Australian mythology
1. Why I Am Developing This Block
The zero after the six in the title 6.0.A emphasises the importance of this message to me. I want to expand it with basic facts that will serve as reference points for further discussion.
2. Two Interpretations of a Clock Face
A clock face can be used in two ways.
In the first, each person occupies a different position around its circumference and looks at the same situation in the centre. Their judgement is shaped by their experiences, emotions and beliefs.
In my metaphor of two computers, this represents the perspective of the biological / emotional system.
In the second interpretation, the clock face provides a common scale: 60 minute marks distributed across 360 degrees. Each minute mark represents six degrees.
I want to use this scale to organise my reflections. Different positions will contain facts and references that we can revisit, check and compare. This will represent a logical way of developing the message.
3. The Name of the Work and the Name of Its Creator
At school, I knew the periodic table as Mendeleev’s table. His achievement included organising the known elements and predicting the existence and properties of elements that had yet to be discovered.
This brings me to a question about how society remembers people.
We speak of the theory of relativity and Einstein, Newton’s laws, and the theory of evolution and Darwin. We also encounter both “Mendeleev’s table” and “the periodic table of elements.”
When does a name remind us of the person and their contribution, and when do we remember mainly the achievement itself? Do we recognise the contributions of people from different nations with equal care?
4. Patriotism Expressed Through a Name
Maria Skłodowska-Curie maintained her connection with Poland. The name polonium is a lasting expression of that attachment within the international language of science.
Other elements also carry references to countries, including francium and germanium.
I want to explore how a personal connection with one’s homeland can coexist with work whose results benefit humanity as a whole.
5. One Family — Three Nobel Prizes
In 1903, Maria and Pierre Curie shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Henri Becquerel.
In 1911, Maria received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
In 1935, their daughter Irène and her husband Frédéric received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
For me, these three prizes symbolise the extraordinary contribution of one family: work, perseverance and the passing of a commitment to discovery from one generation to the next.
6. A Principle for Further Work
I want to begin with verifiable facts, then present my interpretation and identify the questions that remain open.
The clock face will help me give these elements a place and an order.
The Limits of My Own Perspective
I have lived with aphantasia for as long as I can remember: I do not form mental images. This is part of the experience through which I have come to understand myself and the world.
Throughout my life, I have often felt that I did not fit into the surrounding system.
Most people can form mental images. I have never experienced that, so I do not know from the inside how imagery contributes to their understanding.
I am not presenting myself as superior. I am describing a limit of my own knowledge.
I know how I experience my own process of understanding. I cannot assume that other people construct their understanding in the same way.
Growing Up and Searching for Guidance
I speak from the perspective of what I know and have experienced.
As a young person takes small steps towards adulthood, they may feel completely lost. They search for an authority to help them build their understanding of the world.
Their beliefs do not arise only from their own successes and mistakes. Before they can judge things independently, they receive explanations, values and examples from those who came before them.
When that guidance leaves them unprepared for adult life, I do not see their confusion as their fault. I see a failure of the previous generations to provide the foundations they needed.
Those generations have a responsibility to help young people develop understanding, judgement and the ability to make their own decisions.
