The Importance of Knowledge for All

Our world is getting more and more complex every day and we need people with knowledge to tackle this complexity and help us solve problems.  Progress is inevitable and educating the young generations is essential in meeting the needs for this progress to continue improving our lives.  We now have the amazing internet with unimaginable power to increase our knowledge and at the same time to destroy us.  We need creative knowledgeable people to deal with cyber security and complex economies.  We need clever specialists to help with curing diseases and understanding behavior.

In the past most exceptional minds came from families with privileged means.  But nevertheless there were those young curious minds from very poor families that did manage to learn to read, get access to books and make their way to meet the right people and come up with great discoveries.

It is most important that every child around the world has access to knowledge and proper education.  Nobody knows when and where the most brilliant mind will appear.  Those rare brilliant minds may have the ability to solve problems that seem unsurmountable to many of us.

I have to stress here that progress is necessary to make sure the earth can sustain us all in peaceful productive life.  And we should all agree on this.  History shows us that sometimes people believe that “ignorance is bliss”.  Many rulers and autocrats denied people access to books and any kind of knowledge.  How often did governments burn books or ban them?  It was easier to control ignorant people I assume.

I came across a study by the National Science Foundation (NSF).  Questioning 2200 people they found that: 1 in 4 Americans Don't Know Earth Orbits the Sun. Yes, Really, in the United States.  Can you believe people are certain that the sun orbits the earth?

 

http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/1-in-4-americans-dont-know-earth-orbits-the-sun-yes-really-140214.htm

You can imagine the level of knowledge of the simple fact that the earth orbits the sun around the world in less developed countries.  There are places where there is no mandatory education.  Places where girls are not allowed to go to school.  I am with Malala: The pen is mightier than the sword.

I am optimistic about the power of the internet in bringing basic knowledge to masses of young children.  There are already programs like Kahn Academy with lesson plans in many basic areas as well as advanced topics.

https://www.khanacademy.org/

Here is the opening statement from a the learning site:

https://blog.udemy.com/importance-of-knowledge/

You’ve probably heard the old quote, “Knowledge is Power,” That’s truer than you can ever imagine. Few people understand how important knowledge can be. Knowledge is what allows us to drive cars instead of ride horses, it is what helps us survive far longer than we should, and knowledge is even what prevents us from making the same mistakes we made in the past.

Lets obliterate ignorance!

 

When Knowledge Conquers Fear

I believe that knowledge is most important in bringing understanding and cooperation in our world.  The more I look at conflicts and disagreements the more convinced I am that knowledge and only with knowledge we can solve the many problems in our world.

The question is what is important to know?  I think it is important to understand the physical powers in our world.  It is important to know the basic tools that scientists and historians used to research different phenomena in our lives. 

This idea is very well explained in the TV series “Cosmos- A Spacetime Odyssey” narrated by the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.  In the episode “When Knowledge Conquers Fear” it is shown how people were so afraid of floods and droughts and invented all sorts of gods and superstitions to overcome this fear.

Worshipping of Egyptian Bull God.

 

"The episode begins with Tyson describing how we were born into this world without an explanation of our surroundings, much like a baby abandoned on a doorstep. To help us learn about our surroundings, Tyson explains how we manifested pattern recognition early in mankind, sharpening over eons of evolution. We distinguished predator from prey; poisonous plants from nourishing ones - enhancing our chance to live and reproduce, and passing on our genes. We used pattern recognition in astronomy and astrology, where different cultures, recognizing the patterns of stars in the skies, projected different symbols and pictures for constellations. We used it to predict the passing of the seasons, including how every culture determined that the passage of a comet was taken as an omen. Tyson continues to explain that the origin of comets only became known in the 20th century.

Tyson then continues to relate the collaboration Edmund Halley and Isaac Newton in the last part of the 17th century. The collaboration would result in the publication of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, the first major work to describe the laws of physics in mathematical terms, challenging the prevailing notion that God had planned out the heavens. Tyson explains how Newton's work would influence many factors of life, including modern space flight. Tyson further describes Halley's contributions including determining Earth's distance to the sun, the motion of stars and predicting of the orbit of the then-unnamed Halley's comet using Newton's laws. Tyson contrasts these scientific approaches to understanding the galaxy compared to what early mankind had done."

Isaac Newton and his historical publication of the mathematical principles

to describe  the movements of the planets in the universe.

 

Modern day archeologists find plenty of evidence on early humans, studying their bones and teeth and recently even DNA.  Physicists are conducting amazing experiments in the hydron collider to understand the very first event that caused the creation of our universe.  But the more we know, the more we find out there are more mysteries to unravel.  It is up to the most curious brilliant minds to figure out how to prevent diseases from a simple cold to mental illness.  Why do we face so many genocides in each generation?    We all want peaceful lives.  Why do we still have wars?  Some brilliant psychologists will come next and unravel the mysteries of our behavior.  Why is our planet heating up?  We are trying to convince people in power that it is up to us to stop this global warming.

I think the old traditions of faith in god and systems of ethical code of behavior are extremely important in our evolution.  But I cannot see how one faith will declare itself as the ultimate true faith and thus dismiss all the others.  The main goal is for all to understand that the earth can sustain us all and we should use our collective intelligence to cooperate and live in peacefull coexistence.

Know, understand and never fear!

 

Things I Learned from my Mother: Helping Others

Here I want to tell you the stories of things I learned from my mother.  My dear mother who passed away in 2013, may she rest in peace.

What can I tell about my mother?  This was a woman who knew everybody and helped all.  We all loved and appreciated her.  I was sad to leave my mother when I married and ended up raising my sons far away in California.

My mother visited me one time when I was sick, she loyally took care of me and helped me in such an impressive way that I shall never forget it.  We had many close conversations about our childhood hers in her homeland in Mashhad and mine in our new country Israel.  My mother Rivka then told me a story about her mother, Mina who raised six children.  All the kids were asleep and Mina was still sitting at the sewing machine and sewing clothes way into the wee hours of the night. Little Rivka asks her mother: “Why are you working so hard so late at night?”  My grandmother answers: “We are good people who like to help the poor.  We are unable to help them with money or with goods therefore I devote my time to make clothes for their little children.”
I was very impressed with this story and I understood that this was one of the important values in my family: there are always people with fate worse than ours and we should help them.
This is what I meant in my previous post when I spoke about innate responsibility to help the less fortunate.  I had some strong reactions against that sentiment.  Some people saw the political angle: “We don’t need the government!”  That is so regrettable that our political views blind us from watching our fellow human beings.  I think personal responsibility is the most innate value we should remember.  My Bell Curve just showed distribution of IQ.  But people who are fortunate in other areas of life, they also have something to contribute.  People with artistic talents entertain us and tell us stories.  They create beautiful art and enhance our sense of awe.  Scientists and engineers discover the secrets of our universe and create technologies to improve our lives.  Even the physically handicapped have emotional power to help us when we are sad.  It is an amazing world of diverse life.

I’d like to show you this photo of my family from the 1950’s with my two grandmothers all living in one small house.  But helping others was something I learned to cherish.
Ever since I remember, mother loved to help people.  She had an incredible memory and she knew every family member of every relative and acquaintance who came to Israel from the old country.  On one hand she knew the successful, rich families who moved to New York, with the large homes and fancy parties.  (She got invited to many of these parties…)  On the other hand she knew the less fortunate people who could not afford to support their large families or their sick and disabled children.  She had an amazing ability to mix in any society and find friends who loved her.  This way she had always been successful in convincing the rich to donate money to those in need.
Mother always reminded us of the memorials for our grandparents: It is important to remember.  I could continue and mention more examples of how mother loved to help everybody.  Not only she felt an obligation to help, she did it with pleasure and tremendous joy.  And that is the main lesson: To revere the joy you feel by helping others.
Maybe in the modern world today it is not as simple to figure who can use help and who needs to be punished.  Here is where our intelligence and imagination can guide us in figuring out how to achieve this balance.