The 11th Annual Inter-School Philosophy Dialogue | Raffles Institution | 2014 HOW THE WORLD HAS (AND HASN’T) CHANGED

AND WHAT IT IMPLIES FOR EDUCATION WONG YEW LEONG

Dunne & Raby, Digicars, from United Micro Kingdoms, 2013. CGI by Tommaso Lanza.

We live in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.

The Internet is a

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We are becoming richer, so we are spending on not only function but also form.

In order to thrive in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, we need to be flexible, adaptable, creative and experimental; we need to be able to analyze things thoroughly, see things from multiple perspectives, grasp the interconnections between multiple forces, synthesize knowledge and information from different sources, and generate solutions that meet opposing needs.

“Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which make him unique among the animals: so that, unlike them, he is not a figure in the landscape – he is a shaper of the landscape. …[M]an is the only one who is not locked into his environment. His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment but to change it.”

Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man, 1972.

Elemental’s Half-A-House project in Monterrey, Mexico, 2011.

Present

Possible

Plausible

Probable

Adapted from Dunne & Raby.

Plausible

Possible

Jaemin Paik, When We All Live to 150, 2012.

Ai Hasegawa, I Wanna Deliver a Shark, 2012. Photography by Theo Cook.

James Chambers, Attenborough Design Group: Radio Sneezing, 2010. Photograph by Theo Cook.

James Chambers, Attenborough Design Group: Hard Drive Standing, 2010. Photograph by J. Paul Neeley.

Dunne & Raby, Digiland, from United Micro Kingdoms, 2013. Animation by Nicolas Myers.

Revital Cohen, Respiratory Dog, 2008, from the series Life Support.

The Tissue Culture and Art Project (Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr), Victimless Leather: A Prototype of Stitch-less Jacket Grown in a Technoscientific “Body”, 2004. Biodegradable polymer connective and bone cells. Photograph courtesy of The Artists. Hosted at SymbioticA, The University of Western Australia.

Embarcadero Freeway, San Francisco, after the 1989 earthquake.

Present

Possible

Plausible

Probable

Adapted from Dunne & Raby.

Plausible

Possible

Preferable