Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Information and Learning..

" As societies all over the world have more and more access to new information the effects on lifelong learning can only be positive. "

The world is no longer a huge place to live in. The idea of world being a global village has materialized with the revolution in communications and advent of the internet. Gone are the days when Pheidippides ran all the way to Athens to deliver the message of victory and the run claimed his life. The globe has shrinked with all the parts constantly connected by wired, wireless and satellite connectivity. It is the age when i can call up my friend on the other side of the globe just to say 'Hi' in a matter of seconds. This revolution in personal communication is only a manifestation of the countless avenues that the connected globe has opened. The biggest advantage that has emerged is the universal availablity of a huge pool of shared knowledge and resources. With all the people sharing information on all sorts of subjects imaginable you can do away with your ignorance on a flip of fingers. No longer do i waste time figuring out 'what might that mean ?', i just google it out and get the exact and complete information. With all the knowledge mankind has accrued so far being available to all, there is no more a fear of loss of critical information. Not only can one save the information from perishing now but can also broadcast it universally. The quantity and ease of access to information has therefore made it possible that any new development or news quickly trickles down to all societies around the globe. However the effect of this convienient availablity on the learning process has been a matter of analysis and debate.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Rigid laws need to be made flexible to take account of circumstances.

"Laws should not be rigid or fixed. Instead, they should be flexible enough to take account of various circumstances, times, and places."

The human mind has been blessed with the ability to think without limits. The numerous subjects it can analyse and the ability to think from various aspects, dimensions, knows no bounds. This ability to think and process a million thoughts also gives birth to a chaos of ideas. These ideas could be black, white or gray and the mind has to go through this whole chaos to come up with a reliable action plan, to do what should be done. But how reliable is the mind to decide which of these actions is right to do at the individual and global level. I intend to emphasize that every non-ideal situation related to us is basically a product of a flawed thought process. Again there are roughly some 6 billion people who walk this earth and each man's chaos works in a different way. If everybody did the right thing to do always, there had been no wrongs which is obviously not the case.