François Roddier, thermodynamics and society

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sen-no-sen
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by sen-no-sen » 04/06/18, 16:51

125 - When birds do not educate their children anymore.
3 June 2018 François Roddier

The biologist Konrad Lorentz (1903-1989) had noticed that when they become very numerous, the birds do not educate their children anymore.

Birds are among the most advanced animals in creation, soon after mammals. Like monkeys, they are capable of imitation. This allows them to educate their children. Thus, each family has a particular song that distinguishes it from other families. Biologists have shown that imitation can provoke altruistic behavior, thanks to a selection of so-called cultural kinship.

For example, at the approach of an eagle, a small bird will scream. In doing so he draws the eagle's attention to him and puts his life in danger. This behavior can not in any case be of genetic origin because, if it were, it would quickly lead to the disappearance of the gene in question. It is therefore necessarily of the cultural type (it is transmitted by imitation). It allows the preservation of the species as a whole.

Altruistic behavior involves social behavior. The latter is particularly visible in migratory birds when, in the autumn, they gather before facing the crossing of a sea. Such behavior is useful for the conservation of the species. If, on the other hand, social behavior puts the species in danger, the so-called natural selection of relatives will tend to eliminate it.

When a bird species becomes very large, it depletes its food resources and endangers its existence. Parent selection will tend to eliminate this behavior. Since the choice of food is a cultural behavior conveyed by education, an uneducated baby will be more likely to adopt a different food than that of his parents. This would explain why, when they are very numerous, the birds do not educate their children anymore.

Would it be the same for the human species? This seems very likely. In one or two generations, a few tractors have replaced hundreds of farm workers. We do not read, we listen to the radio or we watch television. We do not write anymore, we send SMS text messages. We do not count, we take his calculator. Reading, writing, counting have become knowledge of another age. We became completely dependent on the technique.

This has allowed our species to multiply at an unprecedented rate. Unfortunately, it causes the depletion of our fossil resources, the loss of our biodiversity and global warming. Today we only transmit knowledge related to the technique. We forget to learn to think. Our elite no longer seek to understand, but to develop new technologies. To continue to transmit this knowledge does not put our species in danger?

There was a time when going to graduate school guaranteed a job. This is no longer the case today. Long and expensive studies no longer appear as such an attractive cultural food. Some young people have higher education, others stop after baccalaureate. In a society that is in danger of collapsing, can we say today those who will do best? If, genetically, we are only one species, culturally we are many. The selection of cultural parentage will decide the future of our children.

History tells us that there was a precedent. Shortly before Jesus Christ, Julius Caesar spoke and wrote fluently Latin and Greek. Three centuries later, Emperor Maximilian 1er wrote Latin badly and did not know Greek. In 518 AD the Byzantine Emperor Justin 1er could neither read nor write. When I was little, I was taught the song: "The good King Dagobert put his pants upside down ...". It is only with Charlemagne that we finally realize the importance of education. Shortly before his death, he tried to learn to read.

Just as the disappearance of an animal population is identified with the disappearance of its genes, so the end of a civilization is identified with the end of its culture. The end of the Roman Empire gives us an illustration. It is time to understand it and change the way we educate our children. Survive those who will have the fundamental knowledge necessary to rebuild a society, at the expense of those who will have only technical knowledge.

http://www.francois-roddier.fr/
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by Ahmed » 04/06/18, 20:28

I note with satisfaction that François Roddier progressively and pertinently deepens the thermodynamic interpretive grid.
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by Janic » 05/06/18, 07:48

We forget to learn to think.
Or rather the mode, the way of thinking has changed. The contribution of knowledge by the technique, because all our knowledge passes by this one now, directs this way of thinking. Agriculture of 18 ° and before, was not based on productivism because of the limit represented by animal traction, which was canceled by mechanical traction and chemical fertilizers; health was based on the use of "simple" and other natural means replaced by chemicals galore (and the utopian vaccination with these same chemicals and its chain practice); displacements can not be done more than at high speed (TGV, ultra powerful cars) or even slower than a snail by its traffic jams and where all this is considered normal compared to these technical achievements. But the technique also started with the club, with the fire, with the hunt and the clothing. Relearning to think is also deconditioning our current way of thinking, but who can really?
Should we even go back without technique? : Shock:
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by Ahmed » 05/06/18, 10:03

If the comparison made by F. Roddier is very interesting, I have to express more than reservations on the substance. Of course, in the recent past, studies were more oriented towards non-technical knowledge, what was then called the "humanities". However, we should not be deluded about the critical capacity of this orientation, because it was reserved for forming an "elite" and served above all as a discriminatory factor, as a sign of recognition within the dominant class (hence connection with jobs), like the oversized fingernails of Chinese scholars ...
This amply demonstrates that these studies were not opposed to the deployment of the technique, it is the facts: far from constituting a brake on this evolution, these agents contributed powerfully to its advent.
Of course, the acceleration of the technique needed to move to a higher stage and mobilize more forces and, in a much more competitive context of massive access to education, mathematics has ousted ancient Greek as a criterion selective.
I therefore think that the abandonment of classical studies and their potential * critical aspect is by no means the indirect cause of this technological addiction, on the contrary they have constituted a preliminary stage.

* Very potential, since we have seen that this criticism went against the class interests of their holders.
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by Ahmed » 24/08/18, 22:12

The last ticket of F. Roddier laconically refers to an article published in the double issue of "La Décroissance" this summer. Just for you : Wink: , I immersed myself in reading it. In the company of Olivier Rey and Vincent Cheynet, he takes part in a debate aiming to state "the serious criticisms that can be issued against degrowth".
Without much surprise and using his favorite reading grid, he details several points.
- Individual or group decay within a global entity that systematically benefits (this is the word!) The most dissipative structures may well lead to the rapid elimination of these attempts.

To try to reconcile the necessary decrease and the viability of a decreasing project, he considers a possible scenario, articulated on two aspects.
- From a biological analogy of which I thank you :D it advocates the existence of a dual economy: the first devoted to the production of goods and tending naturally to growth and a service-oriented economy that is intrinsically driven by an opposite trend.
- But the same operation of duplication could be done at the level of money (we remember that he had already approached this idea) by superimposing a national currency and a local; through a variable exchange rate, it would be possible to finely regulate the cash flows (= energy flows) and thus avoid too great and too rapid dissipation of energy.
In both cases, an antagonistic voltage appears and it is from this that an equilibrium could result.


As soon as our author speaks economics or politics, I confess to being much less in tune with his conceptions than in other fields (which he happily renews). The ideas he presents above are interesting and consistent with his interpretive grid, but I fear that this tool is not the best suited. Still, even admitting the validity of this scenario, nothing suggests its practical possibility. Personally, I distrust any ready-made solution, any system. Plato wanted a city governed by the philosophers, which was probably (AMHA) his worst idea, ours are by the techno-scienti-financiers and we see the result! I therefore more than doubt a city based on this interpretation of thermodynamics (I do not confuse the concept and some conclusions that we draw from it).
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by sen-no-sen » 24/08/18, 23:08

Thank you for this quick summary!
It is indeed very complicated to reconcile economy and respect for life on earth without reaching the scales or disguised business.
To the extent that the economy obeys the principle of maximization it is difficult to envisage a competing model based on degrowth ... remains the inevitable arrival of financial crises that could be if they are not too violent and if they are not not mothers of totalitarianism (that's a lot of if!) engendered an alternative based on balance ... : roll:

the idea of ​​a double currency seems interesting to me by means of safeguards, beyond that the establishment of a "test" zone (on a departmental scale) which could serve as a model with establishment of a specific rule and a contract moral with citizens (example: total coverage of social costs, access to very high-end education, local organic farming) in return for compensation: reduction in the number of vehicles, ban on certain products etc ... etc ... such a zone could easily attract residents disgusted with current society and come repopulated abandoned regions (Creuse; Lozère etc ...).
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by Janic » 25/08/18, 12:34

what is a very high-end education?
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by sen-no-sen » 25/08/18, 12:47

Janic wrote:what is a very high-end education?


Quality teaching done by high level teachers with means worthy of the name.
We can not say that national education follows such a path ...
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by Janic » 25/08/18, 13:03

Quality teaching done by high level teachers with means worthy of the name.
We can not say that national education follows such a path ...
This does not mean anything because on what criteria will be determined the teachings in question, Catholicism which united the best brains in its elitist "educational" systems has shown the results and dangers by the conditioning that this generates. However, promoting personal reflection, outside the systems selected, has only ever produced revolutions which have always been the major fear of the systems in place. However, being taught, in a restricted and specialized way in certain fields, only generates a crowd of ignorant people in others and this prevents (with a few rare exceptions) a global analysis outside the imposed system.
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Re: François Roddier, thermodynamics and society




by Ahmed » 25/08/18, 13:18

It can be assumed and hoped that such teaching is possible and generalizable, however, the remark of Janic is quite relevant. What existed on a small scale of non-specialized education remains modest and largely dominates the subjects likely to increase the dissipation of energy by categorical efficiency.
I do not believe that quality teaching depends so much on considerable resources; it is rather a question of orientation of the aims of knowledge that matters.
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