99-233 Exploring Connections: The Mind, Community and Environment

Units: 9.0 Department: University Studies Related URLs: http://www.cmu.edu/ The seminar explores the relations among our understanding of us as individuals, our community, and our environment, in light of the emerging views on the relatedness of mind, matter, and living systems. A variety of biological and social science research suggests that living systems can be viewed as self-organizing (autopoietic) dynamic systems. Living systems are dependent on their environments; more specifically, living systems may exist by virtue of mediating their environment (the catalytic hypothesis). Consequently, living systems show similarities across many levels of scale, from cells to individual organisms, and to whole communities. Viewed from the outside, as science, the similarities are expressed in the themes of dynamic systems theory that may be applied at the scale of cell biology, psychology and ecology. Viewed from the inside, this perspective gives rise to a different understanding of consciousness as embodied and unfolding through life processes at many scales. This view constitutes a paradigm shift from the previously dominant Cartesian understanding of an organism as a machine. The course will involve readings from cognitive psychology, ecology, ecopsychology, sustainability, dynamic systems. In part, we will draw on Fritjof Capras book, The Hidden Connections: A Science of Sustainable Living. We will consider how this new viewpoint reframes issues and is or is not supported by data. The projects include demonstrations and explorations of cognition and consciousness, the organization of dynamic systems (such as the food distribution system at CMU), computing our ecological footprint, and applications of dynamic systems perspective to our experiences as individuals and as a CMU community. The seminar is co-organized by a cognitive psychologist, a physicist, and a geographer.

Popularity index Rank for this semester: #782 Rank in this department: #5   Students also scheduled 21-260 Differential Equations 18-100 Introduction to Electrical and Comp... 15-213 Introduction to Computer Systems 12-235 Statics 98-053 Student Taught Courses (StuCo): Sig... 21-484 Graph Theory 21-355 Principles of Real Analysis I 69-156 First Aid/CPR 80-342 Ethics and Oppression 33-211 Physics III: Modern Essentials

Spring 2005 times

Sec	Time	Day	Instructor	Location
A	1:30 - 2:20 pm	M	Patrick, Nair, Carpenter	SH 212
		W	Patrick, Nair, Carpenter	SH 212
		F	Patrick, Nair, Carpenter	SH 212