Learning to Agree

Design Studies 4 Learning Agreement

Title: Religion and the Modern World

Alias: Sam Good

Student Number: Ask

Aim: The intention of this project is to look into state of religion in the modern world while keeping history and human nature in mind to achieve a greater understanding on this subject and divine the future of humanity. At the same time I would like to establish a reinforced argument against they typical solution, sustainable living, to the problems of today, capitalism and free market economics. To this end I will discuss theories regarding the life-cycle of religions and the basis of effective secular cultures.

Background: It is my belief that modern humanity, especially in the Western world is being greatly compromised by the lack of concentration on concepts of religion and heritage. Most modern humans seem to uphold the misconception that they understand religion and can chose, without loss, to take no part in any such beliefs or activities. Though generally people can live in this way, without noticing any major effects, I feel that the future of humanity will be sacrificed if this trend persists. I see this as a mid-term problem as opposed as the more short-term problem of sustainable living. Life with no religion or fear of god is a major paradigm shift for humanity at large. However, it is suggested that religion can be an outcome of sentience or developed thought, and a product of lack of confidence. My interest lies here, are people a function of religion or is religion a function of its people and what is the nature of this working relationship. This forces the questioning of the nature of other high complexity systems, such as PLM systems, global relations and the world wide web, which can demonstrate the outcome of faith or lack there of.

Objectives: It is my goal to determine some approximation of the midterm fate of humanity based on the decline of religion. The extensible outcomes of the project will include generic media casting and production of research and concept assets. I wish to include metadata as well at more common forms of media such as audio, film, and image data. The outcome will be documented digitally and the workflow will be completely paperless.

Method: To do this project I will look at the ways in which religions and cultures have developed hand in hand. Specifically very long living cultures such as those of the Aboriginal people and ones in which religion is still strong such as Islamic cultures. I also intend to research the psychological value or religions systems and studies on this matter. To complete the project I will also look at alternative embodiments of complex systems with emergent sentience and how they tend to deal with the concept of religion or higher order.

Timeline: It is my intention to make this a relatively continuous project with a largely ambiguous structure. I imagine that it could and will go on for an extended period. I hope to have completed it to a mature stage by the end of the semester.