You wake up every morning to what you think is ‘reality’……. ‘this is the way it is’. We never thinking about the underlying foundational basis for what we think is real. There may be an objective reality ‘out there’. But paraphrasing Stephen Weinberg, a quantum physicist, an objective reality exists out there but, as soon as you put a human being in the picture, the human being puts a human interpretation on it. So it is no longer an objective reality. It is simply an interpretation. Why does this happen? All societies at one time or another claim a territory. Over time, through mutual relationship with the totality of the territory, a culture arises. As part of the culture, interpretive criteria we call metaphysics/paradigms are developed. These become the society’s interpretive tools. One society’s interpretive tools are going to be different from another society’s interpretive tools because of different environmental and geographical settings. Therefore, different notions about nature and sustainability arise. The presentation will speak to some of the differences and ramifications of different societal interpretive tools.

Leroy Little Bear OC, AOE,
University of Lethbridge

Find the recorded video here: https://vimeo.com/669658010/b59b0294a8