Pursuing praxis

On a walk with Roxie today, I came across this amazing old building. It appeared partially abandoned, although there were still arts, crafts, and school stuff inside. The plaque by the door said it used to be the Hillside School, built in 1925 in the Tudor style, and it’s now an historical landmark.

I looked at it, walked around, and decided I wanted it. If I ever have enough money at the right time, I want to buy this old place and turn it into my own research and learning building: a big huge library and reading room in that big, windowed room on the left, and halls and halls of lab space, and collections space, and storage space all along the corridors. A conference room, and workout room, and a place to make art. I’d take out all the non-essential doors and walls in the long corridors, and make it a totally free-form lab space, completely seamless, though partitioned as needed for work. It would be a place for ideas and a huge amount of productive work.

Turns out the place has just been vacated. The Berkeley School of the Arts just quit in January. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the building. There are no signs, no indications of movement, improvement, or activity. I also learned it sits squarely on the Hayward Fault. But it’s an awesome place, and the start of a great idea for me.

I’m through posting on online forums for anything but club meeting announcements and other business-type stuff. No lengthy discussions, no heuristic expositions. There is no benevolent universe in online forums. Those that would otherwise create that universe - I know many of them personally, and we can take our discussions elsewhere.

The concept of what used to be called "salons" really interests me. I don’t think an informal version of that is much different from what I already do - hanging out and having great conversation with friends and friends of friends. Honest, open, exploring conversation where we actually build knowledge, expand views, acknowledge and celebrate improvement, revel in the awesomeness of our own minds, and treat disagreements as great opportunities for learning, without fragile egoes and imperious proclamations constantly disrupting the flow of thought. This is where the concept of a benevolent universe shines through, outside of each of our selves.

On a related note, I’ll be starting a series of posts (hopefully on a new page, if I can figure out how to do that) on modern (i.e. last 35 years) topics in evolutionary theory, and in what ways the general public’s understanding of evolution is actually waaaaaaaay out of date and inaccurate, and trying to succinctly, and interestingly, fill in the gaps as best I can. (Succinct meaning I can type it in one evening, and is shorter than Crime and Punishment….). I want to improve my ability to communicate these concepts to interested and constructive non-evolutionary-biologists, as well as explore some of the frontiers in evolutionary theory.

[Update: I decided against the page on evolution. Too much to do.]