Re: death of the mind.

From: Allan C Cybulskie (allan.c.cybulskie_at_yahoo.ca)
Date: 07/15/04 

Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 19:25:09 -0400

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Longley" <David@longley.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups:
comp.ai.philosophy,bionet.neuroscience,sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.meta,com
p.ai.neural-nets
Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 2:04 PM
Subject: Re: death of the mind.

> In article <8d8494cf.0407121009.43f30a03@posting.google.com>, dan
> michaels <feedbackdroids@yahoo.com> writes
> >"John Hasenkam" <johnh@faraway.> wrote in message
> >news:<40f25d70@dnews.tpgi.com.au>...
> >
> >> > > Anyone who thinks education doesn't entail a good degree of
> >> indoctrination
> >> > > must be un-conscious.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Of course, the only real question is .... to what extent?
> >>
> >> Yes, that is important. We can always indoctrinate others to make them
think
> >> well. The student can transcend the teacher, it's just bloody hard
work.
> >>
> >
> >
> >Best that you had not used the word indoctrination here in the first
> >place. That shows a somewhat callous perspective towards education.
> >Like you, life has dealt me a few blows - eg, auto transmission went
> >out this past week, on and on - but like Socrates, I choose not to be
> >entrapped by raw materialism.
> >
> >And of course, to the enlightened teacher, as opposed to the
> >egotistical self-same teacher, transcension is the entire point of
> >education. Only a very poor teacher would say ... "... now students,
> >I'm going to tell you the truth, and you must never waver from the
> >path, or else you will become as idiots ...". Now, that IS
> >indoctrination.
>
> Medical students, engineering students, and others pursuing training
> programmes which ultimately take them into professions which hold them
> accountable for their actions, would, I suggest, disagree.

I doubt it. You make the mistake in all of your posts in assuming that to
understand something simply means to give the right answers to questions.
And certainly someone who understands something will give the right answers
to all of the questions. But it's not because they've been "indoctrinated"
or "conditioned" to give the right answers to those questions, but because
they have the basis that allows them to derive the answers based on the fact
that they actually understand the principles. And you don't get that
understanding by attempting to drive it into their mind by "this is the
right answer, and if you don't accept it, you are an idiot". What you have
to do is show them WHY it's the right answer, and why it works and is the
right answer in that case.

Let's look at the engineer. The engineer does have a lot of formulas and
things that they are required to use and follow, but simply forcing those
formulas into their minds is not going to make a good engineer. At some
point, they may or are likely to come across a problem that they may not be
able to solve if they stick to the complete specifications or formulas, but
if they understand WHY the formulas specify what they should do in those
cases, they may be able to say "Well, according to the formula I have to use
metal of this weight, but that only applies to cases where there isn't this
cross-bracing, and we can do that, so I can solve my problem by not
following the 'rules' because the rule isn't required in this case." And
that's a great thing.

You can only indoctrinate "rules". You cannot indoctrinate "understanding".

> Note that I tell you that you're an idiot. What you do in response to
> that, is why enlightened others will usually just say "polite" or "nice"
> things to you (or ignore you altogether).

Of course, your definition of "enlightened" is "people who completely agree
with me". All truly enlightened people would prefer thoughful people who
are in error than unthoughtful people who are correct

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Identity Theory of Mind
    ... >> How does one engineer the right without deconstructing the wrong? ... >> do you think theories of the mind are so inbred and keep coming up ... > on Lepto-Quark positivism to thinking, Politicians ... conventional philosophical wisdom because philosophers and politicians ...
    (sci.cognitive)
  • Re: Might spend money on a Full Suspension uni
    ... I'm no engineer, but do ... keep in mind that the "bottom bracket" type rigging you make for the ...
    (rec.sport.unicycling)
  • Re: Another way to do x^n
    ... It's just MADE for recursion! ... Recursion is often clear and obvious to mathematicians to not so ... to the engineer. ... Mind you, if I were an engineer and not a Mathematician I'd ...
    (comp.lang.forth)
  • Re: Should I be an engineer in terms of skills
    ... I'm done with this site you bunch of retards ... I conclude, therefore, that you already made up your mind what you're going to do. ... One aspect of being an engineer is listening to and heeding what those who are older *and* wiser than you are saying, not insulting and berating them if you don't like it. ...
    (sci.research.careers)