Creative Minds, Hard Times
Implications are, essentially, things left unsaid. “Two plus two” without a sum, a series of events left without a conclusion or, perhaps, presented without a linear sequence. Today, I would like to address the implications of linear thought. In part, because so very few of us recognize the effects of the Euclidean ideal in today’s western culture.
Borrowed from wiki:
“Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria. Euclid’s Elements is the earliest known systematic discussion of geometry. It has been one of the most influential books in history, as much for its method as for its mathematical content. The method consists of assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms, and then proving many other propositions (theorems) from those axioms. Although many of Euclid’s results had been stated by earlier Greek mathematicians, Euclid was the first to show how these propositions could be fit together into a comprehensive deductive and logical system.The Elementsbegin with plane geometry, still taught in secondary school as the first axiomatic system and the first examples of formal proof. The Elements goes on to the solid geometry of three dimensions, and Euclidean geometry was subsequently extended to any finite number of dimensions. Much of the Elements states results of what is now called number theory, proved using geometrical methods. For over two thousand years, the adjective “Euclidean” was unnecessary because no other sort of geometry had been conceived. Euclid’s axioms seemed so intuitively obvious that any theorem proved from them was deemed true in an absolute sense. Today, however, many other self-consistent non-Euclidean geometries are known, the first ones having been discovered in the early 19th century. ”
It would surprise many of the western cultures to know that not all cultures embrace linear thought. Our way of thinking has been so grossly infected with this system of thought that virtually no aspect of life has escaped it’s misleading grasp. We frame everthing we know in linear, geometric, terms. We teach our children to do the same, from kindergarten through high school, with numbers, history, science, and even writing. We live by the linear steps of progression. We determine what we are seeing by association with similar shapes and sizes. We guesstimate distances by the range of recession. We speak in axioms. We have wholly embraced this limited perception for two thousand years! Small wonder, then, that despite mountains of evidence to the contrary we continue to cling to it. It a cornerstone in the social and cultural fabric of our lives. In order to reach the masses in western cultures, any and all communication must be structured in the Euclidean manner. This isnt a law, it is just a fact.
If we “release” the Euclidean bindings, we can consider time in non-linear terms. No past, present, future. No before and after. No hindsight. No “psychic” visions of the future. (Then and now may be parallels.) Archelogists may find themselves mining for ”future” civilizations in the continuum.
We can begin to consider densities as a factor not related to volume or size. (Tremendously helpful in understanding the nature of magnetism, for example.)
We can embrace light as both, a wave and a particle, divorced of linear restrictions, and perhaps even as a living organism.
We might realize that processes of learning are spiraling through the hemispheres of the brain, at speeds exceeding light. Implications, no less…
Tags: archeology, culture, education, Euclidean, evolution, Implications, learning, light orgnaism, light particle, light wave, living organism, organisms, Sociology
