By leading the Americans in his audience at TEDxPSU step by step through the thought process, sociologist Sam Richards sets an extraordinary challenge: can they understand — not approve of, but understand — the motivations of an Iraqi insurgent? And by extension, can anyone truly understand and empathize with another?

Sam Richards is a sociologist and award-winning teacher who has been inspiring undergraduate students at Penn State since 1990. Every semester, 725 students register for his Race and Ethnic Relations course, one of the most popular classes at Penn State and the largest of its kind in the country. Through his natural ability of seeing a subject from many angles, Richards encourages students to engage more fully with the world and to think for themselves — something he did not do until his third year in college. Because of his passion for challenging students to open their minds, an interviewer recently referred to him as “an alarm clock for eighteen-year-olds.”

His career began at the age of 24 when he was hired to teach a cybernetics course — just 15 minutes before the first class meeting. He remembers walking into the room without having had a moment to create a lesson plan and greeting his students, “Welcome to the course. I’m your instructor. And if you have no idea what cybernetics is, you’re not alone — because I don’t either.” This characteristic willingness to be playfully transparent in the classroom, along with a talent for making complex ideas understandable and relevant, is the foundation of his success as a teacher.

Richards is also the co-director of the World in Conversation Project at Penn State (www.worldinconversation.org), whose mission is to create a kind of dialogue about social and cultural issues that invites the unexamined, politically incorrect thoughts of participants to the surface so that those thoughts can be submitted to conscious exploration and inquiry. The conversation topics span a range of cultural issues — from U.S. race relations to gender to faith to international racism. This year, nearly 7,000 University Park students will participate in one of more than 1,300 of these unscripted conversations. Furthermore, the project also sponsors video dialogues between Penn State students and students at other universities around the world.

URL: http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/michael-shermer/stephen-hawking%E2%80%99s-radical-philosophy-of-science

The models generated by biochemical processes in our brains constitute “reality.” None of us can ever be completely sure that the world really is as it appears, or if our minds have unconsciously imposed a misleading pattern on the data. I call this belief-dependent realism. In my forthcoming book, The Believing Brain, I demonstrate the myriad ways that our beliefs shape, influence, and even control everything we think, do, and say about the world. The power of belief is so strong that we typically form our beliefs first, then construct a rationale for holding those beliefs after the fact. I claim that the only escape from this epistemological trap is science. Flawed as it may be because it is conducted by scientists who have their own set of beliefs determining their reality, science itself has a set of methods to bypass the cognitive biases that so cripple our grasp of the reality that really does exist out there. ~ Michael Shermer Author of The Believing Brain.

I am very intrigued by many of the ideas put forth in this article. The beginning ties anyone with a seeking mind in with the beautiful description of how we receive and interpret the environment through our senses and brain.  However, I must disagree with the author slightly in that I do not think our brains have the incredible crippling bias that Shermer references.

Science is extraordinary. Yet what runs science but human minds? When I look at reality I have to think that most of what I see is fairly accurate. From a philosophical standpoint we must come to the conclusion that we can never know exactly what reality is without altering that reality or without some degradation of the information we are getting about it. But I choose to assume that what my senses take in are as close to the truth as I may ever come. And in fact I can rely on my senses pretty well. Things behave in patterns that I have learned over my life. Other people can verify for me that there is in fact a computer screen in front of my eyes!

What I am getting at is that I am not a scientist nor are most people. Yet we can use logic and reason along with our senses and memory to make a pretty good working model of the world and that is what people have been doing for millenia. Observing and comparing notes. I am not trying to go on an attack on science. However, scientists study things that may or may not have a direct impact on our daily lives. Yet you and I can study and observe and make some logical conclusions about the world we live in that might make a vast difference in how we view our own realities. I look to science for guidance but I also consult a whole host of sources in order for me to make a a choice and apply it in my life.

It really all comes down to belief. Beliefs have the power to cloud our view of reality or tune us into it even more deeply. Even science has its doctrine. So I believe that it is even more important than science to focus on our own beliefs and realize that they are what inform our reality most yet that we can choose to have our observations shape them. One can either mold reality to their beliefs or allow reality to inform and inspire their thoughts and beliefs.

Can’t say how many times I have been told that having an opinion is very common, doing something about it was not. This whole time I have been working on FPR, I have been thinking that, getting the ideas that me and my friends mentally spar with, on a regular basis, needed to be shared. Here, is one of the great minds of our world making a compelling argument for world peace, and it’s benifits. So I always think that a world without war is something we all should hope and work for.

Would be nice to live without the fear we all seem to accept as normal.

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control – ”indoctrination,” we might say – exercised through the mass media. ~ Noam Chomsky

The Free Person’s Roundtable is a virtual community forum and podcast available on iTunes that aims to affect real-world change through dialogue and discussion.  The FPR podcast is a platform for public opinion that features free-thinking and progressive-minded people defining and commenting on the issues that they see as relevant in their lives and their very own visions for a better future. The topics discussed will include anything that has impact on our daily lives from education, religion, environment, technology, to health care, media, society, or art — the basic “A to Z’s” of life. We will also throw in some entertainment and fun because in the end we need to laugh along the way.

By discussing issues close to our hearts and daily lives, we hope to uncover the real sources that are negatively impacting our lives and discover alternatives.  When we try to come to solutions through unfiltered and uncensored dialogues, we open the door for new ideas.  By featuring the free persons of our podcast thinking freely for themselves, we hope to get people engaged, first in dialogue, and ultimately in actively improving their communities.

Media for the Rest of Us – Joining the New Paradigm

The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much. There’s really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It’s not healthy. ~ Ted Turner

Recently, major media news has become increasingly political, corporate, destructive, and divisive.  Too often, big media censors our radical ideas labeling them as too outrageous for the mainstream.  Yet, some of those very same radical ideas, the truly original and innovative ones, can vastly change and help heal society.  In the current media system, we are reduced to being taxpayers, voters, viewers, workers, or just commodities. Rarely are we ever considered to be an intelligent, independent, and free thinking people with solutions.

FPR believes, we are all very able individuals capable of examining problems in our communities and acting independently to solve those issues at a grass roots level.  The FPR podcast is designed to create that forum for: we, the creative, self-aware, and independent people to partake in constructive, informative, and enlightening discourse.

Correspondents

We promise to always work completely independent of any mainstream major media market, without the help of any politicians, or be controlled by any big corporate investments. Come and join the new paradigm of democratized media. ~ The FPR Hosts

Dru: Describes himself as an Anarcho-Syndicalist with Georgistic tendencies. Dru is a resident of the Midwest by way of an upbringing on the East coast. He was taught at a young age that having a stand is better than having your opinion made for you, and that it is your responsibility to hold the powers that be to the light.

TBA: Looking for a new host… if you are interested, contact Dru.

Long conflict can wreck a country, leaving behind poverty and chaos. But what’s the right way to help war-torn countries rebuild? At TED@State, Paul Collier explains the problems with current post-conflict aid plans, and suggests 3 ideas for a better approach.