Seeking Understanding

The Lifelong Pursuit to Build the Scientific Mind
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-41679-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, 374 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 771 g

The quest to understand defines our humanness. Since time immemorial it has given rise to art and literature, philosophical reflection, religious practice, myths, metaphor, and allegory, as well as, in more recent history, disciplined scientific inquiry. Seeking understanding is a lifelong journey towards a goal the parameters of which change as our pursuit progresses, until, at life’s end, the goal vanishes beyond the horizon. Such is humanness. Along the way, we build, in an enduring self-transformative fashion, our mind—the scientific mind. But what is that mind?

A transdisciplinary team of 21 prominent authors, from areas such as music history, psychiatry, physics, cosmology, education, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, gaming, artificial intelligence, science communication, early child development, science education, and economics, shed light on what it takes humans to build and cultivate the scientific mind along the lifespan. A decade of intercultural dialogue preceded the book. It comprised six major international Building the Scientific Mind colloquia in culturally diverse settings that spanned the entire planet. Several hundred people from different disciplines and interests—among them distinguished scientists, policy and decision makers, practitioners and thinkers—contributed to the dialogue.

Building the scientific mind transforms our ‘way of being in the world.’ It is driven by the desire to understand deeply—cognitively and affectively—who we are in a world of which we are an integral part. It has great relevance for sustained human existence in the Anthropocene and profound implications for how we organize the conditions for informal and formal learning.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Visser, Jan

Visser, Muriel

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Pädagogik Philosophie der Erziehung, Bildungstheorie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword

Walter R. Erdelen

Acknowledgements

List of Figures and Tables

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: The Making of This Book and Its Roots in Creative Collaboration

Jan Visser and Muriel Visser

Intermezzi: Thoughts Inspired by the Thoughts of Others

Jan Visser

1 The Quest to Know: Seeking Understanding and Wisdom

Jan Visser

Intermezzo 1: The Missing Piece

Jan Visser

2 Context Is Everything and Everything Has Meaning

Robert Greenberg

Intermezzo 2: Life Starts Long before Its Beginning

Jan Visser

3 From Preconception to Preschool: The Foundation of the Scientific Mind

Emily Vargas-Barón

Intermezzo 3: Touching the Encountered World

Jan Visser

4 Saga of a Small Science Center

Arvind Gupta

Intermezzo 4: The Worthwhile Struggle to Overcome Inertia

Jan Visser

5 Expanding the Dialogue: Challenging the Mental Models of Schooling through Indigenous Invention

Paul E. Heckman

Intermezzo 5: When the Sky Is Not the Limit, It Could Be the Beginning

Jan Visser

6 The Inspiring Universe

George Miley, Carolina Ödman and Pedro Russo

Intermezzo 6: Never Ever without Passion

Jan Visser

7 Playing the Role of Facilitator: Questioning the Curious Mind

Jos van den Broek

Intermezzo 7: On Dialogue

Jan Visser

8 How You Talk Is How You Think; How You Think Is How You Understand

Paul Webb

Intermezzo 8: Facing Life’s Biggest Questions

Jan Visser

9 Seeking to Know and Understand the Self

Premana W. Premadi

Intermezzo 9: A Sense of Beauty

Jan Visser

10 Beauty in Science, Science in Beauty: The Scientific Aesthetic as an Evolving Heuristic

Matthew Colless

Intermezzo 10: Making the Unfamiliar Familiar

Jan Visser

11 Science Popularizer Is the Most Important Job That Does Not Yet Exist: Why Modern Societies Need More Science Popularizers

Lê Nguyên Hoang

Intermezzo 11: It’s Not Just a Right; It’s an Obligation to the Future

Jan Visser

12 Fostering Inquiry, Reasoning and Critical Thinking

J. Michael Spector

Intermezzo 12: How Long Can We Still Wait and Who Takes Responsibility?

Jan Visser

13 The Shifting Mind of Economics

Martinus Petrus de Wit

Intermezzo 13: Looking Back with a View to Looking Forward

Jan Visser

14 Invent the Future

Federico Mayor

Intermezzo 14: Culture of Differences vs. Difference of Cultures

Jan Visser

15 Seeking to Find out Why Things Happen: Variations on a Theme of Diallo Sampa’s Grandfather

Ralf Syring

Intermezzo 15: Reverence for Life, Whatever Its Manifestations

Jan Visser

16 Nontraditional Pathways to the Development of a Scientific Mind: Examples from the Domain of Psychopathology

Stephen P. Hinshaw

Intermezzo 16: Homo Ludens

Jan Visser

17 Education in a Complex World: Nurturing Chaordic Agency through Game Design

Carlo Fabricatore and Ximena López

Intermezzo 17: Where Science Ends

Jan Visser

18 HIV, Medical Science and the Call to Greater Humanness

James Lees

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jan Visser, Engineering Degree (1965), Delft University of Technology; PhD (1989), Florida State University. Jan is Theoretical Physicist and multiply awarded Cognitive Scientist. He is founding President & Senior Researcher at the Learning Development Institute and a former UNESCO Director. Jan publishes prolifically across disciplines in multiple languages.

Muriel Visser, PhD (2004), Florida State University, International Development Specialist. Muriel is an independent consultant, specialized in humanitarian and development aid evaluations. She works for international agencies around the world and is an associate researcher with the Learning Development Institute.