One of the benefits of the Honors Lecture Series is that students can collectively experience the eclectic thoughts of MTSU's faculty. Thanks to John Paul's thematics, this experience also pushes the speakers to step outside our routine of thought and to consider a bigger picture. While the significance of what we say may not be so immediately obvious, I do hope there is something of a haunting curiosity awakened in you for the prospects and process of discovery conveyed in these honors lectures.
There are three points of this lecture.
One is to impress upon you that reliance on the electronic network is already inescapable as an information source.
Second is to suggest to you that the network is now essential in expanding your intellectual capital.
Third is to provide few elementary examples of a constructive learning network within the technology framework.
... Human interaction via electronic networks has much promise. I believe the promise is the new dynamics of access, speed, convenience, intelligent collaboration, and low costs associated with these attributes. But intelligence still has a dear price in time and study and thought. In this respect, I don't think electronic networks change the quality of intelligence. But the change in the mix of sources relied upon is already underway. Today and in the future, much more of our learning will be network dependent. The current challenge before faculty and students is to begin to craft a more comprehensive framework for this new reality.
Will this change the nature of truth? No, I think there will just be more of it. If truth is state of alignment with intellectual values and standards, then it is neither the alignment nor the standards or values about which I've been speaking. Rather than a state (read static), I think we have entered an era of dynamic adjustment to achieve our personal and collective intellectual aspirations. If the networking of truth can cause the collapse of communism, imagine what it can do in the construction of intelligence.
