Mike McMaster said:
>The reason that you are "mis-speaking in church" if you challenge
>"you have to know where you're starting from" is that we are embedded
>in (ancient) Western philosophy which is linear, simple cause &
>effect, etc. That is why "backward planning" is only a small
>improvement. The goal, the steps back and everything else about it
>is grounded in the same logic. It merely serves as a temporary means
>of tricking the ancient ways of thinking.
>
>Have you ever seen a backwards planning process that set a target
>that was truly impossible? Have you ever seen a backwards planning
>process that didn't arrive back at the current situation?
>
>I'd love to have been involved in one that created a target planned
>backwards and, as it neared a starting point, discovered that the
>starting point was impossible to get to from where the originators of
>the plan were.
This flaw (linear thinking in a non-linear reality) of backward planning
has been explored extensively in science fiction literature, where it is
usually projected as the paradox of "changing" your past in a way that
alters the future you come from, in time travel stories. Several films
have captured this in different ways, and could be used as starting points
for exploring this idea with a group. The most powerful of these is Chris
Marker's La Jetee, a film not very easily come by. It has been shown on
Bravo, which suggests its availability somewhere. Oddly enough, the
discussion context in which I participated saw this film as an expression
of existentialism. The "facilitator" was interested in having the group
understand the futility of acting in the present on some wish for the
future, and the necessity to act in the present on a wish for the present.
A couple of others that come to mind - sorry, I don't have the titles in
the front of my mind right now - are a film in which HG Wells travels
forward in time chasing Jack the Ripper into 1970s or 80s San Francisco
("Somewhere in Time"?), and a film about people in the future who
intervene in airplane accidents (something about a gadget that needs to be
recovered from the past to alter their very bleak future)("Millennium"?).
Both of these are readily available in videocassette. Anybody remember
the titles?
-- Jack Hirschfeld Whoa! I want to know, how does the song go? jack@his.com