~e; "electricity as paradigm"

[brian carroll <human@electronetwork.org>]

— the Electromagnetic Education Initiative [2001/02]
http://www.electronetwork.org/education/about/

The public pursuit of electromagnetic knowledge has yet to find a 
'home' in models of incremental achievement. This necessitates a plan 
for designing and building a place, online and offline, for 
electromagnetic ideas that- because they are unique, innovative, and 
challenge the reigning discourses of the day- often result in 
paradigmatic quagmires, where failures become entrepreneurial 
milestones.

    To locate the conceptual field and its parameters of this 
educational work is somewhere between the reinterpretation and 
establishment of a general awareness of electromagnetism, spanning art, 
science, and technology with reasoning intended for lay people and 
experts alike.

  By inverting the traditional organization of expert knowledge to focus 
on the content instead of isolated disciplines, the strategic 
cultivation of a new common knowledge of electromagnetism is made 
possible. Questions are thus freed from the limits imposed by 
preordained and outdated empirical models. And the focus can become the 
creative research and development of content, which is itself more 
substantial than any single medium, form, or specialist discipline.

   Generalist knowledge of electromagnetism, when organized around ideas 
rather than institutional structures, in turn enables novel 
opportunities for integrating new and old explorations with 
interdisciplinary understanding.

[diagram]  paradigm shift -> central organizing principle

Forging this path of inquiry into the general significance of 
electromagnetism has brought with it a relentless struggle with the 
traditional paradigm. Still this vital public pursuit has survived 
against all odds, enduring formidable obstacles.  It is therefore 
critical that this work remains in the public interest for reasons of 
balance, vitality, and to protect and support the free and open 
questioning of electromagnetic phenomena.

    It is with greatest hope that an innovative group of 'social venture 
capitalists' will embrace this opportunity and help fund the 
Electromagnetic Education Initiative proposed in this Open-Grant.  The 
reward for the grantors who take this risk will be recognized in 
establishing value in the cultural understanding of electromagnetism in 
our everyday lives and our societies, through educational research and 
development.





Towards an Architecture of Electricity [2000/Y2K]
http://www.electronetwork.org/works/ae/towards/

Specifically,  represents a new paradigm of ARCHITECTURAL 
understanding, an ARCHITECTURE OF ELECTRICITY, which displays the 
following qualities:

  AE represents a radically new conceptualization of the phenomena of 
ARCHITECTURE and ELECTRICITY;
  AE suggests a new research strategy or methodological procedure for 
gathering empirical evidence to support the paradigm;
  AE tends to suggest new problems for solution;
  Application of the new AE paradigm frequently explains phenomena that 
previous paradigms were unable to explain. (0.0n) [A Primer in Theory 
Construction. Paul Davidson Reynolds. c.1971. The Bobbs-Merrill 
Company, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana. pp.21-22, the qualities of a Kuhn 
Paradigm as outlined by Thomas Kuhn in the book "the Structure of 
Scientific Revolutions."]

   As a new 'way of seeing' the concept AE will need to be thoroughly 
debated with reason and logic both inside and outside of ARCHITECTURAL 
institutions for its legitimation as a common sense REALITY. (0.01) 
[The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of 
Knowledge. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, c.1966. Anchor Books, 
NY p.62, "Deviance from the institutionally "programmed" courses of 
action becomes likely once the institutions have become realities 
divorced from their original relevance in the concrete social processes 
from which they arose. To put it more simply, it is more likely that 
one will deviate from programs set up for one by others than from 
programs that one has helped establish oneself."]     Still, there may 
be disagreement and opposition by individuals which will need to be 
overcome so as to institute the new paradigm of knowledge, because AE 
may at first appear to be an irrational cognition:

[...]

(onto developing an archaeological method of inquiry/excavation...)



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