Module 11: What's Next? Future-Casting & Review

Module 11: Future-Casting and Review (two weeks)

Monday, March 30, 2015 - Friday, April 10, 2015 March 31: Tweet @JessL something that you’ve just learnt from a reading April 4: Think about all the readings you have done and all the games that you have played (board games, playground games, computer games, ipad games, nintendo games etc…) in relation to what Dr. Mark Butler says about time and that all games create their own idea of time and don’t always maintain that idea (see the video of his talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ag5MMKkk0k, see his ideas at about the 5 minute point though the video is 20 minutes). Write a blog comment on my Module 11 blog post explaining your thoughts April 8: Write a blog post in which you reflect on the course. What has been new to you? Have any of the readings, discussions, blog conversations, tweets etc.. changed how you thought of any of the topics? What readings really made an impression on you? What are your key take-aways? Is there anything you might change in the future (tweet more often, run a crowd-funding project, look at selfies in a different way)

Nature and new media

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the readings this week, particularly Smith's article, Is There an Ecological Unconscious?  I read E. O. Wilson's book Consilience in 1999 and was deeply influenced by the message. I later read Biophilia and was captivated by the concept and fly bought into the idea that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. To me this is pure logic, because after all how can we be separate from it when we are made of it?

So to come upon Smith article and read about the work of Albrecht, Bateson and Doherty was like a revelation to me.  I watched a TedTalk video of Albrecht (and made my husband watch it!) in which he further expounds on the concepts of solastalgia and soliphilia. Albrecht views solastalgia as a new form of psychoterratic disease, describing it as in a way as to lose solace in the loss of home environment, describing it as a feeling of "homesickness you have when you’re still at home”.  Soliphilia on the other hand is the love of the totality of our place relationships and a willingness to accept, the process to build life rather than destroy it. Albrecht is interested in relationships between environment, natural and human made and our human consciousness. 

Smith's article focuses on the work of people like Albrecht and Doherty who investigate the relationship between  the health of the natural world and the health of the human mind.  As we continue to develop the planet what impact is it having on our psychology?

The Wordle produced from the article made perfect sense to me highlighting words such as nature, psychology, ecological, ecospychology and health. The human race has contributed to the industrialization of the planet and thereby created the ecological challenges we face today, that continue to grow. Is there any doubt it might affect us detrimentally as it does the ecosystem?

It reminds of this video, sadly.

References:

Wilson, E. O. (1984) Biophilia. Harvard Press.

Wilson, E. O. (1998) Consilience : The Unity of Knowledge, Knopf.