[Dancecult-l] maybe logic online courses

[Kath O'Donnell]

Hi all, in case anyone's keen, there's some interesting online courses at
Maybe Logic site http://www.maybelogic.org/courses.htm

the email below came via the media-squat (Douglas Rushoff's site) list. he's
teaching a class in a couple of weeks.

a Philip K Dick class started today - examining a couple of his books &
films made of the stories. it's being taught by  Eric Davis. I signed up for
this one and so far the intro note & first week questions are interesting.
the RU Sirius ones in the past sound interesting also.

the site forums are at:
http://www.maybelogic.net <http://www.maybelogic.org/courses.htm>

it'd be interesting to have more of these short courses - perhaps someone
from dancecult could approach the site to take a class or host one somewhere
else. I know I'd be interested and others might be also (eg not doing a full
uni course but still interested in the topics)


chrs
kath



-- 
http://www.aliak.com


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Douglas Rushkoff
Date: Sep 15, 2007 9:59 PM
Subject: [media-squat] I'm teaching a course
To: media-squat at yahoogroups.com

  I'm Teaching a Course

For those of you who always wanted to take a course with me but don't
go to NYU, or who go to NYU but aren't in my department, or who ARE
in my department but have come to realize that I haven't been
teaching there for a while, this is for you:

I'm teaching a course through a distanced learning site called Maybe
Logic Academy - where Robert Anton Wilson used to teach everything
from James Joyce to economics theory.

My course, "Technologies of Persuasion," is beginning in just two
weeks. I haven't promoted it anywhere - I just haven't had time or
energy these days to do more than what's right on my plate - so this
should be a small and intimate group. And it's a hell of a lot
cheaper than paying for NYU.

Plus, we'll get to be a little crazier than people are generally
allowed to get in a college seminar room, with some no-holds-barred
discussions on how media and technology shape the way we think, and
why we seem to remain so pitifully unaware of the biases of the media
we use.

The link is here: http://www.maybelogic.org/rushkoffcrs.htm

If you want to know how a distanced learning course through the
MaybeLogic Academy actually works, I've pasted the relevant
information from their site at the end of this message. You can also
see it directly at: http://www.maybelogic.org/academy.htm

---------

Meanwhile, here's a new piece I wrote for Discover Magazine. I think
it may bother some people. All my best, Douglas.

New Pseudoscience Patina, Same Snake Oil
The Secret's self-help message is just common knowledge.
by Douglas Rushkoff

As the saying goes, opposites attract, as when an electron races to a
positively charged ion, or the north pole of a magnet pulls the south
pole of another. But try telling that to proponents of The Secret,
the latest in a long line of spiritual systems aimed at selling
personal prosperity through faulty scientific reasoning.

In case you've missed it on Oprah or Larry King Live, The Secret is a
self-help DVD and companion book synthesizing the pitches of a few
dozen of today's most prominent self-help gurus. Its creator, an
Australian named Rhonda Byrne, claims there's a single truth
underlying all these systems. It's more ancient than the Bible and
has been intentionally hidden from human beings for just as long. The
great secret? Positive thinking. Abundance is a state of mind: Think
healthy, and you'll be healthy. Or more to the point, think rich, and
you'll get rich. Most of the spiritual teachers in The Secret are
wealth-seminar leaders who display the book's logo on their Web
sites. The Secret has certainly worked wonders for its marketers:
More than 1.5 million DVDs have been sold, and the book hit number
one on The New York Times best-seller list of hardcover advice books.

While positive thinking no doubt has its benefits—from the placebo
effect to good old self-confidence—The Secret tries to justify itself
not only in the language of pop psychology but in that of modern
physics. According to the book, happy thoughts will do more than
affect behavior. It claims the interrelatedness of matter and energy
(a principle proven by Einstein) allows people to change reality to
their liking by changing the way they think about it. (Thought is
presumably energy in this schema, and reality is matter.) For most,
however, this potential for cosmic transmutation is limited to
attracting more money into their personal bank accounts.

To be sure, it's entertaining to marvel at Masaru Emoto, a Japanese
alternative healer who claims that crystals grow more symmetrically
inside bottles labeled with positive messages than in those with
negative messages attached. But such "results" can be explained by
the observer's tendency to notice the crystals he is looking for
rather than the ones that don't fit his expectations. That's why
people basing psychiatric therapies on pseudoscientific research will
get mixed results at best. Stick a Post-it note with a positive
message on a schizophrenic's forehead and see how far you get
changing the water molecules in his brain into happy ones.

Meanwhile, a growing arsenal of healing machines based loosely on
tenuous nonlocality theories from the fringes of quantum physics have
become an increasingly popular alternative to the discomfort of
scientifically verifiable chemotherapy. With names like SCIO and
Rife, these machines don't even need to be in the same room or city
as the patient they're treating—since, as their proponents reason,
quantum mechanics doesn't recognize physical distance. Sure, if this
"energetic medicine" makes a person feel better or more optimistic—
and doesn't delay or replace therapies that might actually work—
there's no harm except to the wallet.

So why bother condemning all this wishful thinking? After all, who of
us hasn't ever experienced a bit of The Secret's real power? Wearing
an expensive suit to an interview or flying first class, as one of
The Secret's featured instructors suggests on his Web site, can make
you feel and act differently. Sometimes spending more money does seem
to bring more money in, and speaking positively often leads to better
results than whining about how tough life is.

But such techniques are hardly new, let alone secret. Like mastering
the will through self-hypnosis or better negotiating through body
language, the "power of positive thinking" has nearly a century-old
track record among car dealers, admen, and others for whom attitude
means as much as, if not more than, attributes. It's from this
universe of phantom values and socially constructed truths that The
Secret derives its ultimate power. Try sharing The Secret with some
refugees from Darfur; you'll probably find the results are not
terribly impressive.

No, The Secret is best applied in the same foggy arenas from which it
emerged. It's great for self-help gurus, spiritual evangelists,
salespeople, and multilevel marketers because it's based in the same
kinds of mythology on which they've always relied: There's a timeless
principle, a preexisting law of nature only now becoming understood
by science but completely easy for you to use to make your life better.

Just pay me, and I'll share it with you.

--------------------
Maybe Logic Academy

Maybe Logic Academy is an innovative online learning institution and
community. The Academy features online courses by some our most
important and ground-breaking writers, theorists, artists and teachers.

Courses are grounded in the philosophy and perspective of maybe logic,
an approach which emphasizes the fallibility and relativity of
perception and tends to approach information and observations with
questions, probabilities and multiple perspectives rather than
absolute truths. This "model agnosticism" informs all MLA courses by
maintaining an experimental attitude towards any particular paradigm,
theory or model of reality.

Academy courses are designed to help individuals broaden their
perspectives and perceptions of the world. Our mission is to create a
learning and community environment where alternative models,
philosophies and methodologies can be discussed and explored at length
with the guidance of an 'expert in the field.' If students leave the
courses with more questions - and more options - we've done our job.

Academy Schematics

Each course has its own secure online site where students and faculty
collaborate in forum discussions and where all course material is
published and archived. At the beginning of each week of the course,
the instructor publishes the week's assignment. This assignment could
include readings, exercises, study questions, web links, meditations,
video or audio lectures, etc. Discussions then ensue and develop in
the course forum based on the week's material. The instructor will
direct the forum discussions by various postings throughout the week.
Any "live" event like a chatroom gathering will be scheduled at times
most convenient to everyone. But if you can't make the scheduled time
you won't miss out on any of the content as all material is recorded
and published on the course site.

MLA courses are asynchronous. This means that the international
student body does not have to be online at the same time. Since all
course material is published on the course site, all you need to
participate in MLA courses is an online computer. Once registered,
students can login from any computer with an internet connection,
anywhere on the planet.

There are no grades or official marks of accomplishment. Essentially
the more you put into the course (i.e. doing the readings, exercises,
etc. and contributing to the course forums) the more you'll get out of
it. This student-centered approach tends to foster an environment
where each student's insights and questions are valued and help shape
the content and direction of the course.

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