Evolving Systems Course: PGnotes4

Making sense of ourselves in an evolving universe

Paul's notes - Session 4

Course subject: evolution (physical, biological, cultural, individual)

Course method: co-evolution, co-constructive inquiry, evolving by telling/hearing each other's stories, using them to create new ones, individually and collectively = co-constructive dialogue

Course arrangements:

• By Monday evening, post in forum your thoughts from this week's conversations
• By 6 pm Wednesday, write and email me a 3 page paper in which you you reconceive or reconsider your creation story in light of our discussions this week of scientific stories of the  the evolution of the universe, the earth, and the time dimensions involved in them.
• Individual meetings

Thursdays	Group A	Group B
9 am		Genesis
9:30	Elisa	Julie
2:30	Ilana	Christine
3:00	Angela	Eva
3:30	Hillary	Aijingwen
4:00		Valentina
4:30	Mattie	Kayla
5:00	Carolina	Jordan

Writing and co-constructive inquiry:

• Your experiences
• Fiction vs essay writing
• References (Writing with Sources) and the plagiarism issue

Picking up on last class:

Something happened

• Do we all agree on what it  was?
• Do we need to?
• What's the point of our class?  of science?  of story telling?  of life? 

Another story

• class, story telling, life as process, as ongoing change, as conceiving what hasn't yet been conceived
• "I am, and I can think, therefore I can change who I am, as well as things around me" ... Writing Descartes
• "Don't say, in the years to come, that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story.  You've heard it now."

And more stories (mind f...ing) ...

• "Origin of the Universe." Scientific American 301, 3 (September 2009): 36-44.
• The scale of humanness
• Deep time line (click on instructions, explore, get a sense of change in time of the earth and life on it
• More on continental drift (and more)
• The key to the universe? 

Differences from other stories in class to date, other stories you know?

• vastly larger expanses of time
• humans very much decentered
• continual change
• beginnings and endings not necessary? (narrative vs non-narrative stories)
• "scientific" stories: dependence on shared observations, consensus story construction (not "objective" but commitment to  "shared subjectivity")

Continued discussion in forum

• Post by Monday evening
• Paper reflecting impact of these stories on yours by Wednesday 6 pm