Unlearning 101

What If Society Has to Unlearn Death?

In 1899, just a few years before the Wright brothers achieved their historic accomplishment, Lord Kelvin—then one of the world’s brightest men and most accomplished scientists—declared heavier than air machines to be “impossible.”

He was wrong.

To add insult to injury, Lord Kelvin was proved wrong by a pair of bicycle repairmen from Dayton, Ohio.

A few years ago, a relatively unknown computer scientist, Aubrey de Grey, declared that aging should not be viewed as something which will necessarily ultimately result in death. Rather, he theorized that aging is a disease and should instead be treated as such.

The outcry from the scientific community was similar to Lord Kelvin’s reaction to human flight. One group of scientists even declared that de Grey’s idea was “so far from plausible that it commands no respect at all within the informed scientific community.”

Well, according to this article in Wired, the idea is now beginning to gain some acceptance within scientific circles.

To be sure, society is still a long way from de Grey’s goal of ending aging but, as I have written before, I’d encourage people to not dismiss the idea entirely. For if he is right, it will require society to unlearn a great many ideas which it now holds as dear.

In fact, the scale of unlearning our current paradigm of “death as an inevitability” could make other past historic paradigm shifts—such as the idea that the earth is not at the center of the universe (an idea for which Aristarchus was run out of Alexandria and Galileo was forced to recant under edict of the Catholic Church) or Darwin’s theory of evolution—look like child’s play.

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Unlearning the Bible: What Was Lost in Translation?

I have just started reading Marshall McLuhan's book, "The Gutenberg Galaxy" and early in the book I stumbled this nugget which, to paraphase, suggests that Thomas the Aquinas believed that Jesus did not commit this teachings to writing because his "type of teaching was not possible by means of writing." In other words, in keeping with the strong oral tradition of the time, Jesus focused on telling stories because they -- and not written words -- were the best and most meaningful way to deliver his message to his audience.

It is not my purpose to get into a religious discussion with this post. It is instead to encourage believers and non-believers alike to ask themselves what might have lost in translating Jesus' parables into the written word -- and what steps might be taken to enhance and reclaim that tradition.

Secondly, it is to ask this question: Is it possible that if believers want to get closer to the word of God that they might need to rely less on the Bible's written words and more on "hearing" what Jesus was really saying?

As someone who attended years of Catholic schooling, I recognize that this a big unlearning step and I am not even claiming that it is necessarily the right step; but I do believe it is an idea that thoughtful people should at least be open to.

Alternatively, and as an additional exercise in unlearning, believers should ask themselves this difficult question: If the Bible was intended to be the literal translation of God's word (and, personally, I don't believe it is) why didn't Jesus take on the critical job of writing the story himself? Why did he leave it to his disciplines? Worse, why were various versions of the disciples writings then allowed to be selected centuries later through an, arguably, political process by church officials?

Unlearning 101: Lesson #17 -- Unlearn Your Biases

Unlearning Religion

Richard Dawkins shows us a map of the world's many religions and then asks us to imagine a similar world map of a specific scientific theory. It is a wonderful thought exercise and should leave all of us questioning the idea that any religion is the "one" true religion.

Unlearning Happiness

Imagine you won the lottery. Now imagine you lost the use of your legs in a car accident. In a year's time under which event would you experience more happiness? It seems like an idiotic question. The answer is obvious: the lottery will make us happier. The only problem is that this isn't true. I encourage you to watch this very insightful video from Dan Gilbert, the author of "Stumbling Upon Happiness" and pay very close attention to what he calls "The Impact Bias." His comments on the "paradox of choice" may also encourage many of us to unlearn what we think will make us happy.

Unlearning the Five Stages of Grief

I first studiedElisabeth Kubler-Ross' "five stages of grief" in high school. Since then, I have accepted her theory. As Michael Shermer suggests in this articlein Scientific American there is little evidentiary support for her thesis.

Part of the problem, I believe, is that people like to make life more tidy than it actually is. For example, Freud suggested that people move through five stages of pyschosexual development; Lawrence Kohlberg postulates our moral development has six stages; and, of course, Kubler-Ross was of the opinion that we experience five stages of grief. (Ironically, I once read that near the end of her own life Ross was bitter at the thought of her impending death -- apparently, she never reached the "acceptance stage.")

If we accept these theories as given, it makes unlearning that much more difficult. To really unlearn it helps to view life as far complex than many of our leading social scientists would like us to believe.

Unlearning Bubbles

The Internet, the real estate market, fuel cell technology, nanotechnology and, now, "clean tech" have all experienced an investing "bubble." In retrospect, it is easy to point to signs that the market was inflating to dangerous levels. It is even easier to suggest that such bubbles are a bad thing -- precisely because so many investors got burned and lost a great a deal of money.

Bob Metcalfe, an early and successful Internet entrepreneur, see bubbles differently. He sees bubbles as a good thing. Here's his quote: "From Internet history, we know that bubbles are normal. Bubbles are an accelerator of technology progress. Bubbles go against the status quo. We should encourage bubbles."

I suspect that such statements are much easier to make when you're already a billionaire; as opposed, say, to someone to just lost a large amount of money in the stock market. Nevertheless, there is a certain logic to his argument and we may want not to dismiss all bubbles as cases of irrational investors getting sucked up by the winds of "irrational exuberance." Instead we want to view them as "technology accelerators." (This might not ease the financial pain of those who lost money in the bubble, but it might at least make them feel a little bit better about themselves.)