Arthur C. Clarke: Discovering the Limits of the Impossible

Today (March 19, 2008), this world lost a great mind and great person with the passing of Arthur C. Clarke.  I suspect another world gained an equal or greater amount.

While I am not personally a big science fiction reader or watcher, I have long been fascinated by and most respectful of the thinking and perspectives of Arthur C. Clarke. Although I'm sure there will be a LOT of articles and other posts on this event, his passing gives me a chance to connect you to a phenomenal resource—fellow Canadian Stephen Downes.  He is one of the most active researchers and readers I know and a prolific and talented writer—skills I admire greatly.  While our perspectives are very different, Stephen and I are usually in "heated agreement" on most things and share a common sense about the priorities in life and learning.  I highly recommend that you check out some of Stephen's many sites and resources, such as his OLDaily "Online Learning Daily" and his "Half an Hour". blog.

With a nod to Stephen for the visual and the Clarke quote he chose, (copied here), here is one of the many reasons why I have such respect for and resonance with Arthur C. Clarke.

And you will also understand my sentiments when you read this Wired article about him, where they remember that when asked by Wired in 1993 if he had put any thought into what he would want on his epitaph, Clarke said he had:

"Oh, yes," he said. "I've often quoted it: 'He never grew up; but he never stopped growing.'"

May we all strive to find this often tricky balance between staying young at heart and in mind, yet constantly growing and "getting better at getting better"** as Doug Engelbart so concisely put it.  Sure helps to guide me through my journey in life.

Thanks Arthur!  You will be sorely missed but never forgotten.

** Marcia Conner and Erik Duval, two of my other favorite people,  also like and often use this Engelbart notion of getting better at getting better.

Comments

[Erik Duval]

Arthur C. Clarke's last interview is at http://spectrum.ieee.org/mar08/6075...

[waynes earring]

This post is weak. Wayne rarely gets the "let brain" routine and "right brain" creative part correctly. Sad, kinda.

Oh well, the ADSK layoffs will allow him to work on some good metadata issues and reads lots of sci fi.

[custom term paper service]

You know Clarke later complained that this had the effect of making the book into a novelisation, that Kubrick had manipulated circumstances to downplay Clarke's authorship