The discussion in the online "encounter group" between physics, biology, management, art and systems which I've been running for the last few weeks (we've been going for 10 weeks now), is something which I've longed for in education for years. It's no good talking about education just with educationalists - their discourse, like all discourses, play the games of disciplinary politics where some things are easily discussed, and other things are impossible to discuss. Only when we actually have people representing different disciplines having a conversation about important things that something special happens. But as Whitehead once said, if you want to know where the next scientific advance is coming from, look at what people are not talking about.
One of the group members remarked to me later that they were surprised that a leading biologist, physicist and social scientists were actually having a conversation which kept on going, and people keep on coming back. This week the conversation started talking about poetry and music, and quickly moved on to biology and Peter Rowlands's nilpotent quantum mechanics.
I think it is the nilpotent which is the glue, and the fact that John Torday has a theory of epigenetics which directly relates to the nilpotent has meant that a new conversation has opened. And that's exciting.
One of the group members remarked to me later that they were surprised that a leading biologist, physicist and social scientists were actually having a conversation which kept on going, and people keep on coming back. This week the conversation started talking about poetry and music, and quickly moved on to biology and Peter Rowlands's nilpotent quantum mechanics.
I think it is the nilpotent which is the glue, and the fact that John Torday has a theory of epigenetics which directly relates to the nilpotent has meant that a new conversation has opened. And that's exciting.
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