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permaculture - Re: Alfred Korzybski ad nauseum

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Subject: permaculture

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  • From: "darren simo" <wannafarm@hotmail.com>
  • To: permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Alfred Korzybski ad nauseum
  • Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 23:38:16 +0000





> From: "darren simo" <wannafarm@hotmail.com>

> The whole idea of primary and secondary school
> is to teach the student how
> to learn, not just to force feed obscure
> quotes, formulas etc. to be
> repeated by rote down through the ages of their
> lives.

On the contrary, I bet most places do force feed
their students; the "idea" of school has had a
lapse in its application. (If ever it did not.)

So far as I know, in both Canada and Australia,
where I've lived and grown up, there is no broad
institutionalized primary or secondary curriculum
of critical thinking, nor of observation or
listening skills, nor guidance in formulating
good questions or in differentiating between
degrees of specificity and generality of
statement.

I suspect that if children were taught this stuff
in tandem with the usual content, the kids
themselves would begin initiating change toward a
more engaging, self-directed, dynamic atmosphere.
In my wilder dreams, I dare believe they could
realize themselves enough to desegregate the
arbitrary age groupings and reunite the sciences
and the humanities into a free-for-all of playful
discovery.

Hey I did not say the school system was correct in their approach to reaching their goal, just what the goal is.


> I may not hold a
> doctorate in the english language(in fact I
> fail final year english), but I
> know that simple words describing clear
> instructions are easy to remember.

In line with my comments above, "simple words
describing clear instructions" have little to do
with cultivating intelligent reactions to the
shifting complexity of daily life as a human.

Yes but these "simple words describing clear instructions" if then taken and put into use are the basis of a person learning for themselves how something is done.


> For instance if vocal tradition is the only way
> to keep information in your
> memory why is PDC taught that way.

I did not say that vocal tradition is the *only*
way. I do believe that modern knowledge can be
memorized to some extent--but it doesn't
necesarily foster the ability or the *desire* for
complete or efficient learning.

In my last post, I failed to draw an explicit
connection between primal pattern languages and
the most general statements produced by modern
inquiry. I had hoped to convey my dislike for
unmemorable, dry, graceless, witless scientific
principles and my love for the summary and
accessibility of knowledge in the patterns (read:
song, saga, dance, art) of otherwise less
knowledgable peoples. I love contemporary
learning, but I want to know *life*--not mere
verbalism.

So far no-one has said "tradition is the only way to keep information in your memory" but alot of people, including the Mollison quote are hinting down the road that anything else is a waste of time.
My view is simply that any source of new information is something that should be cherished. "dry, graceless, witless scientific principles" that does not mean it is useless in formation and many different ways exist to help retain the knowledge as some others have said. For me the best way to retain information is, where possible to actually put it into a practical exersize and see what actually occurs, thereby bringing into play all the other stimula (ie senses) to add memory.


> From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr."

> Maybe a billion or two are doing intense
> permaculture but either not labelling it as
> such or at all or calling it something else
> :-)

The word 'permaculture', as you will recall, was
contracted from 'permanent culture' and
'permanent agriculture'. But 'permanent culture'
addresses the broadest character of what we are
trying to achieve, and should be taken as more
fundamental. Permanent agriculture, although
foundational for physiological survival, does not
represent the gamut of "human nature". So
although we have billions of people doing
agriculture in one sense or another, I doubt we
have that many people attending to the broadest
issues of culture in the complex modern sense. I
dare say we might have millions working on this
with varying degrees of efficacy, but certainly
not billions. And so we come back to my original
point (with the segue via Mollison). Touche!


Did not permaculture start as permanent agriculture and then grow to include the culture side of things. That means that we could already have billions of permaculturists in the world, it is just some still need a little bit more schooling in some areas of permaculture than in others(thats if you beleive that the only way to follow permaculture is following


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