Omnology\u2014the aspiration to omniscience.\u00a0 an academic base for the promiscuously curious, a discipline that concentrates on seeing the patterns that emerge when one views all the sciences and the arts at once.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The Omnologist Manifesto<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are blessed with a richness of specializations, but cursed with a paucity of panoptic disciplines\u2014categories of knowledge that concentrate on seeing the pattern that emerges when one views all the sciences at once.\u00a0Hence we need a field dedicated to the panoramic, an academic base for the promiscuously curious, a discipline whose mandate is best summed up in a paraphrase of the poet Andrew Marvel: \u201cLet us roll all our strength and all Our knowledge up into one ball, And tear our visions with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Omnology is a science, but one dedicated to the biggest picture conceivable by the minds of its practitioners.\u00a0Omnology will use every conceptual tool available\u2014and some not yet invented but inventible\u2014to leapfrog over disciplinary barriers, stitching together the patchwork quilt of science and all the rest that humans can yet know.\u00a0If one omnologist is able to perceive the relationship between pop songs, ancient Egyptian graffiti, Shirley MacLaine\u2019s mysticism, neurobiology, and the origins of the cosmos, so be it.\u00a0 If another uses mathematics to probe traffic patterns, the behavior of insect colonies, and the manner in which galaxies cluster in swarms, wonderful.\u00a0 And if another uses introspection to uncover hidden passions and relate them to research in chemistry, anthropology, psychology, history, and the arts, she, too, has a treasured place on the wild frontiers of scientific truth\u2014the terra incognita in the heartland of omnology.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let me close with the words of yet another poet, William Blake, on the ultimate goal of omnology:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To see a World in a Grain of Sand Copyright 2001 Howard Bloom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Omnology\u2014the aspiration to omniscience.\u00a0 an academic base for the promiscuously curious, a discipline that concentrates on seeing the patterns that …<\/p>\n
\nAnd a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
\nHold Infinity in the palm of your hand
\nAnd Eternity in an hour.<\/p>\n