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This section is in the works
In the initial cut of this section of CDEIS.COM, we will have an introductory sequence, kind of like a Liberal Arts track to acquaint you with the basic themes and memes. Once we get enough content, we'll go to a different model of delivering the content, but that's later. Here is a taste.
If our design is correct, the content will get progressively but not always more controversial (but once you understand how the engineering of opinion works, you may not consider 'controversial', in the common meaning of the term, to equate to anything negative, rather, as more a liberating description). Sometimes the information may come from or rely on singular or marginal or ambiguous sources. This is often the case, but it may also be the case that the information, compromised and marginal as it may be, somehow evokes a response that, 'yes, this seems to be true, or at least possible'.
This information is not necessarily how any of us at Borderland feel, but there are at least some of us who think it should be mentioned or promoted. In all cases, we will be forthright and will presume to be opinionated. There's a lot of mind-blowing stuff out there, and we are definitely in the midst of a Paradigm Shift, so hope you are enjoying the ride. We are (most of the time that is).
Human footprints found in Mexico have been supposedly dated to 1.3 million years. you remember the Leakeys, and their finds of human fossils in Africa? Well, these footprints predate the earliest such fossils in Africa by more than a million years. A different dating system was employed, namely argon/argon dating, which permits longer timeframes than radiocarbon dating, but there is still controversy over the actual age.
By the way, this is why we mention this in the first place, and as the first piece, as it is emblematic of many things on this page: If you are not aware of the fragmentary scientific consensus on the antiquity of humanity, and were not aware of the important role of careerism and peer review in stultifying new points of view, you may be verrrrry interested in some of the content in this area. If interested, also check out the book 'The Nature of Scientific Revolutions', which first introduced the notion of the 'paradigm shift'. In the author's formulation, a given way of looking at things, despite contradictions and incomplete explanation of reality, is dominant as it is locked into the career and peer acceptance of the academic community, from whom most of our intellectuals come. These academics in turn write the courseware (which means the possibility of a certain subjectivity, granted, varying on a case-by-case basis, depending on the subject area, terms of publishing, etc.).
Academics have a finite set of employment possibilities. Because of the way that people generally get their Master's Degree in the Liberal Arts, the opinion of the faculty is crucial and may be determinative in whether you get your MA or not. Maybe it is the same with the physical sciences. Certainly, if you choose to go for a Ph.D., you are very keen to please the people who will make it possible for you to get your Doctor's degree, as it is very expensive to pursue this academic goal, and you do not want to jeopardize it. Your advancement in the academic realm into faculty land is also heavily reliant on the good will and acceptance of a relative handful of fellow academics. Remember, for most, it's a small world, as this is as specialized a skill as an Oracle DBA, web designer, nurse, GM foreman, or any other job.
With some remarkable, often heroic exceptions, there is no courage in the workaday academic. Why should there be? There is no need to be, and folks just want to have a comfortable life; this means 'do not rock the boat', 'keep the boss (dean) happy', and similar sentiments, and again, who can blame them, except that they are imparting a subjective world view to the larger society; for many, they are the gatekeepers to a way of looking at things.
Academics teach the next generation what's what, based on the consensus of what 'reality' is. Earlier generations never acknowledged radar, but the electromagnetic spectrum, to include X-rays, was there all along; we just couldn't measure it and/or benefit from its application. Note also the discovery of the double helix of DNA by Crick and Watson, and a female colleague who got shafted by being left out of mention, but that's another story. The DNA instructions were there all along, but we couldn't see them until our technology permitted us to go to that level of physical detail
In general, the growth of knowledge is halting, but sometimes seven league boots are worn when we make that next stride into the unknown-becoming-known. This is often adventitious and fortuitous; sometimes it seems pre-ordained, as if crucial knowledge is being unfolded after being imprinted in the universe. Suddenly we break through to understand that, yes, there is something there, something to that notion, something not yet covered by the paradigm that is ruling our view of things. Sometimes there are benefits/perils attendant on that breakthrough to new, more complete, knowledge.
As an example of this preternatural knowledge, something on the borderland, there seems to be some 'field' effect among living things that cannot be described with current vocabulary, but we don't /can't acknowledge it officially --- yet. The research of Rupert Sheldrake, and the book 'The Secret Lives of Plants', along with the story of Findhorn in Scotland, may be the opening wedge for you in breaking through into a much more interesting worldview.
For understandable human reasons related to security, the current world view/paradigm dominates, but as time goes by more and more exceptions to the rules appear, and/or contradictory behavior is seen in the system. In any event, our nice, satisfying understanding of reality (which is not ever necessarily complete) helps us by providing the structure for our daily humdrum existence. Consider that, if we did not even agree on the fundamental definitions, we might not be able to proceed with confidence that everything doesn't turn to randomness.
Given the stasis of the publishers, authors and teachers at times, we sometimes experience literally a 'die-off' of one generation, and its replacement with a new set of careerists who happen to have a better, more complete, yet never comprehensive, understanding, a new generation that admits the anomalies which lurk around the edges of the old paradigm. A new generation that admits the gaps in our knowledge, and seeks to answer, or has succeeded in answering, those anomalies. And so it goes (to honor the late departed Kurt Vonnegut).
MORE TO COME ------- Later