Working disciplines and their organizational contexts

Working Disciplines

Education in today's institutions is fragmented. Attempts at holistic and comprehensive understanding tend to fall short of practical usage consistently and often tragically. The purpose of this paper is to explore the discipline of physical science and how it relates or doesn't relate to other disciplines that are found in current academic studies. In this essay I will explore the difficulties and shortcomings of educational attempts to correlate and ultimately make sense of multi-disciplined explanations and knowledge.

Humanity has been blessed with the ability to communicate complex ideas and artistic expression. The goal of education is to organize and utilize these forms of communication in order to practically improve the human condition. This appears to be a very difficult task. Physics is a discipline which focuses on the reactions of strictly material influences. This discipline attempts to explain physical forces and to predict their outcomes. Why then is there so much unpredictability in existence?

In my opinion, the relative nature of the universe is inherently excluded in the scientific method and all sciences in their attempts to isolate variable forces which therefore eventually become over-focused and confusion ensues. Communication then fails due to a lack of definition. Words are symbols to represent emotions and mind forces. These forces cannot be physically represented, yet their effects are clearly noted. It is obvious that a disconnect in interdisciplinary studies results in the myopic view of institutional cause and effect relationships. It seems that effects are mistaken for causes which lies at the heart of this confusion.

Physics describes physical effects using abstract terminology. In fact, the language of physics is a unique blend of numbers, mathematical formulas and notations, and purpose. Unfortunately, physics fails at many levels as unified theories remain unattainable despite humanity's boastful attitude towards the discipline. Physics also fails to explain human interaction, yet it can rudimentarily explain how planets and free falling bodies interact. Physics, therefore becomes an isolated practice with a limited practicality.

Educational institutions fragment disciplines for various reasons one can assume. Specification has its purposes, but without seeing the big picture fragmentation becomes accepted practice. Research done with limited contribution to a wider scheme of understanding becomes tedious and artificial.

Another contributing factor to this fragmentation resides in the human psyche. Humanity has proven to itself that it likes to be separated from the rest of nature. The ego itself represents this notion and egotistical work in various discipline need to be addressed. A breakthrough in one discipline is useless unless it can connect to the larger scheme of natural operation. But, there are many who dedicate their lives to one single discipline, sacrificing much in order to understand just one small part of nature. It is hard for humans to accept their limitations and false bravado accompanying this hard work certainly distorts any cooperative efforts that necessitate universal understanding.

Politics is being played out in education just like everywhere else in the world. It feels good to be accepted and contributing something novel to the world. Many people will forgo ethical and balanced methods to promote their self serving views to reap emotional benefit. Money and greed play important factors in motivating much research these days and it is a challenge in itself to find what angle many of these people are driving their research towards. Foundational research is based upon individual and subjective causes making cooperative understanding even that much more difficult to attain.

Purpose itself is being ignored in educational research. The question why, not what, needs to be asked more often. In physics, apples fall off trees and abstract equations can significantly model this process, but these models cannot explain why the tree is there in the first place. More importantly, perhaps beside philosophy, no discipline can sufficiently explain the cause, or the why, of human existence.