What is the point of Higher Education?

[RCSaunders]

I fell off the orthodoxy bandwagon some time ago and never got back on. The orthodoxy of capitalism, the orthodoxy of socialism, the orthodoxy of this diet or that diet.

We should use our intelligence and discrimination to separate the wheat from the chaff. More often than not it is all chaff. It is possible to live without being on board with any of it. There are alternatives to the industrial/military complex, this ideology or that ideology, to a sociobiology-style version; human-style dominance of primate fighting primate.

If one is willing to live under the radar, a good life is possible in spite of all of it. ‘Isms’ likely have to run their course, with their captors, be tested and found wanting, until evolution reaches an apex. Without an apex it is turtles all the way down.

Absolutely!

There are alternatives to the industrial/military complex, this ideology or that ideology, to a sociobiology-style version; human-style dominance of primate fighting primate.

If one is willing to live under the radar, a good life is possible in spite of all of it.

Worth repeating!

[Sculptor]

[owl of Minerva]

You missed the key point about a dark age, in that writing stops.
You are talking bollocks about this lecture.
No such lecture ever happened.
From 100bce to the fall of Rome circa 400ce in Britain, and later elsewhere was not in any sense a dark age. And many areas never experienced a dark age, throughout the whole period.
This is true even by your own definition.

As I cited The Dark Ages in totality were gradational: descent, depth, ascent.

The two you cited were episodic. What is their source or reference, and If scientifically valid, what is the evidence; astronomical or mathematical, that supports them?

You do not know what a dark age is.
THis is the last post on the subject

Topic resolved, sort of. The point of higher education should be to awaken discriminative intelligence in each individual. Not feed them ‘this is the way it was, or is’ dogma.

We have come up with four versions of The Dark Ages. You mentioned two and I mentioned two. Mine are one based on oriental astronomy and mathematics, and one based on a textbook version. I am personally inclined to go with the oriental astronomy version because it involves science and math.

Aristotle started the sense experience versus abstract thought controversy and it has raged ever since. With Hume, with Kant and others. If all we knew was what we experience through the senses we would be just another species of animal. A category sociobiology would like to confine humanity to based on Darwin’s ‘life began in a body of water on land rich in chemicals.’ Abiogenesis to abstract thought quite a journey!

With that mindset it is easy to fear AI, it is inorganic, who knows what it might spawn.

[Sculptor]

As I cited The Dark Ages in totality were gradational: descent, depth, ascent.

The two you cited were episodic. What is their source or reference, and If scientifically valid, what is the evidence; astronomical or mathematical, that supports them?

You do not know what a dark age is.
THis is the last post on the subject

Topic resolved, sort of. The point of higher education should be to awaken discriminative intelligence in each individual. Not feed them ‘this is the way it was, or is’ dogma.

There is a difference between learing convnetions. and challenging them and just being confused and making up your own shit.

We have come up with four versions of The Dark Ages.

And you still do not know what a dark age is.

You mentioned two and I mentioned two. Mine are one based on oriental astronomy and mathematics, and one based on a textbook version. I am personally inclined to go with the oriental astronomy version because it involves science and math.

Aristotle started the sense experience versus abstract thought controversy and it has raged ever since. With Hume, with Kant and others. If all we knew was what we experience through the senses we would be just another species of animal. A category sociobiology would like to confine humanity to based on Darwin’s ‘life began in a body of water on land rich in chemicals.’ Abiogenesis to abstract thought quite a journey!

With that mindset it is easy to fear AI, it is inorganic, who knows what it might spawn.

Rambling assertions with no evidence

[owl of Minerva]

You do not know what a dark age is.
THis is the last post on the subject

Topic resolved, sort of. The point of higher education should be to awaken discriminative intelligence in each individual. Not feed them ‘this is the way it was, or is’ dogma.

There is a difference between learing convnetions. and challenging them and just being confused and making up your own shit.

We have come up with four versions of The Dark Ages.

And you still do not know what a dark age is.

You mentioned two and I mentioned two. Mine are one based on oriental astronomy and mathematics, and one based on a textbook version. I am personally inclined to go with the oriental astronomy version because it involves science and math.

Aristotle started the sense experience versus abstract thought controversy and it has raged ever since. With Hume, with Kant and others. If all we knew was what we experience through the senses we would be just another species of animal. A category sociobiology would like to confine humanity to based on Darwin’s ‘life began in a body of water on land rich in chemicals.’ Abiogenesis to abstract thought quite a journey!

With that mindset it is easy to fear AI, it is inorganic, who knows what it might spawn.

Rambling assertions with no evidence

Making up nothing, just choosing from the information that is available and making an educated choice in relation to it.

What is your definition of what a Dark Age is, you gave periods when two occurred but didn’t cite your source or why you agree with it.

Present your view and the reason you think it is valid as I did. Blanket assertions, or statements in opposition, is not fertile ground for discussion. It is just claiming someone is wrong without defining what your perspective is or why, and it does not provide fertile ground for a meaningful dialogue.

[Sculptor]

Topic resolved, sort of. The point of higher education should be to awaken discriminative intelligence in each individual. Not feed them ‘this is the way it was, or is’ dogma.

There is a difference between learing convnetions. and challenging them and just being confused and making up your own shit.

We have come up with four versions of The Dark Ages.

And you still do not know what a dark age is.

You mentioned two and I mentioned two. Mine are one based on oriental astronomy and mathematics, and one based on a textbook version. I am personally inclined to go with the oriental astronomy version because it involves science and math.

Aristotle started the sense experience versus abstract thought controversy and it has raged ever since. With Hume, with Kant and others. If all we knew was what we experience through the senses we would be just another species of animal. A category sociobiology would like to confine humanity to based on Darwin’s ‘life began in a body of water on land rich in chemicals.’ Abiogenesis to abstract thought quite a journey!

With that mindset it is easy to fear AI, it is inorganic, who knows what it might spawn.

Rambling assertions with no evidence

Making up nothing, just choosing from the information that is available and making an educated choice in relation to it.

What is your definition of what a Dark Age is, you gave periods when two occurred but didn’t cite your source or why you agree with it.

Present your view and the reason you think it is valid as I did. Blanket assertions, or statements in opposition, is not fertile ground for discussion. It is just claiming someone is wrong without defining what your perspective is or why, and it does not provide fertile ground for a meaningful dialogue.

It is my view that you misremembered this phantom lecture where someone tells you bollocks about dark ages.

[owl of Minerva]

There is a difference between learing convnetions. and challenging them and just being confused and making up your own shit.

And you still do not know what a dark age is.


Rambling assertions with no evidence

Making up nothing, just choosing from the information that is available and making an educated choice in relation to it.

What is your definition of what a Dark Age is, you gave periods when two occurred but didn’t cite your source or why you agree with it.

Present your view and the reason you think it is valid as I did. Blanket assertions, or statements in opposition, is not fertile ground for discussion. It is just claiming someone is wrong without defining what your perspective is or why, and it does not provide fertile ground for a meaningful dialogue.

It is my view that you misremembered this phantom lecture where someone tells you bollocks about dark ages.

Whatever. What I said above still stands. No need to add to it.

[Sculptor]

Making up nothing, just choosing from the information that is available and making an educated choice in relation to it.

What is your definition of what a Dark Age is, you gave periods when two occurred but didn’t cite your source or why you agree with it.

Present your view and the reason you think it is valid as I did. Blanket assertions, or statements in opposition, is not fertile ground for discussion. It is just claiming someone is wrong without defining what your perspective is or why, and it does not provide fertile ground for a meaningful dialogue.

It is my view that you misremembered this phantom lecture where someone tells you bollocks about dark ages.

Whatever. What I said above still stands. No need to add to it.

No it does not stand at all.
You cannot polish a turd

[Ansiktsburk]

1. Avoid daytime work those years.
2. Get some confidene by doing good on difficult exams
3. Socialise w other nerds instead of neanderthals
4. Meet intelligent , sexy female students
5. Party

[Sculptor]

1. Avoid daytime work those years.
2. Get some confidene by doing good on difficult exams
3. Socialise w other nerds instead of neanderthals
4. Meet intelligent , sexy female students
5. Party

How did you do?

[Ansiktsburk]

1. Avoid daytime work those years.
2. Get some confidene by doing good on difficult exams
3. Socialise w other nerds instead of neanderthals
4. Meet intelligent , sexy female students
5. Party

How did you do?

Only guy that wasn’t a nerd, with a couple of years daytime work before starting, that made it through tech school so not too bad. Point 3 was the key. To study amongst people who also liked to learn things made all the difference. Wish I got that earlier but that was not where I grew up. But I havent done harder maths than multiplication since so all those math exams were really sudokus. And sudokus matter. Point 2. But point 4 was maybe most prominent. Married an intelligent upper upper middle class girl and got into a place where people care about stuff as philosophy. She also earns more money than I do with is convenient.

[Sculptor]

1. Avoid daytime work those years.
2. Get some confidene by doing good on difficult exams
3. Socialise w other nerds instead of neanderthals
4. Meet intelligent , sexy female students
5. Party

How did you do?

Only guy that wasn’t a nerd, with a couple of years daytime work before starting, that made it through tech school so not too bad. Point 3 was the key. To study amongst people who also liked to learn things made all the difference. Wish I got that earlier but that was not where I grew up. But I havent done harder maths than multiplication since so all those math exams were really sudokus. And sudokus matter. Point 2. But point 4 was maybe most prominent. Married an intelligent upper upper middle class girl and got into a place where people care about stuff as philosophy. She also earns more money than I do with is convenient.

I was mainly enquiring about the issue mentioned in the first post; traditional verses self critical teaching, and whether or not you found good or bad lecturers in that respect. What subject did you study?

[owl of Minerva]

It is my view that you misremembered this phantom lecture where someone tells you bollocks about dark ages.

Whatever. What I said above still stands. No need to add to it.

No it does not stand at all.
You cannot polish a turd

True. It all depends on what your definition of a turd is. Yours would be quite different than mine. Definitions matter.

But let’s get off the topic of the Dark Ages. Others may have something to say on the topic of ‘What is the point of Higher Education?

[Sculptor]

Whatever. What I said above still stands. No need to add to it.

No it does not stand at all.
You cannot polish a turd

True. It all depends on what your definition of a turd is. Yours would be quite different than mine. Definitions matter.

But let’s get off the topic of the Dark Ages. Others may have something to say on the topic of ‘What is the point of Higher Education?

Indeed.
And so to higher education...
Higher Education has created a massive body of historiography on the topic "Dark Ages", and since definitions matter so much no academic would ever propose that the Greco-Roman civilisation could ever be called a "Dark Age", in fact it represents the very antipathy of what a Dark Age is, rather a veritable age of fluorescence shining a light in to many areas of cognitive darkenss.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

Nowadays, liberal education is just the mistake of paying to have your children indoctrinated in Leftist political ideology, and turned into little racists and whiners who have no concept of the past (nor any use for it) and no vision for the future but whatever they have been taught by their indoctrinators.

It is certainly not indoctrination when you are required by a teacher to examine you own confirmation bias.