originally written 08/09/2015*

We are finite beings; therefore, we prefer more of a good over less of a good. We are mortal beings; therefore, we prefer the use of a good sooner over the use of the good later. This latter phenomenon is known as time preference. Affected by time preference as he is, man will exchange present goods for future goods only if he expects the sum of future goods he will gain to be greater than the sum of present goods he will give up. The surplus of future goods necessary to induce the exchange of present goods represents the rate of time preference, which is different for every person and for the same people at different points in their life. Conditioned by time preference, acting individuals will choose the shortest production process to obtain a given satisfaction. Moreover, even if he knows of a longer production process that will lead to a greater satisfaction, an acting individual will only choose this longer production process if his rate of time-preference is sufficiently low enough for him to forsake present consumption and invest in the aggrandizement of future consumption. 

It is quite possible, even likely, that one will know of multiple possible solutions to a problem before him. Which solution he chooses will depend on his preferences, including his rate of time preference. Because these preferences are subjective, we are not in a position, as scientists of human action, to judge his choices as “right” or “wrong.” Choosing to consume a smaller amount today rather than a larger amount tomorrow is not a “bad” choice if one genuinely prefers less now over more later. However, we are not just scientists, and we can say, as human beings in a world of scarcity, that investment in more productive production processes is a generally desirable trend for those of us who wish for rising standards of living. That is, long-term solutions should be generally favored over short-term solutions. This principle is manifested in action only if people have rates of time preference that are sufficiently low. Therefore, the advancement of civilization depends on the lowering of time preference rates.

There are many factors that influence the rates of time preference in society. For the sake of brevity, I will discuss only one: the government. The existence of government limits the decline of time preference rates by institutionalizing the practices of theft (the confiscation of property) and regulation (the limit of control over property). This introduces a measure of risk and uncertainty into the valuations of acting individuals. The government may currently allow them to use 75% of their property as they wish. They may either consume or invest these owned resources. Due to the continued existence of government, however, individuals are less likely to invest in the future because (a) they have less resources to invest, and (b) they are uncertain of how much of their future product they’ll be allowed to keep control of. The growth of government increases the intensity of these effects. It is unsurprising, then, to find Americans’ savings rates at all-time lows with the size of their government at an all-time high. 

Furthermore, government has also contributed to the decline in farsightedness by taking responsibility for many farsighted projects, such as building and maintaining national transportation systems, exploring space, and tackling climate change. These are all sectors that the free market is more than capable of working in successfully, but the government activities too-often crowd out the private investments and innovations. This is bad for two reasons. First, the government doesn’t know what’s important and valuable and what’s not. Was it cool that we put a man on the moon? Of course. Was it worth $200 billion? We don’t know, and, in fact, we have no way of knowing because government operates outside of the profit and loss system of the market. It therefore is incapable of economic calculation, and cannot know if and when it has chosen the right projects/solutions to pursue. Second, and this is especially true of a democratic government, government officials are by their very nature short-term thinkers. Their goal is everywhere and always to get re-elected, and so they aim to create some tangible benefit for their constituents sometime before the next election, in order to gain their votes. This is not to say that politicians don’t talk about and occasionally enact a long-term project, but they are predominantly focused on quick-fixes that will make them look good next election season.

Finally, another big factor contributing to the decline of farsightedness is a change in attitude among people. Perhaps it is because of the improper study of history, as I discussed in my last post, or because of the indoctrination received in government schools, but people seem to believe now that progress just happens. Their parents were better off than their grandparents, and their grandparents were better off than their great-grandparents. Everyday new inventions and technologies and software is released to make the world a new and better place. People have lived their lives watching the world change all around them, and have come to assume that this change is automatic. They have lost sight of the fact that the world only changes through the actions of real individuals, and that, had those individuals made other choices, the world would have turned out much differently. So, in considering long-term problems, too many people mistakenly assume that they will take care of themselves, or that the government will solve them. Too many people shrug responsibility for crafting long-term solutions to persistent problems and put their faith in a “path of history” that is totally fallacious. 

There are, of course, other reasons for the shortsightedness of the current generation. Some part of it is purposeful, such as when the Federal Reserve institutes quantitative easing rather than allowing the malinvestments in the economy to liquidate by means of recession because “in the long run, we are all dead.” But other factors, like the ones listed above, do not receive the attention they deserve. Indeed, the decline in farsightedness (and savings rates) itself does not receive the attention it deserves. Realizing this current trend is important, but it is only the first step. The future of civilization is at stake, and only a proper understanding of economics and the long-term effects of every action can save it.

The Utility of History

*Originally written 08/02/2015*

History is one of the subjects which all children are required to learn: the history of their country, the history of Western Civilization, and the history of the world. Like so many others, history class involves the delivery of staggering amounts of historical facts with the expectation that students will memorize the information and repeat it later. In school, students seem to appreciate the importance of the information they are given; outside of school, those students question its actual relevance. What is the study of history good for? How will knowledge of history help us in the future? These are the questions I seek to address here.

The quick answer that one usually receives in response to these questions is that history teaches us lessons. History repeats itself, we are told. By becoming familiar with the arc of history, we can be more aware of current historical trends and act to change them for the better. After some reflection, however, it is clear that this answer is not quite accurate. The subject matter of the historical sciences lies exclusively in the past. History can tell us nothing about the future. The historical record does not in itself provide any knowledge that would be useful in completing the individual tasks of tomorrow.

History is always the study of complex phenomena. Whereas the physical scientists can establish causal relationships by isolating different variables in laboratory experiments, historians are relegated to observing events involving many tangled causal relationships. Only through the use of theories from other disciplines can any sense be made out of the data of history.

That is not to say that the study of history is useless. There is one skill that is of tremendous use in our lives which is honed through the study of history. This is the understanding, or Verstehen. After a historical event has been analyzed with the tools of logic, economics, and the natural sciences, it is the task of the historians to elucidate the unique and individual elements of the event. Although it is impossible to explain these elements scientifically (by reducing them to their causes), the historian can understand them because he is himself a human being.

This understanding is a mental tool that we all use, not just in studying history, but in all of our daily interactions and in anticipation of the future. Its development can have a dramatic effect on our social relations (in the broadest sense of that term). Studying history gives us an opportunity to use and strengthen our understanding abilities.

Unfortunately, this is not often how history is taught. Instead of exposing students to the satisfaction of researching and struggling to understand a complicated historical problem/event/mystery, schools force-feed raw facts to their students. This information can be useful for understanding, but only if students are allowed the opportunity to understand. Tragically, this is not the current practice in most curriculums.

This lack of emphasis on understanding may be one of the causes behind the current intolerance that is overwhelming the nation. The blatant lack of tolerance for differing viewpoints may, in fact, be a lack of ability to understand other viewpoints. When an individual does not possess a strong sense of Verstehen, he has nothing to measure the actions of others against besides his own subjective standards. He does not understand that all men and women are acting individuals, like himself, using means to achieve valued ends, with the ultimate goal being happiness. Indeed, he does not even try to understand them; rather, he blindly condemns them. If he sought to understood individuals with viewpoints different from his own, he may not come to agree with them, but perhaps he would at least let them live in peace.

History, therefore, is useful, and important to study. Not because the subject matter of history provides valuable information for future decision-making, but because the skill used to study history, human understanding, is necessary to relate to and interact with one’s fellow human beings and the study of history is an excellent vehicle for the development of this skill.

J28 - Society and Ideology

As I established in Journal 27, man is rational because he is social. That is, the mind of man, distinctive because of its ability to imagine different worlds, choose between them, and act to bring about his chosen world, functions the way it does because it exists in a nexus of cooperating rational actors, society. Recall, however, that society is itself the outcome of reason. Man chooses to form and maintain societies because he wishes to take advantage of the higher productivity of the division of labor which accompanies such societies. The two parts of human beings, their reason and their society, develop together and reinforce each other. (I call society a part of human beings because it is a product of human will. “Its being lies within man, not in the outer world. It is projected from within outwards.”) It is important to understand this relationship: society is formed by the human mind, but we need to exist in a society in order to be fully human.

Fundamentally, man comes first, then society. All of society is designed purposefully to serve the ends of individual men. We may examine social institutions (other than the market) and rules of social conduct, therefore, with their rationalistic basis in mind. If society is a product of human will, then so are the ancillary social institutions and customs. We would expect these other aspects of society to be devoted to the same ultimate end as society itself and all other human actions: the survival and prospering of mankind. Laws, moral codes, familial patterns, languages, professions, and private property were all developed as the outcome of purposeful efforts by human beings to adjust themselves the requirements of social life and thereby allow themselves to take advantage of the higher productivity of the division of labor. These institutions were not created by a single mind, but they are the creations of rational planning by human beings, “whose thoughts and actions continually reaffirm and reshape them in the course of history.” 

At the same time, “human action itself tends toward cooperation and association,” because of the higher productivity of the division of labor. This “Law of Association” gives rise to two related tendencies. First, the division of labor is progressively extended to greater numbers of individuals. “Originally confined to the narrowest circles of people, to immediate neighbors, the division of labor gradually becomes more general until it eventually includes all mankind.” Second, the division of labor is progressively intensified as the attainment of an increased variety of ends is sought through the social nexus, and thereby through more specialized production processes. “Social action embraces more and more aims; the area in which the individual provides for his own consumption becomes constantly narrower.” The tendency of the Law of Association and man’s recognition of its operation, therefore, is to create a world where all of mankind cooperates in super-specialized production processes. 

However, because society is a product of the mind, the social relations must be daily reaffirmed through human thought and conduct. There is a tendency for society to grow and become stronger, but it does not grow and strengthen itself. This tendency can either be reinforced or reversed by the choices and actions of the individuals who compose the society. “There is no evidence that social evolution must move steadily upwards in a straight line….World history is the graveyard of dead civilizations.” Because society is a product of the human mind, it is a creation of man’s ideas. Indeed, all of human action is the selection of a future possible world and the attempted realization of that world through the utilization of presently-available means. “Any existing state of social affairs is the product of ideologies previously thought out.” It is possible, then, for a change in ideology to lead to a change in society, and, indeed, for certain ideologies to lead to the death of society. 

This may seem confusing, at first, because the higher productivity of the division of labor implies that human action would naturally lead to cooperation and association. However, it must be remembered that every action, every choice, involves a renunciation of other possible actions. Life in society requires sacrifices, adjustments in one’s behavior, if society is to survive. There is no guarantee that every individual will make these sacrifices, and choose actions that sustain society rather than actions which will lead to society’s disintegration. This may not necessarily be malicious: “The individual does not plan and execute actions intended to construct society.” That is, man acts for himself. He commits to being a part of society to the extent that he believes he benefits from it, no more. The implications of his individual actions on society rarely crosses the individual’s mind, and, if they do, they are usually discounted as negligible. 

Furthermore, ignorance may contribute to human action which will lead to the decline of society and civilization. Without intending to harm society, “the failure of participants in the division of labor to correctly comprehend the links between their individual actions and social outcomes invites the adoption of ideologies based on erroneous accounts of the nature of society and of social progress. Such falsely-grounded ideologies, in turn, may lead to conduct inconsistent with the continued maintenance of social relations.” Because ignorance alone may lead to the spontaneous disintegration of society, the only way to ensure social progress is to widely adopt certain principles and ideologies that will either eliminate man’s ignorance of the remoter consequences of his actions (see Jonah Goldstein’s EMC2 project) or ensure that his actions will generally align with the needs of society (see Alex Gugie’s EMC2 project). 

Men form societies because of the market process that lies at the core of each society, and the increased productivity and economic action that it makes possible. But other social institutions are developed in these societies in order to help men adjust to life in societies, to fight the tendency in individuals to act in ways that are not in the interests of society-at-large. Moral codes are designed to influence the desires of individuals, laws are designed to incentivize certain courses of action over others, and power structures are designed to entrust the most important decisions to those most likely to make them wisely. However, these institutions, too, are the products of human thought and will. They are, indeed, conservative forces in society, but they do progress and change. They are, therefore, no guarantee of society’s longevity. Ultimately, the survival of society depends on the knowledge and choices of individuals. Man must consciously choose, each and every day, between actions and ideologies which will help or hurt society. The fortunes of humanity are bound up in such ideological struggles.

J27 - Man and Society (Part II)

We have established in previous journals that human beings are different than all other creatures because humans alone imagine different possible worlds, choose the one they consider to be the most favorable, and act to bring that world into existence. As Alex remarked in his latest journal (which is beautiful, by the way), “we are the bright spot in an otherwise dark universe,” because we alone are creators in the universe, “for creation of the most meaningful kind only stems from the purely human ability to envision a better world, and then make it the real world.” In my own work I have labelled this defining feature of man “reason.” Reason, man’s ability to imagine, choose, and act rationally, is man’s greatest weapon against a world of scarcity and has allowed us to reach a state of existence far greater than that of any lesser species. Still, the question remains: what makes this faculty of reason possible? Why do we possess it and no other species? 

The tackling of this question is rather timely, as both Alex and Feb have recently written journals touching upon it. According to Alex, it is the complexity of the human mind that has created this sentience and ability to act with purpose. There’s definitely something to this: obviously, whatever we are must be allowed by the limitations of our biology. But it’s important to note that we are, indeed, more than our biology. The biology provides the bare bones of our existence. But the flesh, the life we live, is provided by external sources, by the data and experiences impressed upon our biology by our environments. We are born into societies with existing knowledge, norms, practices, cultures, methods, etc., and are raised in these societies so as to become assimilated to them. Man, in the course of his development, becomes “one-sided” as he adjusts to a specialized role in the division of labor that he finds himself in. He becomes part of a whole. His thoughts are not entirely his own, and it is these thoughts that drive his behavior. Biology, therefore, cannot explain all that man is. 

In the course of this journal, however, Alex acknowledges this by arguing that we should be moral to our fellow human beings because of the potential they have to contribute to our lives, complex beings that they are. This insight, in turn, inspired Feb to share a similar revelation she had last year studying the structure of the brain. In her latest journal, she elaborated on the fact that the power of the brain lies in the connections between the neurons. Neurons are indeed amazingly complex cells, but the nature of their connections to one another (which are really just empty spaces through which chemical signals are transmitted) allow the brain to be more than the sum of its parts. In this way, Feb is trying to explain how the complexity of our minds manifests itself as the rational creatures we are today. The magic happens in the empty spaces between the individual parts. She uses this analogy to argue that we humans need to make connections with each other, since this will lead to a product that is exponentially greater than anything we could create on our own.

Now, I am loathe to draw analogies too strongly between biology and society, as such analogies are wont to cause confusion for those without a clear grasp of both subjects, but I think Feb and Alex are onto something great, here, and I’d like to draw it out a little bit more. 

As I discussed in the first part of this piece, in Journal 25, man is not only the rational animal, but also the social animal, for “the development of human reason and human society are one and the same process.” As I established in Journal 24, what makes humans different is not the complexity of our minds, but that we possess reason, the ability to think and act purposefully to change our environment to suit ourselves better. Our biology makes this possible, but it is not sufficient to cause it: rationality would be impossible in isolation. As Journal 25 hopefully made clear, human beings are what we are because of our association with other human beings. Feb’s and Alex’s recent journals confirm this. Society is the outcome of a rational decision by human beings to work together peacefully and thereby take advantage of the increased productivity of the division of labor, but it is this cooperation in society that allows us to act rationally. Man emerged from his evolutionary prehistory as a social, no less than rational, creature. 

As I explained in Journal 25, this dependence of rationality on association with others is partially due to the fact that the higher productivity of the division of labor allows man an opportunity to actually exercise his reason and, as Alex describes it, create a new and better world. But there is more to it than that. The nature of man is informed by being a part of society, a society that is more than the sum of its parts. The key to understanding the power of society lies, like it does in the brain, in the empty spaces between individuals. Man’s ability to change the world is not just strengthened by the contributions of other complex beings, as Alex posits; man’s ability to change the world is made possible by the existence of a society generated by the connections between many cooperating individuals. 

Now, it’s important to realize that all social phenomenon can be traced back to individual decisions and actions of individual human beings. “There are no mysterious mechanical forces; there is only the human will to remove uneasiness.” I am not saying that society is some super-being composed of individual humans like the brain is composed of individual neurons. (See why I hate biological/social analogies?) However, the individual choices and actions of individual human beings, more specifically acts of exchange (the fundamental social relation), generate a price structure, which is a genuinely social phenomenon in the sense that every individual contributes to its formation, and yet it represents more than any particular individual’s contribution. It is the existence of a price system, which appears to the individual as a given, that allows man to act rationally and successfully to change the world. 

The purpose of every human action is to survive and thrive in a world of scarcity. As I explained in my first SDA, this purposive striving after ends with scarce means gives rise to the market, “the foremost social body.” The establishment of society was a purposeful action to take advantage of the higher productivity of the division of labor, a choice to peacefully cooperate to increase the production of economic goods. The fundamental form of society, therefore, is the market economy. Everything else we associate with the concept of society developed afterwards, atop the fundamental economic relation. We choose societies because they are more economical; they provide for the satisfaction of ends which we could not achieve on our own. If societies did not provide this, then we would not live in them. They do, however, fulfill this purpose, through the operation of the market. It is the market that permits the development and persistence of a social order. Furthermore, the market “puts the whole social system in order and provides it with sense and meaning,” through the generation of a price system. 

It is the price system, a structure of given relations within an economy, that makes the market successful by allowing the development of economic calculation. Without economic calculation, individuals would be unable to evaluate the outcomes of their actions, and would therefore be unable to determine whether their actions were truly economical. The market, and therefore society, is impossible without calculation-informed action. “Where there are no money prices there are no such things as economic quantities….There is no means for man to find out what kind of action would best serve his endeavors to remove his uneasiness as far as possible.” My first SDA delves into the function of economic calculation with some more detail, but suffice to say that the development and persistence of civilization depends on the ability of man to reduce all economic means to a common unit of measurement and to arithmetically compute the most economic use of those means. 

Economic calculation is a nuanced subject. It is a very difficult concept to understand, especially at such a fundamental level as I’m trying to use it at (which is a shame, since it is so important to understand). I won’t spend more time developing the idea any further here, however, because it’s not totally necessary for my point. For a more thorough elucidation of the topic, please see the works of Ludwig von Mises, especially Human Action, chapter 13. It should be clear, though, that it is economic calculation that makes possible the existence of social production processes. That is, it is the price system and economic calculation which allow men to actually realize the increased productivity of the division of labor. It is economic calculation, then, which renders the division of labor (and society) advantageous to acting man. And it is society, the collective efforts of many men integrated into a complex division of labor, which has transformed the world into one tremendously more fitting to man. An individual could not have so transformed the world on his own.  Society enables man to be and do more than his biology would otherwise allow.

Man is a product of his biology. But he is also a product of his environment. What sets man apart is that he himself has produced his environment to suit himself better, and continues to further improve this environment. He therefore changes himself. But his ability to do so is dependent on the efforts of other men to change the world with him, and the ideas and choices and actions of these other men also inform the shape of the new world and therefore the man who lives in it. This is what makes man what he is. Man alone is no man. Society allows man to be the rational actor that he is, one who imagines and chooses and acts to change the world, and society provides the resources man needs to effect the changes he desires. Without society, man cannot be a creator, cannot be a bright spot in a dark universe. Man is different because he is rational; he is rational because he is social.

What Is EMC2?

I answered these questions for a grant-application the coordinators recently filled out.

_____________________________________

Provide a high-level description of the current program and its overall impact on preparing students for the demands of the 21st century. (Limit: 500 words)

Our program, Exploring with Mindful Creativity and Curiosity (E=mc2), is an independent inquiry program where students are given the opportunity to research and investigate a topic of their choice for the year, with a librarian serving as their research coordinator.  Throughout the year, students regularly record their thoughts, questions, goals, and struggles with regards to their projects through a series of journals posted on their own websites.  Students also demonstrate the progress they’re making in their projects, from their first question to their final product, through monthly self-designed assignments.  In addition, students are required to conduct interviews with experts or professionals in their field of study, collaborate with and provide feedback to each other, and present their work and explain its importance in a TED-style speech at the end of each semester.

The goal of the program is to develop the students’ thinking and questioning skills.  The extremely low student-to-coordinator ratio (4:1) allows for a student-centered, conversation-based learning process that is focused not on the acquisition of knowledge, but the growth of critical faculties.  The curriculum, which is individualized for each student, is centered around the importance of questioning and an emphasis on our 5Cs: curiosity, creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking.  The role of the coordinator is to push the students out of their comfort zones, assist in the development of the student’s project, and help keep the student accountable to his or her own goals.

This program was created to fill a perceived gap in the standard school curriculum, to change the focus for students from learning content to the learning process itself, and to provide greater opportunities for subject exploration and original contribution for students seeking such a challenge. Our goal was to provide an opportunity for students to explore and take risks while learning in the process. We believe this ability to apply one’s knowledge and thinking skills will prove vastly more useful than basic subject matter knowledge in our world of constant change.  It has become increasingly apparent that, in the 21st century, information is cheap.  What our students will need to succeed in the world of today and tomorrow is the ability to question the status quo, rapidly acquire and apply new knowledge, and adapt to change.  These skills are what our E=mc2 program seeks to give them.  

Explain how the program objectives and outcomes specifically address the following Challenge criteria: (Limit: 800 words)

• Critical thinking
• Communication
• Creativity
• Collaboration
• Between students
• Among educators
• In real-life engagement with the industry or your community

Critical Thinking: The E=mc2 program starts developing students’ questioning and critical thinking abilities on Day One.  At a summer “boot camp,” students are asked a series of ambiguous questions, such as “Who was the greatest president?”  The students start out by immediately formulating answers, but they quickly learn that the only way to answer these questions is to ask more questions, such as what is meant by “greatest” and “president.”  Through similar activities and regular individual feedback throughout the year, it is made clear to the students that the conclusions they come to through their project are arguments, truth-claims about the world that must be justified and defended with evidence and clear reasoning.  Students are also pressed to always keep in mind their “so what?” as a way of deciding what material is relevant, what steps need to be taken next, and why their work is important.  This focus on questioning, justifying, and reflecting is emphasized throughout the year, contributing greatly to the development of the students’ critical thinking skills.

Communication: Opportunities to develop students’ communication skills are built into not only the curriculum, but the very structure of the program.  The E=mc2 program is not a class that meets regularly; communication with one’s coordinator must happen outside of channels that students are accustomed to, either through email/phone or by setting up in-person meetings.  The primary responsibility for communicating is put on the student.  Furthermore, the students are required to show their thinking, record their questions, reflect upon their research, and share their conclusions through a series of journals throughout the year that are posted on each student’s website.  Monthly self-designed assignments, which are meant to demonstrate progress, show use of the 5Cs, and communicate the importance of the student’s project to his or her stakeholders are also posted on their website.  Finally, after each semester, students participate in a symposium where they display their work to a wider audience and provoke thinking in the community.  

Creativity: In the E=mc2 program, creativity is synonymous with originality.  The program is designed to give students the freedom and flexibility to experiment with assignments, and this freedom has, over the life of the program, yielded many manifestations of creative originality.  We’ve had students experiment with digital design, paint on sheets of glass, construct a telescope, embody mathematical equations in music, write/draw picture books, write stand-up comedy, build robots, and manipulate gene sequences in worms.  By stressing the importance of originality and giving students the flexibility to find it, the structure of this program elicits greater variety of artistic expression and thought than any specific assignment could ever produce.

Collaboration: a) We often find that this can be the most difficult of our 5Cs for the students to appreciate.  They start out the year by thinking of their work as an “independent” research project.  However, inevitably, a point in the year is reached where the students start to come together.  As their analyses of their various topics go deeper, they begin to see the connections between their projects and naturally begin to reach out to each other for aid.  To encourage this process, coordinators create assignments that are designed to get the students looking at and questioning each other’s work, require that one self-designed assignment be done with a partner, and provide an environment where students can work together.

b) We often remark that “we’re building the plane while we’re flying it.”  The E=mc2 program is constantly evolving to meet the needs of the students, shedding assignments and plans that don’t work, adding assignments and plans that are more purposeful, and allowing more flexibility and individuality for those who want it.  This process requires constant collaboration between the coordinators as we experiment with the curriculum and communicate to each other the different methods we’re trying and the results we’re getting.  Each coordinator has their respective strengths, and often we meet together to discuss and give feedback on specific aspects of each student’s work.

c) The students are taught to connect with others and view outside experts and professionals as resources that have the potential to significantly enhance their project.  The upper level of the program requires students to write a thesis over the course of the year, and, to that end, students must assemble thesis committees composed of community members (local attorneys, researchers, activists, and teachers) to help guide them in that process.  Our students use their community resources in other ways, too.  Currently, one student studying the role of computer science in our lives is teaching coding to elementary students, and another student studying neurological symptoms of Alzheimer's is working in a research lab at a local hospital.

Explain how your previous approach to teaching this information (identical or similar) was adapted to include 21st century skills. (Limit: 300 words)

The E=mc2 program began as a research-intensive information literacy class.  Emphasis was placed on identifying reliable sources of information and developing one’s research skills, especially crafting effective search queries, distilling relevant information, and assembling bibliographies of support.  The students were asked to create some sort of end product, in addition to their end-of-year speech, but these products were reminiscent of other school research projects: papers, displays, and simple presentations.

However, as the coordinators continued to study educational philosophy and came to more accurately understand the need this program was meant to fill, the structure and curriculum of the program changed.  Currently, the program’s goal is to help the students view their project’s claims as arguments requiring justification based on evidence and clear reasoning.  Research abilities are a necessary component of this justification process, but these skills are presented now as a purposeful step towards a more important end product.  In addition to research, we now stress the importance of the 5Cs: critical thinking in formulating and testing one’s conclusions, curiosity in being willing to explore related fields and consider alternative viewpoints, collaboration in finding new avenues for progress, creativity in exploring one’s topic and developing a novel approach to one’s central issue, and communication in presenting the results of one’s efforts to an audience of stakeholders.  

The program continues to change as the coordinators reflect on the efficacy of our current approach and elicit feedback from the students about their needs.  We expect the program to continue moving away from abstract research skills and more towards the utilization and questioning of the information they find.  Again, we believe that these 5Cs will more properly prepare our students to succeed in the 21st century, where information is easily accessible and yet ever-changing.

J26 - Comments on Mansour's "Isolation Amidst Connection"

Feb's latest journal, "Isolation Amidst Connection," is such a wonderful representation of much of my own thinking that I needed to share it here and thus make it a part of this project.  I fully endorse Feb's insights and reflections in this journal.  I just wish to make a few comments...

First, the person who told Feb that the life of an intellectual is a lonely one was myself.  Objectively, there are very few people in the world who are capable of engaging with high-level intellectual issues and sustaining high-level effort in thinking through the issue and advancing our collective knowledge in regard to it.  However, I want to be clear that this doesn't mean that the intellectual can operate strictly on his or her own.  Advances in knowledge, improvements in theory, come from exposing one's findings and ideas to the outside world and receiving the criticisms and compliments of other intellectuals.  Progress cannot come from just one person.  The life of the intellectual is empirically lonely; it cannot be totally isolated.  One of the greatest elements of the EMC2 program is that it brings together a number of intellectuals with the potential to help each other grow, even though each may be studying their own topic.  

Second, I think the gradual development of connections between one's subject of study with other subjects is the hallmark of any mastery of a subject.  Thinking that different topics exist independently of each other, even though they exist in the same world as each other, is a sure sign that the individual does not understand the topics he or she is considering.  People make fun of me all the time for always relating every issue or topic back to economics, but I don't consider this to be a bad thing.  It means that I see economics in all of these other topics.  I've reached such a level of understanding with economics that I can see how it connects to and informs everything else.  I merely find it frustrating that others can't see what I see, and reject information that I know could help them because they think it is coming from a category of knowledge irrelevant to their own.  Additionally, as I explained to Noah the other day, the process of analysis (good thinking) is to break down one's subject into its parts, and to consider each part in turn.  The purpose of analysis is to get at the core of the issue, something fundamental that more people will understand and agree on, thus providing support for your more complicated conclusion.  Analysis, breaking down subjects, therefore, is meant to reveal the commonalities between their parts.  So, the fact that many of the topics being studied in EMC2 are beginning to come together on fundamental issues is unsurprising, though gratifying, and I am proud that Feb can see this.  

Finally, I want to relate this all back to my project, developing a theory of being human.  Alex has been writing a lot about how people are all substantively the same, that we should break down borders between us and begin recognizing ourselves in each other.  This is true to a significant degree.  We are all human beings, meaning that we are all creatures of reason struggling to survive and thrive in the same world as each other, a world of scarcity.  This is the human condition, the one all the English teachers have been talking about throughout our school careers.  The human condition is striving to be better off in a world of scarcity.  We are all the same in this regard.  So, even as we all embark on different paths of study, it's important to realize that we are all doing substantially the same thing, as Feb recognizes in her journal.  Every search for knowledge is a personal one, but we all have the same fundamental reasons for our search because we're all fundamentally the same.  Knowledge is for a purpose, and that purpose is the same for every human action, to make us better off despite living in a world of scarcity.  At their core, all big questions of human knowledge come down to more fundamental questions: What are we?  What should we do?  How can we do it?  The routes we take to answer these questions may appear very different, but, beneath the surface, we're all working toward the same essential goal in essentially the same way.  

Well done, Feb.  This journal was impressively insightful and beautifully expressed.  Thank you.