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| James Burke reading the back blurb of my kid poetry book |
I loved the PBS series, The Day the Universe Changed, by James Burke. So I was pretty excited to learn that James was coming to town to do a KCRB PBS benefit, but also to speak at Sonoma State. By the time I found out about it, the event was sold out, so I asked if I could do a story on it, so that I could get in sans ticket, which was extraordinary because I also got to hang out with Ja at the end as well. Drinks with James and no canaries were harmed in the process.
James lecture was the singlemost largest attended lecture in Sonoma State University history. As I transcribe these notes to the electronic format, a reminder this is a rereading of my rough notes—reread, I might add, decades after the fact. Since I had to write an article, most of the, ahem, original connections, were lost. Maybe you might just want to stick to the finished story: Thinking Laterally with James Burke. But I am interested in what gets lost in "translation." Warning: these are my raw working notes.
James Burke kicks off: In the real world the right thing never happens at the right place, the right time. It’s up to journalists to rectify this. I'm condensing 22 years of science and technology into an hour. Hold onto your seats. He explains, We are always second-guessing the future. Looking at the other end of the horse, concepts of knowledge creates an awful lot of horse manure.
Science and technology have changed the deep structure of our lives. Once we understand how technology works, it means that it’s obsolete. It means the psychotic at the beach is having a wonderful time. Ask why.
James talks about constraints and contextualism, how constraints are composed imposed upon us. Take me for example, he says, points to his eye. The oral and the physical of what about scratching your ass? What is it that makes this perceptual itch, and then there’s the cognitive model the recognition system of our neurons and the genetic ZIP code, the basic matrix of neurons and /vs. the physical model.
And then James talks about how world views are radically different—for example, in the United States is that white is for brides but in China, white is for corpses. And when Greek girls nod yes, it's not yes, it's no. Now that could get a man into trouble. We guffaw.
Then he rolled into paradoxical aphorisms. Italy is not a country, it’s a disease for which there is no cure. English are desperate but not hopeless. The Irish are hopeless but not desperate. He delves further into the Irish-English behavioral models. Turns out his grandmother was Irish. That explains much.
