Harold P. Sjursen is an educator and administrator having served on the faculty of both a liberal arts college and a school of engineering. His background is in the history of philosophy, but since childhood has sustained an interest in science and technology. His current research interests focus on the philosophy of technology, global philosophy, and technological ethics. His engineering education projects address issues related to the internationalization of higher education, the integration of the liberal arts and engineering and ethics beyond the codes for engineers.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

As you think about the future and education and the kind of world we're leaving for the next generation, what would you like young people to know, preserve and remember?

HAROLD P. SJURSEN

I have a granddaughter who's just going into high school, and she is filled with idealistic thoughts and is optimistic. She's a person who is both in love with art and in love with science. She's vivacious and just everything about her seems like life is beautiful, and "I'm going to be able to do this and that." And, of course, when I talk to her, I do everything I can to encourage this kind of openness and optimism, and belief in herself and her ability to do worthwhile things. And not be too concerned about is she going to be able to have a job with enough income to be where she wants to be.

She's not thinking on those levels. And so it’s how to perpetuate and strengthen that kind of spirit and hope, that it can be validated by giving this generation the opportunity to do things. Because I believe that if she and people who think and feel like her were really given the opportunity to be influential and to do things that would have a tremendous shift in the way the world is going. She doesn't think in terms of quarterly profits. She thinks in terms of human happiness and human good, human fairness, and the beauty of nature. And all of these things that naturally come together in our head. And so that's what I think we need to do. I think the universities can play a part. Schools play a part, but there has to be a broader general sense that this is how we should conceive the future. And, you know, galleries, podcasts, books, newspapers, universities, schools, every kind of institution needs to offer something to help this.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

What is philosophy? And what is it for? I think that there is a misunderstanding. It was neglected in recent decades. Then we see a resurgence in Stoicism, and a lot of the people who are making it are technologists, maybe recognizing a lack of reflection in their field. I think it points to a fact that we have somewhat removed philosophy and ethics from of our educational models.

HAROLD P. SJURSEN

Stoicism and early philosophies as sources of personal guidance and how do we learn to live well? The university has undergone such an enormous shift. In my day, we were engaged with history, literature, philosophy, poetry, and art. And we could because it was a much more open-ended, reflective, sort of existential what am I here for and what am I doing? kind of thing than students today who are very concerned – I have to have this skill, otherwise, I won't be able to get a job.

And what is missing is a sense of how do we think maturely about these kinds of questions that worry us. Questions of what does it mean to be happy? And what is a satisfying life? And how am I going to deal with personal adversity?

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Some have predicted that we'll have the singularity as early as 2040, and all of this creates a need for a new kind of ethics and philosophy. What kind of world do you think we'll have then? And what kind of ethics do you think that we'll need in order to govern the the new technologies?

HAROLD P. SJURSEN

The Singularity reminds me - of course aware of lots and lots of differences - but it's a tendency which is as old as Gnosticism. I think, and a dream that people have had. It's a peculiar dream, in my mind because it's sort of saying that life is something like being in prison, and what we need to do, the future that we ought to want for ourselves, is to get out of jail. And so this is a profound denial of life. I guess that's what it is, we seem to be having a view that technology can free us from problems that we have.

It's as though nature has been the cause of our problem, and if we could only marshal our strongest self, which is seen in terms of this kind of powerful calculative type of reasoning, then we'll be able to achieve something, which is I guess utopian but reminds me of some kind of semi-religious kind of promise. So this sets everything up, and the need for rethinking a lot of things. We are material, physical, living creatures, and not just minds that are trapped inside a body.

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Technoscience in the first place has increased the power of our actions by orders of magnitude that you can't even really imagine. Nuclear warfare being the most stunning example of that awakened a whole generation to the need for something like engineering ethics, or the complexity of machines that only a very small group of people have sufficient expertise to even understand how they work. To the fact that the consequences of technology are often irreversible and don't appear until way in the future so that you and I don't even really need to think about them. Or at least in terms of the ordinary what is my duty or what is my contract to my children or my children's children or into the certain kind of future we can think of. So this is a complex of many problems. It touches on science and religion and art and history and sociology and everything.

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The Question Concerning Technology, in which Heidegger warned that nature had become just a source of resources for us, commodities, what he called standing reserves. Something that had no value other than for our ability to exploit it and mine it and use it for our use and purposes. Whether it's utilitarianism, which is sort of consequentialist ethics, always act in a way so that the outcome of your action will produce the most benefit. Or duty ethics, which simply says there are certain things which are good and right and necessary from an ethical point of view, and we must do it regardless of the immediate or perceived consequences.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I do feel like we do live in, we rest upon the dreams of our ancestors. We're living in a present that they may have dreamt of. Or they may have laid the foundations for.

HAROLD P. SJURSEN

We're living between past and future. And we're kind of on a tightrope. And there are forces that are trying to knock us off our precarious balance. And we need to somehow see the future and remember the past in the same breath and hope that we can have the stability to chart a path that's going forward.

Photo: Hannah Arendt, Harold Sjursen, Søren Kierkegaard, Hans Jonas

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Monica Baker with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this episode was Monica Baker

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).