Browsed by
Category: learning

Learning and teaching resources for children

Learning and teaching resources for children

Comments 0 Comment

Jonathan Warner, of ThinkerFit, contacted me after discovering our site. He wrote My kids inspire me and are the reason behind this passion project. I thought that the potential benefit would be yours and to the people who will read the site’s content. It is my sincere hope that the information gets out there for people to learn from. Among my personal acquaintances, several have children at home now due to COVID-19. Even in less challenging times, parents, children, and educators…

Read More Read More

Contributions of embodied realism to ontological questions

Contributions of embodied realism to ontological questions

Comments 4 comments

This article fortuitously popped up in my email this morning, as we discussed this topic in our online discussion yesterday.  An excerpt from the introduction will explain its relevance. “Emancipation is very much about reducing what Bhaskar calls the demi-real–beliefs and conceptions that do not correspond well with reality.  […] It is not enough to point out the demi-real or systemic biases in reason.  Ameliorating demi-reality involves identifying its sources, i.e. the causal and structural mechanisms that produce it. […]…

Read More Read More

Kuhn: The structure of scientific revolutions

Kuhn: The structure of scientific revolutions

Comments 3 comments

This excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Kuhn about paradigms supports my claim that worldviews are transcended and replaced, not included. Kuhn, by the way, got his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard before going into the philosophy of science. “The functions of a paradigm are to supply puzzles for scientists to solve and to provide the tools for their solution. A crisis in science arises when confidence is lost in the ability of the paradigm to solve…

Read More Read More

Education In A Time Between Worlds

Education In A Time Between Worlds

Comments 3 comments

Is the title of a new book (2019) by Zak Stein, subtitled: Essays on the Future of Schools, Technology and Society. You can see the table of contents here. I provide this book to satisfy Mark’s latest email on branching out to topics that provide positive visions and/or means for healthy societal change. It would be a good book for us to read and discuss. It’s not available in the Abq. public library, so perhaps someone with university inter-library loan…

Read More Read More

The geometry of space

The geometry of space

Comments 0 Comment

Following up on this cogsci article, this new article in Nautilus supports the previous work about how spatial motor schemas extend into abstract conceptual mapping. Excerpts: “We, unlike our computers, represent information in geometrical space.[…] The brain represents concepts in the same way that it represents space and your location, by using the same neural circuitry for the brain’s ‘inner GPS.’ […] The hippocampus’ place and grid cells, in other words, map not only physical space but conceptual space. It…

Read More Read More

A war broke out in heaven

A war broke out in heaven

Comments 1 comment

See Zak Stein’s reflections on how the pandemic signals the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. This could be an opportunity to transform our dominant cultural worldview if we but accept the responsibility and get busy enacting it. Just a brief excerpt follows. Click on the link and be rewarded with the rest of this inspiring scripture. “One world is now gone and a new one has yet to emerge; we are now at the…

Read More Read More

Living in the future’s past

Living in the future’s past

Comments 0 Comment

I watched a good documentary last night titled, Living in the Future’s Past, a project organized, produced, and narrated by Jeff Bridges. It’s available through your Albuquerque Public Library account’s access to Hoopla Digital, Amazon Prime video, and other services. It lays out the modern dilemma of having a pre-neolithic brain in a Neolithic era and posits several questions that align closely with the theme of our current discussion . The film has commentary from diverse scientific experts, including Daniel…

Read More Read More

Winter 2020 discussion prompts

Winter 2020 discussion prompts

Comments 2 comments

What is humanity’s situation with respect to surviving long-term with a good quality of life? (Frame the core opportunities and obstacles.) What attributes of our evolved, experientially programmed brains contribute to this situation? (What are the potential leverage points for positive change within our body-brain-mind system?) What courses of research and action (including currently available systems, tools, and practices and current and possible lines of R&D) have the potential to improve our (and the planetary life system’s) near- and long-term…

Read More Read More

Cracking the code of rapid social transformation

Cracking the code of rapid social transformation

Comments 1 comment

If interested sign up for this free one-hour presentation on Wednesday, January 15. The blurb: Terry Patten and other activist leaders facing the grim implications of climate chaos are seeing surprising glimpses of evolutionary emergence in culture around the world. Are we capable of making a huge, visible difference? How could each of us live differently to actually make it happen? Which cutting-edge communities and collectives are emerging to catalyze rapid social transformation? Questions Terry will address include: What is our…

Read More Read More

Cognitive aspects of interactive technology use: From computers to smart objects and autonomous agents

Cognitive aspects of interactive technology use: From computers to smart objects and autonomous agents

Comments 4 comments

That is the title of a recent Frontiers ebook located here. This would make an excellent discussion topic as it’s pretty much the sort of things we’ve been investigating.  We are Borg. The blurb from the link follows: Although several researchers have questioned the idea that human technology use is rooted in unique “superior” cognitive skills, it still appears that only humans are capable of producing and interacting with complex technologies. Different paradigms and cognitive models of “human-computer interaction” have…

Read More Read More