Renaissance Science, Registered 21st Century Rebirth Document

This essay is the birth certificate of the 21st Century Renaissance. It shows how the life-science of the Classical Greek era's Humanities has been upgraded in order to bring balance into Western technological culture. Many philosophers have warned that the fate of human civilisation depends upon achieving that goal.

The ancient Greek Parthenon represented a Greek life-science culture, symbolising concepts of political government long lost to modern Western science. The Ottoman military once stored gunpowder in the Parthenon and in1687 a Venetian mortar round blew the building into ruin. Recent restoration techniques using computers revealed that strange illusionary optical engineering principles had been used in the building's construction. We know that they were associated with the mathematics of the Music of the Spheres that Pythagoras had brought back from the Egyptian Mystery Schools. We also know that Plato considered that any engineer who did not understand about spiritual optical engineering principles was a barbarian.

Harvard University's Novartis Chair Professor, Amy Edmondson, in her online biography of Buckminster Fuller, The Fuller Explanation, wrote about how Fuller had plagiarised Plato's spiritual engineering discoveries and used them to derive his life-science synergistic theories. Those theories, which completely challenged the basis of the 20th Century Einsteinian world-view are now the basis of a new medical science instigated by the three 1996 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry. During the 21st Century the complex Fullerene geometrical reasoning has brought about the rebirth of the lost ancient Greek optical science of life. This is now rewriting Western technological culture, so there is a need to know why Buckminster Fuller wrote that this reunification provides a choice between Utopia or Oblivion.

After presenting complex geometrical reasoning, Professor Edmondson wrote, "By now familiar with Fuller's underlying assumptions, we shall take time out to introduce some background material. The origins of humanity's fascination with geometry can be traced back four thousand years, to the Babylonian and Egyptian civilisations; two millennia later, geometry flourished in ancient Greece, and its development continues today. Yet most of us know almost nothing about the accumulated findings of this long search. Familiarity with some of these geometric shapes and transformations will ease the rest of the journey into the intricacies of synergetics."

Human survival now depends upon a more general understanding that ethics is not about how science is used but about what is the ethical form of the spiritual, or holographic structure of science itself. There is no need for the reader to become conversant with the complex geometrical equations suggested by Professor Amy Edmondson, in order to follow the journey of ethical logic from ancient Egypt to the 21st Century Renaissance. However, before undertaking that journey we need to realise the nightmare scenario that the unbalanced 20th Century understanding of science has forced global humanity to endure and which Buckminster Fuller warned about.

In 1903, Lord Bertrand Russell's book A Freeman's Worship was published, containing his vision of A Universe in Thermodynamic Ruin. This nightmare mathematical assessment of reality stated that all the most ennobling thoughts of humankind amounted to nothing at all and all life in the universe must be destroyed. Lord Russell wrote that humans must endure, with total despair, the hopelessness of living within a reality that was totally governed by a lifeless energy law that Einstein was to call The Premier law of all science.

The name of the law governing 20th Century technological culture is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It is also known as the Universal heat death law or, the Law of Universal chaos.

That law demands the total extinction of all life in the universe when all heat is dissipated into cold space. As a result of that law, all life sciences, including global economic rationalism, can only be about species moving toward this imaginary heat death extinction.

Buckminster Fuller's life-science energy does not obey the heat death law. It is based instead upon fractal logic, which exists forever. Einstein's governing death-science law is the correct basis of modern chemistry, but that chemistry is balanced by Plato's spiritual engineering principles, or the functioning of Fullerene holographic 'chemistry'. While mainstream science does indeed accept that fractal logic extends to infinity, no life science within the Western technological culture can possibly be part of its workings. That mindset can be a serious distraction to biologists who seek to associate rain cloud fractal logic with the effects of climate change upon human evolution.

In 1996 within an Open Letter to the Secretariat of the United Nations on behalf of the Science-Art Research Centre of Australia, Australian National Library Canberra Australian Citation RECORD 2645463, a complaint was made that the Australian Government was unintentionally committing a major crime against humanity for endorsing a totally entropic educational system governed by the second law of thermodynamics. At the United Nations University in Washington the complaint was handed to the United Nations University Millennium, Project-Australasian Node, for investigation. Seven years of peer reviewed research ensued, concluding that the complaint was justified. In 2006 a formal Decree of Recognition was issued by the Australasian Division of the United Nations University Millennium Project, attesting to the urgent global importance of this issue.

Having contrasted the 21st Century rebirth of Classical Greek fractal logic life-science - the New Renaissance, with the 20th Century nightmare, we can follow Professor Amy Edmondson's advice to begin our journey of ethical understanding from ancient Egypt. (George Sarton's, A History of Science argues that ancient Kemetic theories of Egypt were scientific and established the foundations of later Hellenistic science).

The ability of the ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom to reason that two geometries existed to balance the workings of the universe was praised by the Greek philosopher Plato, whose fundamental idea was that "All is Geometry". Old Kingdom wall paintings depicted that evil thoughts prevented evolutionary access to a spiritual reality. The geometry used to survey farm boundaries lost each year when the River Nile flooded was quite different from the sacred geometries basic to Egyptian religious ceremonies.

The BBC television program about the collapse of the Egyptian Old Kingdom by Professor Fekri Hassan of the Institute of Archaeology, University College, London, explained that some 4000 years ago, a prolonged drought collapsed the First Kingdom, soon after the death of King Pepy II. Professor Hassan explains that 100 years after the collapse, hieroglyphs record that Egyptian government was restored when the people insisted that the ethics of social justice, mercy and compassion were fused into the fabric of political law. It is rather important to realise that at that point of time in history, ethics associated with fractal geometrical logic had been fused into a political structure.

During the 6th Century BCE the Greek scholar Thales went to Egypt to study the ethics of life-science at the Egyptian Mystery schools and he advised Pythagoras to do the same. Pythagoras learned that evolutionary wisdom was generated by the movement of celestial bodies, which the Greeks called The music of the Spheres. It was thought that this harmonic music could transfer its wisdom to the atomic movement of the soul through the forces of harmonic resonance, such as when a high note shatters a wine glass.

The Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy was to fuse ethics into a model of reality called the Nous, postulated by the scientific thinker Anaxagoras. The Nous was a whirling force that acted upon primordial particles in space to form the worlds and to evolve intelligence. The ancient Greeks decided to invent science by fusing further ethics into the fractal logic structure of the Nous. The harmonic movement of the moon could be thought to influence the female fertility cycle and this science could explain a mother's love and compassion for children. The Classical Greek science was about how humans might establish an ethical life-science to guide ennobling political government. The idea was, that by existing for the health of the universe, human civilisation would avoid extinction.

The Classical Greek life-science was constructed upon the concept of good and evil. Good was For the Health of the Universe. A very precise definition of evil is found in Plato's book, The Timaeus. Evil was classified as a destructive property of unformed matter within the physical atom.

The ancient Greek atom was considered to be physically indivisible and it can be considered that the anti-life properties of nuclear radiation had been classified as evil. Modern chemistry is constructed upon the logic of universal atomic decay, which is governed by the second law of thermodynamics. The Egyptian concept of evil thought processes leading to oblivion echoes Plato's and Buckminster Fuller's concepts of an oblivion brought about through an obsession with an unbalanced geometrical world-view.

The Max Plank Astrophysicist, Professor Peter Kafka, in his six essays entitled The Principle of Creation and the Global Acceleration Crisis, written over a period from 1976 to 1994, predicted the current global financial collapse being brought about by "scientists, technologists and politicians" who had an unbalanced understanding of the second law of thermodynamics. Kafka wrote in chapter four, entitled Ethics from Physics, that the second law of thermodynamics had been known for centuries. Kafka realised that it had various other names throughout history such as Diabolos, the Destroyer of Worlds, the evil god of Plato's Physics of Chaos, now the god of modern Chaos Physics.

The science to explain a mother's love for children involving both celestial and atomic movement became associated with the Science of Universal Love taught in Greece during the 3rd Century BCE.

Julius Caesar's colleague, the Historian Cicero, recorded during the 1st Century BCE, that this science was being taught throughout Italy and across to Turkey by teachers called 'saviours'. He considered that such teaching challenged Roman political stability. During the 5th Century some 1000 years of fractal logic scrolls held in the Great Library of Alexandria were burned. The custodian of the library, the mathematician Hypatia, was brutally murdered by a Christain mob during the rule of Pope Cyril. Hypatia's fractal logic life-science was condemned by St Augustine as the work of the Devil. In his The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon marked Hypatia's murder as the beginning of the Dark Ages.

Encyclopaedia Britannica lists St Augustine as the mind which mostly completely fused the Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy with the religion of the New Testament, influencing both Protestant and Catholic religious belief in modern times. His translation of Plato's atomic evil as female sexuality, influenced the 13th Century Angel Physics of St Thomas Aquinas, known as History's Doctor of Science. During the mid 14th Century until the mid 17th Century, Angel Physics was used to legalise the imprisonment, ritualistic torture and burning alive of countless women and children. The argument that Augustine's banishment of fractal life-science logic in the 5th Century was responsible for Western life-science becoming obsessed with the second law of thermodynamics can be validated.

The Reverend Thomas Malthus derived his famous Principles of Population essay from the writings of St Thomas Aquinas and used it to establish the economic and political policies of the East India Company. Charles Darwin, employed by that company, cited Malthus' essay as the basis of his survival of the fittest life-science. Darwin, in the 18th Century, held the essay as synonymous with the second law of thermodynamics.

Plato's Academy had been closed for being a pagan institution in 529 by the Christian Emperor Justinian, Banished Greek scholars fled to Islamic Spain where their theories were tolerated. The Golden Age of Islamic science, from which Western science emerged, included the Translation School in Toledo. Islamic, Christian and Jewish scholars worked together to translate the lost Greek ideas into Latin. The Franciscan monk, Roger Bacon, during the 13th Century studied work from Jewish scholars familiar with the research undertaken at the Toledo school. Pope Clement IV encouraged Bacon to write his pagan ideas in secret, but after the death of Clement IV, Roger Bacon was imprisoned by the Franciscans.

Roger Bacon developed ideas about flying machines, horseless carriages,submarines and self propelling ships from the same Islamic source that later inspired Leonardo da Vinci. Roger Bacon studied the optics of Plato and the upgrading of Plato's optics by Islamic scholars. Unlike Leonardo, Roger Bacon agreed with Al Haytham, History's Father of Optics, that the eye could not be the source of all knowledge, an erroneous idea of reality that Descartes and Sir Francis Bacon, the Renaissance author and father of inductive reasoning, used to usher in the age of industrial entropic materialism. Thomas Jefferson, inspired by Francis Bacon's vision of a great Empire for All Men based upon all knowledge from the eye, depicted the concept onto the Great Seal Of America.

Cosimo Medici, with the help of Sultan Memhed II, re-established Plato's Academy in Florence during the 15th Century. Cosimo appointed Marcilio Ficino as its manager. Ficino wrote about the Platonic love associated with the Music of the Spheres influencing the atoms of the soul. He carefully avoided serious charges of heresy by placing eminent Christian figures into his writings and paintings associated with the new Platonic Academy. Two famous paintings commissioned by the Medici that survived the Great Burning, instigated by the Christian Monk Savarola, illustrated Ficino's cunning.

In 1480 Botticelli was commissioned to paint a portrait of St Augustine in His Study, in which a book is depicted opened at a page displaying Pythagorean mathematics. Alongside the written formulae is an instrument for observing celestial movement. Augustine is gazing directly at an armillary sphere, an instrument used to calculate data relevant to Pythagoras' Music of the Spheres. The Saint's halo, accepted at that time as representing the consciousness of the soul, upon close examination, has a spherical book-stud within its orbit, depicting Ficino's atom of the soul responding to the Music of the Spheres.

At the same time that Botticelli was commissioned to paint Augustine's portrait, Ghirlandhiao was commissioned to paint a portrait of Augustine's close colleague, St Jerome in His Study. Again, with careful examination, Jerome's halo can be seen to have a spherical bookstud placed into its orbit, demonstrating that Botticelli's depiction of the atom of the soul associated with the Music of the Spheres was not coincidental. Both Botticell and Ghirlandaio were mentors to Leonardo da Vinci.

By realising that Roger Bacon's knowledge of Platonic optics was generally superior to Leonardo's, the Science-Art Research Centre of Australia, in collaboration with a cancer research team at the University of Sydney, during 1986, was able to successfully modify the optical key to Leonardo's da Vinci's Theory of Knowledge. This discovery also corrected the optics understanding of Descates, Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Russell, Emmanuel Kant, Albert Einstein and other scientists who considered Al Haitham's optics as being industrially impractical.

The Science-Art Research Centre's correction to the crucial optics key was published in a Science-Art book launched in Los Angeles in 1989 under the auspices of the Hollywood Thalian Mental Health Organisation. In 1991 the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Peirre de Genes for his theories about liquid crystal optics. In the following year the vast new science and technology, predicted by the Science-Art Centre's correction of da Vinci's work, was discovered The principal discoverer, Professor Barry Ninham of the Australian National University, later to become the Italy's National Chair of Chemistry, wrote that the Centre's work encompassed a revolution of thought, as important to science and society as the Copernican and Newtonian revolutions.

Leonardo da Vinci was certainly a great genius, but he was not really the Man of the Renaissance at all, because he was unable to comprehend the life-energy basis of Plato's spiritual optical engineering principles. He had attempted to develop the relevant optics for several years then reverted back to what Plato had referred to as the engineering practices of a barbarian. On the other hand, Sir Isaac Newton, was a genuine Man of the Renaissance, as his unpublished papers, discovered last century revealed. His certain conviction that "a more profound natural philosophy existed to balance the mechanical description of the universe," was based upon the same physics principles that upheld the lost Classical Greek Era's science of life and they are now at the cutting edge of fractal logic quantum biology.

The 20th Century began with the aforesaid Lord Bertrand Russell's horrific acquiescence to enslavement by the second law of thermodynamics in 1903, followed in 1905 by Einstein's unbalanced E=Mc2. TIME Magazine's Century of Science lists Maria Montessori as the greatest scientist of 1907. Her association with President Woodrow Wilson, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Jefferson and Teildard de Chardin demonstrated how the entropy law embraces Plato's definition of evil. Montessorri called the second law of thermodynamics the energy greed law. Montessori and de Chardin's electromagnetic life-science key to open their Golden Gates of the future were derived from concepts based upon the spiritualisation of matter and humanity evolving with the cosmos. That was in direct contrast to the electromagnetic understanding of Alexander Graham Bell.

President Wilson was genuinely troubled by the loss of life during World War I. He and Alexander Bell chose Darwin's entropic life-science as the electromagnetic key to the future of America rather that Montessori's. After World War II, High Command Nazi prisoners at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal protested that Adolph Hitler had based the policies of the Third Reich upon the the Darwinian Eugenics of which Present Wilson and Alexander Bell had been involved with.

The scientist, Matti Pitkanen, can be considered to have upgraded de Chardin's ethical electromagnetic key to open Montessori's Golden Gates to the future. De Chardin insisted that the gates would only open for all people at the same time and not for any chosen race nor privileged few. Pitkanen noted that the earth's regular deflection of potentially lethal radiation from the sun fulfilled the criteria of an act of consciousness, protecting all life on earth at the same time.

The 1937 Nobel Prize Winner for Medicine, Szent-Gyoergyi, wrote a book about scientists who did not recognise that their understanding of the second law of thermodynamics was balanced by the evolution of consciousness. The title of the book was The Crazy Apes. In his 1959 Rede Lecture at the University of Cambridge in 1959, the Molecular Biologist, Sir C P Snow, argued that the inadequate understanding about the nature and functioning of the second law of thermodynamics by his fellow scientists was scientifically irresponsible. He referred to their thinking as belonging to their neolithic cave dwelling ancestors. The title of Snow's lecture was The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. This book was listed by The Times Literary Supplement as one of 100 books most influencing Western public thinking since World War II and has been systematically denounced ever since.

During the past 15 years, science has developed so rapidly that it has given the Humanities no time to grasp the significance of the social ramifications of the rebirth of Fuller's Platonic spiritual, or holographic, engineering principles from ancient Greece. Organised religious opposition to criticism of the understanding of the second law of thermodynamics from Christian schools, Colleges and Universities has been extremely thorough throughout the world. For example Professor F M Cornford, educated at St Paul's School and Trinity College, Cambridge, was made a Fellow in 1899, becoming the Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy in 1932, and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1937. His grasp of the ancient Greek fractal science of life can be shown to be completely illogical, yet it is the foundation for well organised international academic study courses at the present time.

Since 1932 Cambridge University has produced ten editions of Cornford's book Before and after Socrates. Cornford states in this book that Plato can be considered as one of the greatest fathers of the Christian religion. Encyclopaedia Britannica advises that St Augustine was the mind which mostly completely fused the Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy with the religion of the New Testament. Such pious academic reasoning flies in the face of Plato's spiritual engineering principles being observed functioning within the DNA as a function of a fractal life-science evolutionary function, and is therefore ludicrous.Plato defined that reasoning as being ignorant and barbaric and the language of engineers not fit to be considered philosophers. The Harvard Smithsonian/NASA High Energy Astrophysics Division Library has published papers by the Science Advisor to the Belgrade Institute of Physics, Professor Petar Grujic, arguing that the Classical Greek life-science was based upon fractal logic, a totally incomprehensible concept within the much lauded ancient Greek study courses currently set for post graduate studies.

Having arrived at the destination of Professor Amy Edmondson's journey from ancient Egypt to modern times, in order to be educated about the importance of Buckminster Fuller's geometrical understanding, we are able to grasp the stark reality of the title of his book Utopia or Oblivion. The objective of this essay, to construct the foundations of the Social Cradle to nurture the Florentine New Measurement of Humanity Renaissance, was derived from that book. The following explains the Science-Art Research Centre of Australia's long and arduous struggle to help contribute towards the vital human survival research now being carried out under the auspices of the New Florentine Renaissance.

In 1979 the Science Unit of Australian National Television documented the work of the Science-Art Research Centre into its eight part series The Scientists-Profiles of Discovery. During that year, at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, China's most highly awarded physicist, Kun Huang, proposed a research plan that was put into operation by the Centre. Professor Huang was angry that Einstein and the framers of the 20th Century world-view were unable to discuss the Classical Greek life sciences in infinite biological energy terms. He proposed that by observing the evolutionary patterning changes to species designed upon ancient Greek Golden Mean geometry, it should be possible to deduce the nature of the life-force governing their evolution through space-time.

Huang suggested that the world's seashell fossil record would provide the necessary patterning-change information. The research was assisted by the communities of the six towns comprising the Riverland Region of South Australia. During the 1980s the Centre's several seashell life-energy papers, written by the Centre's mathematician, Chris Illert, were published by Italy's leading scientific journal, il Nuovo Cimento. In 1990 two of the papers were selected as important discoveries of the 20th Century and were reprinted by the world's leading technological research institute, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in Washington.

By deriving an Art-master optics formula from the Italian Renaissance, which can be considered to be associated with fractal logic, a simulation of a living seashell creature was generated. By lowering the musical harmonics a simulation of the creature's fossil ancestor was obtained. By lowering the musical order by a different amount, the simulation of a strange, grotesque creature was generated. The Smithsonian Institute identified the fossil as being the famous Nipponites Mirabilis that drifted along the coast of Japan 20 million years ago. It was designed to drift along upright in water in order to ensnare its prey. Chris Illert became the first scientist to link its evolution to a living seashell.

In 1995 the discovery won an internationally peer reviewed Biology Prize from the Institute for Basic Research in America. China's most eminent physicist, Kun Huang, was greatly honoured. The work was acclaimed for the discovery of new physics laws governing optimum biological growth and development through space-time. The Research Institute's President, Professor Ruggero Santilli, in collaboration with the Centre's mathematician, made a most important observation. He observed that the accepted scientific world-view could not be used to generate such futuristic simulations. Instead it generated cancer-like biological distortions through space-time.

The Centre's Bio-Aesthetics Researcher, the late Dr George Robert Cockburn, Royal Fellow of Medicine (London), who had worked with the centre's mathematician, became concerned by the scientific community's refusal to challenge its obsolete understanding of the second law of thermodynamics. He published several books about creative consciousness based upon the ancient Greek fractal logic life-science. His correction to Emmanuel Kant's Aesthetics was later found to be validated by the 19th Century's mathematician Bernard Bolzano's Theory of Science. Bolzano's own correction to Emmanuel Kant's ethics had been assessed by Edmund Husserl in his Logical Investigations- vol. I - Prolegomena to a pure logic 61 (Appendix) (1900), as being the work of one of the greatest logicians of all time.

We know that Bolzano corrected the ethical logic of Immanuel Kant by using aspects of fractal logic, as the famous Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem of 1817 is now synonymous with the pioneering of modern fractal logic. The Aesthetics associated with Emmanuel Kant belonging to the destructive entropic world-view are hailed as being of global importance during the 21st Century, when, in fact, they are known to be obsolete. J Alberto Coffa's book The semantic tradition from Kant to Carnap: to the Vienna station, edited by Linda Wessels - Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1991 contains the statement "Kant had not even seen these problems; Bolzano solved them. And his solutions were made possible by, and were the source of, a new approach to the content and character of a priori knowledge." The famous Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem was based upon fractal logic concepts.

In the book The Beauty of Fractals- Images of Complex Dynamical Systems is a chapter entitled Freedom, Science and Aesthetics by Professor Gert Eilenberger, who also corrected an aspect of Kantian Aesthetics in order to upgrade quantum mechanics into quantum biology. Professor Eilenberger wrote about the excitement surrounding pictures of fractal computer art, as demonstrating that "out of research an inner connection, a bridge, can be made between rational scientific insight and emotional aesthetic appeal; these two modes of cognition of the human species are now beginning to concur in their estimation of what constitutes nature".

The Science-Art Centre had discovered that by using special 3-D optical glasses, holographic images emerge from within fractal computer generated artwork. The excitement within the art-work itself extends to the realisation that, over the centuries, certain paintings reveal the same phenomenon, created unconsciously by the artist, indicating the existence of an aspect of evolving creative consciousness associated with Plato's spiritual optical engineering principles now linked to the new Fullerene life-science chemistry.

The electromagnetic evolutionary information properties generated into existence by the liquid crystal optical functioning of the fertilised ovum are transmitted to the first bone created within the human embryo. From the Humanoid fossil record, each time that bone changes its Golden Mean patterning design, a new humanoid species emerges. It is currently altering its shape under the influence of the same physics forces responsible for seashell evolution, as was discovered by the Science-Art Research Centre of Australia during the 1980s. The sphenoid bone is in vibrational contact with the seashell design of the human cochlea.The design of Nipponites Mirabilis was to keep its owner upright in water, the cochlea design is to enable humans to balance so as to keep them upright on land.

The cerebral electromagnetic functioning of creative human consciousness as a Grand Music of the Spheres Composition has been adequately charted by Texas University's Dr Richard Merrick in his book Interference. The Fullerene life-science of the three 1996 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry has found expression within the medical company, C Sixty Inc. The Science-Art Research Centre in Australia considers that Buckminster Fuller's crucial Social Cradle within the Arts, under the auspices of the Florentine New Renassaince Project might be able to bring to the public an understanding for the global betterment of the human condition.

China's most eminent physicist, Hun Huang's research program can now be upgraded to generate healthy sustainable futuristic human simulations through millions of space-time years, and from those human survival blueprints the technologies needed for overpopulated earth to ethically utilise the universal holographic environment are becoming obvious. The 20th Century adage that ethics is how one uses science is as barbaric as Plato's Spiritual engineering classified it. Ethical consciousness has quantum biological properties beyond Einstein's world-view as has been proven by medical research conducted under the auspices of the Florentine New Measurement of Humanity Renaissance.

Dr Candace Pert's Molecule of Emotion, discovered in 1972, referred to in the films What the Bleep, do we know? and Down the Rabbit Hole, has been experimentally extended into further realms of holographic life-science reality. Dr Pert's Molecule of Emotion is the same in humans as in a primitive cell, but has evolved by increasing the speed of its molecular movement. Associated with this emotional evolution is the functioning of endocrine fluids necessary to maintain cellular health. The Florentine life-energy research has established that endocrine fluids evolve within the earth's holographic electromagnetic environment, affecting health in a manner beyond the understanding of an unbalanced 20th Century world-view.

On the 24th of September 2010, on behalf of the President of the Italian Republic, Dr. Giovanna Ferri, awarded the "Giorgio Napolitano Medal" to Professor Massimo Pregnolato, who shared it with Prof. Paolo Manzelli for research conducted in Quantumbionet/Egocreanet by their Florentine New `Renaissance Project.

This essay has explained the primary obstacle that has prevented Sir Isaac Newton's 'more profound natural philosophy to balance the mechanical description of the universe' from being brought about. The knowledge of how to correct this situation has become central to the objectives of the Florentine New Measurement of Humanity Renaissance of the 21st Century. This essay is the Birth Registration Certificate of the New Renaissance.

Copyright Robert Pope 2010.

http://www.science-art.com.au
Professor Robert Pope is the Director of the Science-Art Research Centre of Australia, Uki, NSW, Australia. The Center's objective is to initiate a second Renaissance in science and art, so that the current science will be balanced by a more creative and feminine science. More information is available at the Science-Art Centre website: http://www.science-art.com.au/books.html

Professor Robert Pope is a recipient of the 2009 Gold Medal Laureate for Philosophy of Science, Telesio Galilei Academy of Science, London. He is an Ambassador for the Florentine New Measurement of Humanity Project, University of Florence, is listed in Marquis Who's Who of the World as an Artist-philosopher, and has received a Decree of Recognition from the American Council of the United Nations University Millennium Project, Australasian Node.

As a professional artist, he has held numerous university artist-in-residencies, including Adelaide University, University of Sydney, and the Dorothy Knox Fellowship for Distinguished Persons. His artwork has been featured of the front covers of the art encyclopedia, Artists and Galleries of Australia, Scientific Australian and the Australian Foreign Affairs Record. His artwork can be viewed on the Science-Art Centre's website

All These Worlds Are Yours - The Appeal of Science Fiction

I've been fascinated with science fiction stories for as long as I can remember, although, I must confess, I never thought of science fiction as being mainstream literature. I, like many readers, pursued science fiction as a form of escapism, a way to keep up with speculation on recent scientific discoveries, or just a way to pass the time.

It wasn't until I met with my thesis adviser to celebrate the approval of my paper that I had to think about science fiction in a new light. My adviser works for a large, well-known literary foundation that is considered to be very "canonical" in its tastes. When he asked me if I liked science fiction, and if I would be willing to select about one hundred stories for possible inclusion in an anthology that they were thinking about producing, I was somewhat surprised. When he told me it might lead to a paying gig, I became even more astounded. I went home that afternoon feeling very content: my paper had been approved, and I might get a paying job to select science fiction, of all things.

Then it hit me: I'd actually have to seriously think about some sort of a method to select from the thousands of science fiction short stories that had been written in the past century. When I considered that the ideals of the foundation would have to be reflected in the stories which I selected, something near panic set in: science fiction was not part of the "cannon."

"While I pondered weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore," I reached a decision: I'd first try to figure out what science fiction "was," and then I'd develop a set of themes that related to the essence of science fiction. So, armed with this battle plan, I proceeded to read what several famous authors had to say about science fiction. This seemed simple enough, until I discovered that no two authors thought science fiction meant quite the same thing. Oh, great, thought I: "nevermore." (Sorry, Edgar, I couldn't resist).

Having failed to discover the essence of science fiction, I selected four authors whose work I liked to try to determine what they contributed to the art of science fiction. The authors were: Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Orson Scott Card, and Arthur C Clarke. At the time, I didn't realize that two of the authors, Asimov and Clarke were considered "hard" science fiction writers, and the other two, Silverberg and Card, were considered "soft" science fiction writers.

So, you might ask: what is the difference between "hard" and "soft" science fiction. I'm glad you asked, else I would have to stop writing right about now. "Hard" science fiction is concerned with an understanding of quantitative sciences, such as astronomy, physics, chemistry, etc. "Soft" science fiction is often associated with the humanities or social sciences, such as sociology, psychology or economics. Of course, some writers blend "hard" and "soft" science fiction into their work, as Asimov did in the Foundation trilogy.

So, having selected the authors, I was ready to proceed to my next challenge, which you can read about in the next installment of the series.   "All these worlds are yours:" the Appeal of Science Fiction, Part II

In the first part of the series, I mentioned that I'd been given an assignment to select approximately one hundred science fiction short stories for inclusion in an anthology that was being considered by a literary foundation. Originally, I'd intended to find the "essence" of science fiction, and then select stories that reflected this essence. Unfortunately, this turned out to be nearly impossible, since different authors had different ideas about what constituted science fiction.

So, I took the easy way out, I selected four authors whose works appealed to me, and hoped that I could make selection based upon my familiarity with their works. My selection process resulted in four authors who have been writing science fiction for thirty years or more: Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Orson Scott Card, and Arthur C Clarke. As it turned out, two authors were considered "hard" science fiction writers, and two were considered "soft" science fiction writers.

Well, I finally had a plan. And then the wheels fell off. I still needed some sort of selection criteria, or I'd have to develop one as I read. So, I did what anyone in my place would have done. I started reading. I read, and read some more, and then... I read some more. Over three thousand pages and three hundred short stories, in fact. I was almost ready to make a stab at a selection process; almost, but not quite.

What, three thousand pages, and still can't figure out how to start? How could this be? Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little bit. I started to break the stories up into groupings around general themes-it helps when I organize things into groups, so I can apply some sort of selection criteria for seemingly unrelated data points (who says that thirty years in business doesn't have its rewards)? Gradually, I began grouping the stories into several broad headings: scientific discoveries; life-forms (which included aliens, man-made life and artificial life); the search for meaning (which includes the search for God or the gods); the death of a group of men, a nation, race, or system; the meaning of morality.

Now I admit, these groupings may be arbitrary, and may in fact reflect my perspective on things, but I had to start somewhere. The strange thing was that these grouping tended to repeat, no matter who the author was. When I thought about it, these same types of concerns are mirrored in the more "canonical" texts that are taught in school. So, what makes science fiction different from the mainstream texts taught in colleges and universities across the country?

Once again, I'm glad you asked that, because it is a perfect lead-in to the next part of the series.   "All these worlds are yours:" the Appeal of Science Fiction, Part III

I guess that the main difference between science fiction and the more acceptable or "canonical" type of fiction must arise either from the themes employed, or the subject matter. In part two of this series, I mentioned that the themes employed by science fiction, namely: the search for life, identity, the gods, and morality are similar to those themes employed in "canonical" literature. By the process of subtraction, that leaves subject matter as the primary difference between the two genres.

So, by subject matter, we must mean science, since we've already covered fiction ("when you has eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth," as Sherlock Holmes would say). So, we must infer that science is the factor which differentiates science fiction from traditional fiction. By this definition, several traditional pieces of fiction must be considered science fiction. As an example, The Tempest, by William Shakespeare has often been cited as a type of science fiction if we expand the category to include those works which incorporate current science into their works. But wait, you say, The Tempest does not incorporate science into its construction. Oh really, I reply, the English were just beginning to settle the New World in earnest when the play was written ("Oh, brave new world that has such people in't.") Besides, you reply, if anything, it is more fantasy than science fiction. Splitting hairs, I reply.

What then of John Milton, I ask? John Milton... why, he's so boring and well, unread these days, you reply. Of course he is, but that's beside the point. What about Paradise Lost, I rejoin? What about it, you reply (and then in a very low voice... I've never read it). The scene where Satan leaves hell and takes a cosmic tour before alighting on Earth and Paradise has been described by many critics as being the first instance of an author providing a cosmological view of the heavens. In fact, Milton scholars point to the fact that Milton, in the Aereopagitica claims to have visited Galileo Galilei at his home in Italy. These same critics also refer to the fact that Milton taught his nephews astronomy, using several texts that were considered progressive in their day. Still, most critics would fall on their pens (swords being so messy and difficult to come by these days), rather than admit to Paradise Lost being... gasp, science fiction.

Still not convinced; what do you say about Frankenstein? You say it made for several interesting movies, but really, the creature was overdone; bad make-up and all that. I reply: the make-up is irrelevant; for that matter, so are many of the films, which don't do justice to Mary Shelley's novel. She didn't even write the novel, you reply. Oh no, not another apologist for Percy Bysshe Shelley writing the novel. Let me state unequivocally that I don't care whether Mary or Percy wrote the novel: it is often cited as the first instance of science fiction. But where is the science, you ask: it is only alluded-to. That's' why it's also fiction, I retort.

So, where are we? I think we've managed to muddle the waters somewhat. It appears that the element of science is needed for science fiction, but the precedents for science being contained in a fictional work, are somewhat troubling. Maybe in the next section, we should examine "modern" science fiction and try to determine how science plays a part in works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  

"All these worlds are yours:" the Appeal of Science Fiction, Part IV

Up till now, we've defined science fiction as part science, and part fiction. No real revolutionary concept there. I've tried to show how earlier works could be considered science fiction, with mixed results. I've also said that works of the twentieth century would be easier to classify as science fiction, because they incorporate more elements of leading-edge science into their writing.

To use two brief examples, the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov is often considered a "soft" science fiction work, relying more on the social sciences than the physical sciences in the plot line. In the story, Asimov posits the creation of a foundation that relies on psychohistory, a kind of melding of group psychology and economics that is useful in predicting and ultimately molding, human behavior. Anyone who has been following the stock and financial markets over the past year can attest to the element of herd mentality which permeates any large scale human interaction. The theme of shaping human dynamics through psychohistory, while somewhat far-fetched is not beyond the realm of possibility (and would, no doubt, be welcomed by market bulls right about now).

A second example from Asimov, that of the three laws of robotics, has taken on a life of its own. Asimov began developing the laws of robotics to explain how a robot might work. The three laws were postulated as a mechanism to protect humans and robots. He did not expect the laws to become so ingrained into the literature on robots; in fact, the laws have become something of a de facto standard in any story or novel written about artificial life, as Asimov has noted in several essays.

The case of Asimov's three laws of robotics influencing other writers is not unusual. In the case of Arthur C. Clarke, his influence is felt beyond writing and extends to science as well. Clarke is the person responsible for postulating the use of geo-synchronous orbit for satellites, and the makers of weather, communications, entertainment and spy satellites owe him a debt of gratitude for developing this theory. He anticipated the manned landing on the moon, and many discoveries made on Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and their many moons.

Consider also, Orson Scott Card, whose novel Speaker for the Dead, postulates a world-wide communication network that is uncannily similar to the world-wide-web and predated the commercial internet by some fifteen to twenty years.

It appears then, that science fiction writers popularize science, provide their readers with a glimpse of the possibilities of new inventions and theories, and sometimes, anticipate or even discover new uses for technology. But there's still an element missing in our definition of science fiction, that of the fiction side of the equation. We'll explore the fiction side of science fiction in the next installment.   "All these worlds are yours:" the Appeal of Science Fiction, Part V

Good literature requires a successful plot, character development, and an emotional appeal in order to be successful. Science fiction is no different than traditional forms of fiction in this regard. We've talked about plot and content (science) in earlier installments. In this installment, I'd like to talk about the emotional reactions generated by science fiction.

Broadly speaking, I think science fiction appeals to the following emotional responses: terror, the joy of discovery, awe and wonder, a lassitude born of too many space flights or too many worlds, and a sense of accomplishment. The instances of terror in science fiction are well documented: for anyone who has seen Alien for the first time, terror is a very real emotion. Many science fiction and horror writers as well, make good use of the emotion of terror. An effective use of terror is important, however. Slasher movies use terror, but they sometimes degenerate into an almost parodic exercise of who can generate the most gore per minute. True terror is a case of timing and the unexpected. That's why Arthur C Clarke's story entitled "A Walk in the Dark" is so effective. The author sets-up the BEM (bug-eyed monster, from Orson Scott Card) as a pursuing agent; the protagonist has no idea that the monster will actually wind-up in front of him.

As to the joy of discovery, this emotion can work in reverse. In Orson Scott Card's brilliant short story and novel, Ender's Game, the child protagonist learns that the war games he was practicing for were actually the real thing. His surprise, remorse and confusion have profound effects on his psyche, and set the stage for his attempts later in life to attain some sort of recompense for the race which he and his cohorts destroyed.

Robert Silverberg's works evoke a feeling of dj-vu, a sense of being on too many worlds or too many travels; a moral ennui not found in many writers. Yet somehow, he transcends this eternal boredom to reveal with startling clarity that something lies beyond; if only a sought after end.

Perhaps no other science fiction author offers a sense of wonder and discovery, a sense of joy de vivre, as does Arthur C Clarke. In story after story, Clarke expounds on new worlds, new discoveries, new possibilities ("all these worlds are yours..."). His love of the cosmos is rooted in his love of astronomy and physics, and is bundled together with a love of mankind that makes his work so inspiring and evergreen.

But what of our final category, that of a sense of accomplishment? Each of these writers talks in some way to the human experience. In bridging the worlds of science and fiction, in writing to our fears, hopes, joys and sorrows, each of these authors stakes a claim to be included among the list of canonical authors. In "Nightfall," Arthur C Clarke writes of the effects of an atomic war, and thinks back to an earlier time. He is staking his claim to posterity when he writes:

Good freed for Iesvs sake forbeare,

To dig the dvst enclosed heare

Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones,

And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.

Undisturbed through all eternity the poet could sleep in safety now: in the silence and darkness above his head, the Avon was seeking its new outlet to the sea.

For Sir Arthur was paying his respects to the Bard, and claiming his place in the pantheon of the great English writers.

Author Biography

Peter Ponzio, the author of Children of the Night, is a CPA with over 30 years experience in Corporate Finance, holding positions as divergent as Treasurer, VP of Sales Administration, Vice President of IT, and General Manager of an internet start-up company in the late 1990s, and CFO at a subsidiary of a Fortune 100 company.

Mr. Ponzio graduated with a degree in English literature from Loyola University of Chicago, and an MA in Literature from Northwestern University.

Impacts of Information Technology on Society in the New Century

In the past few decades there has been a revolution in computing and communications, and all indications are that technological progress and use of information technology will continue at a rapid pace. Accompanying and supporting the dramatic increases in the power and use of new information technologies has been the declining cost of communications as a result of both technological improvements and increased competition. According to Moore's law the processing power of microchips is doubling every 18 months. These advances present many significant opportunities but also pose major challenges. Today, innovations in information technology are having wide-ranging effects across numerous domains of society, and policy makers are acting on issues involving economic productivity, intellectual property rights, privacy protection, and affordability of and access to information. Choices made now will have long lasting consequences, and attention must be paid to their social and economic impacts.

One of the most significant outcomes of the progress of information technology is probably electronic commerce over the Internet, a new way of conducting business. Though only a few years old, it may radically alter economic activities and the social environment. Already, it affects such large sectors as communications, finance and retail trade and might expand to areas such as education and health services. It implies the seamless application of information and communication technology along the entire value chain of a business that is conducted electronically.

The impacts of information technology and electronic commerce on business models, commerce, market structure, workplace, labour market, education, private life and society as a whole.

1. Business Models, Commerce and Market Structure

One important way in which information technology is affecting work is by reducing the importance of distance. In many industries, the geographic distribution of work is changing significantly. For instance, some software firms have found that they can overcome the tight local market for software engineers by sending projects to India or other nations where the wages are much lower. Furthermore, such arrangements can take advantage of the time differences so that critical projects can be worked on nearly around the clock. Firms can outsource their manufacturing to other nations and rely on telecommunications to keep marketing, R&D, and distribution teams in close contact with the manufacturing groups. Thus the technology can enable a finer division of labour among countries, which in turn affects the relative demand for various skills in each nation. The technology enables various types of work and employment to be decoupled from one another. Firms have greater freedom to locate their economic activities, creating greater competition among regions in infrastructure, labour, capital, and other resource markets. It also opens the door for regulatory arbitrage: firms can increasingly choose which tax authority and other regulations apply.

Computers and communication technologies also promote more market-like forms of production and distribution. An infrastructure of computing and communication technology, providing 24-hour access at low cost to almost any kind of price and product information desired by buyers, will reduce the informational barriers to efficient market operation. This infrastructure might also provide the means for effecting real-time transactions and make intermediaries such as sales clerks, stock brokers and travel agents, whose function is to provide an essential information link between buyers and sellers, redundant. Removal of intermediaries would reduce the costs in the production and distribution value chain. The information technologies have facilitated the evolution of enhanced mail order retailing, in which goods can be ordered quickly by using telephones or computer networks and then dispatched by suppliers through integrated transport companies that rely extensively on computers and communication technologies to control their operations. Nonphysical goods, such as software, can be shipped electronically, eliminating the entire transport channel. Payments can be done in new ways. The result is disintermediation throughout the distribution channel, with cost reduction, lower end-consumer prices, and higher profit margins.

The impact of information technology on the firms' cost structure can be best illustrated on the electronic commerce example. The key areas of cost reduction when carrying out a sale via electronic commerce rather than in a traditional store involve physical establishment, order placement and execution, customer support, strong, inventory carrying, and distribution. Although setting up and maintaining an e-commerce web site might be expensive, it is certainly less expensive to maintain such a storefront than a physical one because it is always open, can be accessed by millions around the globe, and has few variable costs, so that it can scale up to meet the demand. By maintaining one 'store' instead of several, duplicate inventory costs are eliminated. In addition, e-commerce is very effective at reducing the costs of attracting new customers, because advertising is typically cheaper than for other media and more targeted. Moreover, the electronic interface allows e-commerce merchants to check that an order is internally consistent and that the order, receipt, and invoice match. Through e-commerce, firms are able to move much of their customer support on line so that customers can access databases or manuals directly. This significantly cuts costs while generally improving the quality of service. E-commerce shops require far fewer, but high-skilled, employees. E-commerce also permits savings in inventory carrying costs. The faster the input can be ordered and delivered, the less the need for a large inventory. The impact on costs associated with decreased inventories is most pronounced in industries where the product has a limited shelf life (e.g. bananas), is subject to fast technological obsolescence or price declines (e.g. computers), or where there is a rapid flow of new products (e.g. books, music). Although shipping costs can increase the cost of many products purchased via electronic commerce and add substantially to the final price, distribution costs are significantly reduced for digital products such as financial services, software, and travel, which are important e-commerce segments.

Although electronic commerce causes the disintermediation of some intermediaries, it creates greater dependency on others and also some entirely new intermediary functions. Among the intermediary services that could add costs to e-commerce transactions are advertising, secure online payment, and delivery. The relative ease of becoming an e-commerce merchant and setting up stores results in such a huge number of offerings that consumers can easily be overwhelmed. This increases the importance of using advertising to establish a brand name and thus generate consumer familiarity and trust. For new e-commerce start-ups, this process can be expensive and represents a significant transaction cost. The openness, global reach, and lack of physical clues that are inherent characteristics of e-commerce also make it vulnerable to fraud and thus increase certain costs for e-commerce merchants as compared to traditional stores. New techniques are being developed to protect the use of credit cards in e-commerce transactions, but the need for greater security and user verification leads to increased costs. A key feature of e-commerce is the convenience of having purchases delivered directly. In the case of tangibles, such as books, this incurs delivery costs, which cause prices to rise in most cases, thereby negating many of the savings associated with e-commerce and substantially adding to transaction costs.

With the Internet, e-commerce is rapidly expanding into a fast-moving, open global market with an ever-increasing number of participants. The open and global nature of e-commerce is likely to increase market size and change market structure, both in terms of the number and size of players and the way in which players compete on international markets. Digitized products can cross the border in real time, consumers can shop 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and firms are increasingly faced with international online competition. The Internet is helping to enlarge existing markets by cutting through many of the distribution and marketing barriers that can prevent firms from gaining access to foreign markets. E-commerce lowers information and transaction costs for operating on overseas markets and provides a cheap and efficient way to strengthen customer-supplier relations. It also encourages companies to develop innovative ways of advertising, delivering and supporting their product and services. While e-commerce on the Internet offers the potential for global markets, certain factors, such as language, transport costs, local reputation, as well as differences in the cost and ease of access to networks, attenuate this potential to a greater or lesser extent.

2. Workplace and Labour Market

Computers and communication technologies allow individuals to communicate with one another in ways complementary to traditional face-to-face, telephonic, and written modes. They enable collaborative work involving distributed communities of actors who seldom, if ever, meet physically. These technologies utilize communication infrastructures that are both global and always up, thus enabling 24-hour activity and asynchronous as well as synchronous interactions among individuals, groups, and organizations. Social interaction in organizations will be affected by use of computers and communication technologies. Peer-to-peer relations across department lines will be enhanced through sharing of information and coordination of activities. Interaction between superiors and subordinates will become more tense because of social control issues raised by the use of computerized monitoring systems, but on the other hand, the use of e-mail will lower the barriers to communications across different status levels, resulting in more uninhibited communications between supervisor and subordinates.

That the importance of distance will be reduced by computers and communication technology also favours telecommuting, and thus, has implications for the residence patterns of the citizens. As workers find that they can do most of their work at home rather than in a centralized workplace, the demand for homes in climatically and physically attractive regions would increase. The consequences of such a shift in employment from the suburbs to more remote areas would be profound. Property values would rise in the favoured destinations and fall in the suburbs. Rural, historical, or charming aspects of life and the environment in the newly attractive areas would be threatened. Since most telecommuters would be among the better educated and higher paid, the demand in these areas for high-income and high-status services like gourmet restaurants and clothing boutiques would increase. Also would there be an expansion of services of all types, creating and expanding job opportunities for the local population.

By reducing the fixed cost of employment, widespread telecommuting should make it easier for individuals to work on flexible schedules, to work part time, to share jobs, or to hold two or more jobs simultaneously. Since changing employers would not necessarily require changing one's place of residence, telecommuting should increase job mobility and speed career advancement. This increased flexibility might also reduce job stress and increase job satisfaction. Since job stress is a major factor governing health there may be additional benefits in the form of reduced health costs and mortality rates. On the other hand one might also argue that technologies, by expanding the number of different tasks that are expected of workers and the array of skills needed to perform these tasks, might speed up work and increase the level of stress and time pressure on workers.

A question that is more difficult to be answered is about the impacts that computers and communications might have on employment. The ability of computers and communications to perform routine tasks such as bookkeeping more rapidly than humans leads to concern that people will be replaced by computers and communications. The response to this argument is that even if computers and communications lead to the elimination of some workers, other jobs will be created, particularly for computer professionals, and that growth in output will increase overall employment. It is more likely that computers and communications will lead to changes in the types of workers needed for different occupations rather than to changes in total employment.

A number of industries are affected by electronic commerce. The distribution sector is directly affected, as e-commerce is a way of supplying and delivering goods and services. Other industries, indirectly affected, are those related to information and communication technology (the infrastructure that enables e-commerce), content-related industries (entertainment, software), transactions-related industries (financial sector, advertising, travel, transport). eCommerce might also create new markets or extend market reach beyond traditional borders. Enlarging the market will have a positive effect on jobs. Another important issue relates to inter linkages among activities affected by e-commerce. Expenditure for e-commerce-related intermediate goods and services will create jobs indirectly, on the basis of the volume of electronic transactions and their effect on prices, costs and productivity. The convergence of media, telecommunication and computing technologies is creating a new integrated supply chain for the production and delivery of multimedia and information content. Most of the employment related to e-commerce around the content industries and communication infrastructure such as the Internet.

Jobs are both created and destroyed by technology, trade, and organizational change. These processes also underlie changes in the skill composition of employment. Beyond the net employment gains or losses brought about by these factors, it is apparent that workers with different skill levels will be affected differently. E-commerce is certainly driving the demand for IT professionals but it also requires IT expertise to be coupled with strong business application skills, thereby generating demand for a flexible, multi-skilled work force. There is a growing need for increased integration of Internet front-end applications with enterprise operations, applications and back-end databases. Many of the IT skill requirements needed for Internet support can be met by low-paid IT workers who can deal with the organizational services needed for basic web page programming. However, wide area networks, competitive web sites, and complex network applications require much more skill than a platform-specific IT job. Since the skills required for e-commerce are rare and in high demand, e-commerce might accelerate the up skilling trend in many countries by requiring high-skilled computer scientists to replace low-skilled information clerks, cashiers and market salespersons.

3. Education

Advances in information technology will affect the craft of teaching by complementing rather than eliminating traditional classroom instruction. Indeed the effective instructor acts in a mixture of roles. In one role the instructor is a supplier of services to the students, who might be regarded as its customers. But the effective instructor occupies another role as well, as a supervisor of students, and plays a role in motivating, encouraging, evaluating, and developing students. For any topic there will always be a small percentage of students with the necessary background, motivation, and self-discipline to learn from self-paced workbooks or computer assisted instruction. For the majority of students, however, the presence of a live instructor will continue to be far more effective than a computer assisted counterpart in facilitating positive educational outcomes. The greatest potential for new information technology lies in improving the productivity of time spent outside the classroom. Making solutions to problem sets and assigned reading materials available on the Internet offers a lot of convenience. E-mail vastly simplifies communication between students and faculty and among students who may be engaged in group projects. Advances in information technology will affect the craft of teaching by complementing rather than eliminating traditional classroom instruction. Indeed the effective instructor acts in a mixture of roles. In one role the instructor is a supplier of services to the students, who might be regarded as its customers. But the effective instructor occupies another role as well, as a supervisor of students, and plays a role in motivating, encouraging, evaluating, and developing students. For any topic there will always be a small percentage of students with the necessary background, motivation, and self-discipline to learn from self-paced workbooks or computer assisted instruction. For the majority of students, however, the presence of a live instructor will continue to be far more effective than a computer assisted counterpart in facilitating positive educational outcomes. The greatest potential for new information technology lies in improving the productivity of time spent outside the classroom. Making solutions to problem sets and assigned reading materials available on the Internet offers a lot of convenience. E-mail vastly simplifies communication between students and faculty and among students who may be engaged in group projects.

Although distance learning has existed for some time, the Internet makes possible a large expansion in coverage and better delivery of instruction. Text can be combined with audio/ video, and students can interact in real time via e-mail and discussion groups. Such technical improvements coincide with a general demand for retraining by those who, due to work and family demands, cannot attend traditional courses. Distance learning via the Internet is likely to complement existing schools for children and university students, but it could have more of a substitution effect for continuing education programmes. For some degree programmes, high-prestige institutions could use their reputation to attract students who would otherwise attend a local facility. Owing to the Internet's ease of access and convenience for distance learning, overall demand for such programmes will probably expand, leading to growth in this segment of e-commerce.

As shown in the previous section, high level skills are vital in a technology-based and knowledge intensive economy. Changes associated with rapid technological advances in industry have made continual upgrading of professional skills an economic necessity. The goal of lifelong learning can only be accomplished by reinforcing and adapting existing systems of learning, both in public and private sectors. The demand for education and training concerns the full range of modern technology. Information technologies are uniquely capable of providing ways to meet this demand. Online training via the Internet ranges from accessing self-study courses to complete electronic classrooms. These computer-based training programmes provide flexibility in skills acquisition and are more affordable and relevant than more traditional seminars and courses.

4. Private Life and Society

Increasing representation of a wide variety of content in digital form results in easier and cheaper duplication and distribution of information. This has a mixed effect on the provision of content. On the one hand, content can be distributed at a lower unit cost. On the other hand, distribution of content outside of channels that respect intellectual property rights can reduce the incentives of creators and distributors to produce and make content available in the first place. Information technology raises a host of questions about intellectual property protection and new tools and regulations have to be developed in order to solve this problem.

Many issues also surround free speech and regulation of content on the Internet, and there continue to be calls for mechanisms to control objectionable content. However it is very difficult to find a sensible solution. Dealing with indecent material involves understanding not only the views on such topics but also their evolution over time. Furthermore, the same technology that allows for content altering with respect to decency can be used to filter political speech and to restrict access to political material. Thus, if censorship does not appear to be an option, a possible solution might be labelling. The idea is that consumers will be better informed in their decisions to avoid objectionable content.

The rapid increase in computing and communications power has raised considerable concern about privacy both in the public and private sector. Decreases in the cost of data storage and information processing make it likely that it will become practicable for both government and private data-mining enterprises to collect detailed dossiers on all citizens. Nobody knows who currently collects data about individuals, how this data is used and shared or how this data might be misused. These concerns lower the consumers' trust in online institutions and communication and, thus, inhibit the development of electronic commerce. A technological approach to protecting privacy might by cryptography although it might be claimed that cryptography presents a serious barrier to criminal investigations.

It is popular wisdom that people today suffer information overload. A lot of the information available on the Internet is incomplete and even incorrect. People spend more and more of their time absorbing irrelevant information just because it is available and they think they should know about it. Therefore, it must be studied how people assign credibility to the information they collect in order to invent and develop new credibility systems to help consumers to manage the information overload.

Technological progress inevitably creates dependence on technology. Indeed the creation of vital infrastructure ensures dependence on that infrastructure. As surely as the world is now dependent on its transport, telephone, and other infrastructures, it will be dependent on the emerging information infrastructure. Dependence on technology can bring risks. Failures in the technological infrastructure can cause the collapse of economic and social functionality. Blackouts of long-distance telephone service, credit data systems, and electronic funds transfer systems, and other such vital communications and information processing services would undoubtedly cause widespread economic disruption. However, it is probably impossible to avoid technological dependence. Therefore, what must be considered is the exposure brought from dependence on technologies with a recognizable probability of failure, no workable substitute at hand, and high costs as a result of failure.

The ongoing computing and communications revolution has numerous economic and social impacts on modern society and requires serious social science investigation in order to manage its risks and dangers. Such work would be valuable for both social policy and technology design. Decisions have to be taken carefully. Many choices being made now will be costly or difficult to modify in the future

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9419716

If Technology Is Effective in the Classroom - Why Do Some Students Dislike It So Much?

The effectiveness of technology use in the classroom has become a controversial issue. While many teachers and students feel that it's best to use technology because it enhances teaching many others feel that it causes too many challenges and that it is a waste of time. If technology is as effective in the classroom as many teachers believe it to be; why do some students dislike it so much?

In order to objectively respond to this question, 3 articles were examined. 2 out of the 3 relate how the use of technology in the classroom frustrates students while the last one translates the thoughts of students who feel that technology in the classroom has responded to their need. So the issue is not that technology is not effective but rather that some teachers need to be mindful about technology use in the classroom and others need to be trained in order to properly use technology to teach so that students do not view technology as obstruction learning but as an enhancing tool.

After summarizing the 3 articles that have been reviewed we will be able to prove that there are 2 groups of students who claim to dislike technology in the classroom: Those who are improperly exposed to it by their teacher and those who did not give themselves enough time to familiarize themselves with it. We will then be able to get to the logical conclusion that those same students would appreciate the value of technology in the classroom if their teachers used it properly. Let us first summarize the articles that we are referring to.

The article "When good technology means bad teaching related that many students feel that teachers and professor use technology as a way to show off. Students complain of technology making their teachers "less effective than they would be if they stuck to a lecture at the chalkboard" (Young) other problems related by students include teachers wasting class time to teach about a web tool or to flab with a projector or software. When teachers are unfamiliar with the technological tools, they are likely to waist more time trying to use them the technological software that is used the most according to students is PowerPoint. Students complain that teachers use it instead of their lesson plan. Many students explain that it makes understanding more difficult "I call it PowerPoint abuse" (Young). Professors also post their PowerPoint Presentation to the school board before and after class and this encourages students to miss more classes.

Another problem reported in the article with the use of technology in the classrooms is that many schools spend time to train their staff about how to use a particular technology but it does not train them on "strategies to use them well" (Young). The writer believed that schools should also give small monetary incentives to teachers and professors to attend workshops.

In an interview made with 13 students, "some gave their teacher a failing when it came to using Power Point, Course Management systems and other classroom technology" (Young ) some of the complains were again about the misuse of PowerPoint's and the fact that instructors use it to recite what's on the scale. Another complaint was that teachers who are unfamiliar with technology often waste class time as they spend more time troubleshooting than teaching. The last complain mentioned is that some teachers require students to comment on online chat rooms weekly but that they do not monitor the outcome or never make reference to the discussion in class.

Similarly, the article "I'm not a computer person" (Lohnes 2013) speaks to the fact that students expectations as far as technology is concerned is very different. In a study done with 34 undergraduate university students, they advise that technology is an integral part of a university students life because they have to do must everything online from applying for college or university, searching and registering for classes, pay tuition and that in addition to being integrated in the administration, etc. technology is also widely used to teach and is valued by higher education.

Those students, however, feel that technology poses a barrier to success as they struggle to align with the ways in which the institution values technology." A student explains that technology is used in her freshman year to turn in assignments, participate in discussion boards and blogs, emailing the professor, viewing grades and for a wide range of other administrative task including tracking the next school bus. This particular student whose name is Nichole says that she does not own a laptop but shares a family computer. She has a younger brother who also uses the computer to complete his school work so she consequently has to stay up late to complete assignments. She states "technology and I? We never had that connection" (Lohnes). Nichole dislikes the fact that her college requests that she had more contact with technology than she is conformable with. Nonetheless, she explains that as she started doing those school online assignments so frequently she came to realize that they were not that bad.

One of her issues though with technology is that she had come from Puerto Rico about a year prior entering college and that she never had to use the computer so much there. The articles relates that other college students like Nichole have admitted that they are "reluctant technology users" (Lohnes) The article wants to explain, in essence, that although most people would expect that college students prefer technology and are already familiar with it," that assumption is faulty" (Lohnes).

On the other hand, the article "What Screenagers Say About... " High school age students were asked about what they thought of technology but most expressed liking it. One of them said about PowerPoint: "My history teacher did a good job with Power Points. He would put them online, which made for really great reviews." (Screneagers, 2011) Others expressed how technology was really who they are and that teachers should understand for example that when they text in class, they are not being rude but that they have gotten used to multi tasking. Another student invites teachers to not be afraid of technology "Teachers shouldn't be afraid of technology. Understand that it's how we live our lives. So don't just push it out. Learn to cope with us and how we work." (Screenagers, 2011)

Another student however, expressed how she prefers simpler technology that her teacher is comfortable with rather than high tech that the teacher does not manipulate well "The most important thing for teachers is to be comfortable with what they're using. It doesn't have to be super high tech. My math teacher used a projector, and it was one of my favorite classes. Then I would go to this other class where the teacher used Power Points and the SMART board, but I didn't get any more out of it because she wasn't comfortable with the technology" (Screenagers, 2011) Students spoke about their appreciation for virtually all types of technology used in the classroom. Another said "One of my teachers used Skype. That's face-to-face interaction. If I had a problem with some math problem I was working on, I could take a picture of it and put it on the Skype screen. She could see where I was making my mistake. It really helped." (Screenagers, 2011) The bottom line is that those high school students wanted to let teachers know that they really like technology and that it is already a great part of their daily routine but that it had to be used properly in order for them to enjoy it.

Similarly, they summarize a few things that they dislike as well. Among the list, they said: reading on the computer, paying a lot for an online textbook and the fact that they often forget everything else when they get caught up with using technology.

Nonetheless, they had much more positive things they liked in technology like for example that some teachers would text a question for them to think about before class, so if they do not know they answer, they would communicate with classmates to discuss the possibility for the answer before class. This allows them to go to class prepared. They also like using Skype, emailing their teachers instead of going to speak to them in person. They also enjoy discussion boards. The advice they would like to convey to their teachers is to make sure that they are comfortable with whatever technological tools they are using, to give them more freedom to use the good sites and those in the middle range when they are surfing the net using school computers and to understand that technology is part of their lives.

After summarizing those articles, we can see that the students mentioned in Youngs, 2004 dislike technology because their experience with it was not satisfactory. In other terms, a group of students dislike technology because some teachers are not mindful about technology use or they need additional training. For example, some students are frustrated because they feel that instructors waist their time when they are not properly trained to use the technological tools. Others disliked the fact that some teachers had PowerPoint presentations which were either not meaningful or they would just read whatever they wrote and add no additional comments. Those examples are called "bad teaching (Young, 2004) and they are in fact terrible examples that teachers should not follow because technology is not meant to help teachers do the least work or to adopt poor teaching practices. Somme students related that PowerPoint was widely used by teachers so they even call it PowerPoint abuse.

I can relate to what is being expressed by those students. I observed a Teaching Assistant teach a grammar class recently. He purchased a device to allow him to monitor the screen without touching the computer. He was able to walk throughout the class while changing slides. It all looked so impressive but despite all of this show, students were left so confused at the end of the lesson. When they asked questions, he went back to the slide that had the grammar rule and read it over to the class. The PowerPoint was a duplication of the textbook chapter. The same examples of the book were used. At the end of the course, he felt that he had done a great PowerPoint when in fact, it was not meaningful. It was a copy/paste project from the text book to the screen. This example shows that we need to use common sense when using technology. When teaching grammar, a teacher has to be able to come up with examples other than those in the book, you have to write on the board, have student practice what they have learned. PowerPoint use was a real bad idea, in my opinion, for teaching this course. It was just not the right technological tool for the lesson.

Students in that class may decide that they hate Power Points because it confuses them more while the issue is not with the use of PowerPoint but instead with the teacher's poor choice of technology. The point I also want to make here is that teachers may sometimes be unaware of their improper use of technology. This is why, as educators, we sometimes need to ask students for their feedback so we may make corrections where needed.

We can then conclude that those students dislike technology as a result of improper technological use by teachers, and also because many teachers do not attend workshops or training sessions to help them obtain a broader knowledge of technology since they are so busy. Like suggest (Youngs, 2004) and (Lohnes, 2012), those same busy teachers would have attended those trainings if there were given an incentive. In the article "Technology Standards in a Third-Grade Classroom" (Kovalik, 2001), it is related how a study done on a 3rd grade class of 25 showed that students were properly using technology. There is no indication that those students dislike using technology. The article also mentioned how the teachers were highly trained because the Ohio board pays incentive to teachers to participate in technology training which teaching them not only how to use technology by teaches them strategies on when to use them.

Boards from other states should consider doing the same thing to ensure that their teachers are responding to the technological need of their students and that they are teaching them according to the standards. The Ohio school mentioned above met the standards as far as technology is concerned because of the technology coaching received by the teachers. If teachers learn how to properly use technology in the classroom, it will be a less frustrating experience for them and for the student who will less likely dislike technology since it will meet its purpose to enhance teaching.

The other groups of students who dislike technology are those who were not exposed to it for long enough. The College Freshman, Nichole advises that she was not exposed to so much technology while she was in high school in her home country; consequently, it seemed to be a burden to her to have to need a computer to complete most of her school assignments but also to interact with her classmate via a discussion board. What is interesting though is that even though she claimed to dislike technology so much, she advised that once she started to spend so much time using it, she realizes that it is not so bad. Even though it is likely that some people do not like the telephone and texting so much, the computer and some website have become part of most people daily routine. In Nichole's case, she does not own a laptop and has to wait for her turn to use the family computer which means that she has no attachment to this media because her use of it is controlled. However, once she gets to own her own computer, it is a guaranteed that her view of technology will change.

I returned to school after about 12 years. When I was in college the 1st time around, nothing was electronic but when I contacted USF to apply, they told me that everything was online. At first, I asked why everything was online but once I got used to it, I started to understand the value of having the convenience to do a lot of things without having to live my home.

Therefore, Nichole will certainly not continue to dislike technology that much once she gets more familiar and more attached to it. The fact is that she stated that she started to realize that it was not that bad once she started doing so many assignments. She came to the conclusion that the computer was not yet a friend but that it was no longer an enemy; it became to her an acquaintance.

With this understanding, depending on the background of some ELL students and depending on whether or not they were exposed to technology in their home country, they may not like technology at first but this should not be a sign that they will never come to appreciated it. As teacher, we will need to allow them time to familiarize themselves with it while we continue to properly use it so that we do not advocate against it or involuntary send missed information about its true value.

On the other hand, the last article testifies to the fact that the new generation is technology driven and that when used properly, they benefits from it in the classroom, there are several examples of how teachers originally used technology to teach which are appreciated by students. What should the conclusion be then?

We have proven that technology use is effective in the classroom but that teachers need to take some actions in order to make this tool useful to students. It is necessary that they received some training if they lack it, and like a student suggested in the Screenager article, they should refrain from using complicated tools if they are not sure about how to use them. It's best to properly use something much simpler that they are familiar with like a high school student suggested.

In addition, it is important for teachers to screen the countless technological tools and to research them before introducing them to their teaching. Should they test some that do not work well, they have to stop using them and seek one that is more appropriate. Most importantly, technology is not always the answer this is why teachers should be balanced when using it. If it is required that we use the board and chalks to help students better understand, this is what we should do. Doing so, we will ensure that more students appreciate the use of technology in the classroom for what it is worth.

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