Re: death of the mind.

From: John Hasenkam (johnh_at_faraway.)
Date: 07/16/04 

Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 00:32:32 +1000

"dan michaels" <feedbackdroids@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8d8494cf.0407121009.43f30a03@posting.google.com...
> "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.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its
opponents and making them see the light, but rather because
its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows
up that is familiar with the idea from the beginning."

Max Planck

Read some history of science. It took decades for people to accept Darwin's
views and he provided ample evidence.
Most older scientists were very reluctant to accept Einstein's views until
the eclipse studies of 1919, the younger ones not so reluctant.
It took decades to convince doctors to wash their hands.
People still believe in free will. I place a cruel twist on this: we cannot
have free will, but just perhaps our brains do. Brains are running the
world, not us.
Despite some profound problems in quantum mechanics, that became apparent in
the 1930's, many physicists continued working within this framework. Today
other views are being vigourously explored. That's a long time for the
majority to realise that these profound problems demanded a radical change
to the theory.

Billions of people embrace varying religious positions: you can't elected in
the USA if you're an atheist. In France I believe the opposite is true.

If education does not involve indoctrination please explain:

Why it can take a generation for new ideas to be readily accepted by the
majority.
Why old ideas, even when repeatedly demonstrated to be false, persist.
Why even well educated people persist in beliefs that are bunkum.

A poignant example of how easily people can be indoctrinated. Pretty fMRI's:
active areas and quiet areas. My arse, as Rachle has pointed out, it is a
matter of contrast, those "quiet" areas are not quiet. And if you look at
the concept of BOLD contrast, well that's one hell of an assumption.

> Always better to talk about education in terms of opening students'
> minds, in order that they may learn to think for themselves, rather
> than closing them, by passing the gas of "absolute anything".
> =================

Ideally, education is about opening up our minds. Practically, the older we
get, the harder that becomes. Aint evolution a bitch. Only a few transcend
their education. I mean to say, consider Freudianism. Now common sense (at
least my common sense did) should indicate that it was total hogwash. ...
I've seen numerous articles referring to "executive functions" : can't be
quantified, isn't defined, no standard to assess executive functions. Yet
people persist in using this buzz phrase even though it fails the primary
tests of a useful scientific idea.

>
> Well, IF you're in the army, then you MUST accept the army way - else
> you and your comrades will face quick extinction. But, out here, we
> don't have to accept those terms. Hardly. How do we play the
> prisoner's dilemma?

Yes we do, there are countless examples of people who refused to tow the
party line (scientific or otherwise), who were ostracised for their views.
Where is freedom? We don't need overt co-ercion to be persuaded, social
pressures, seeking acceptance from others, is usually far more important
than the quest for truth because such acceptance provides immediate and
tangible rewards whereas bucking the trend entails a huge risk.

>
> If you spend 24 hours a day worrying about philosophy, then you have 0
> hours left to live a life. It's your choice. I'd say the proper blend
> is 2% devoted to philosophy, 98% to living.

Karl Popper: The reason why many philosophers are depressed is because they
know they have nothing useful to contribute.

Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus:

"But it is bad to stop, hard to be satisfied with a single way of seeing, to
go without contradiction, perhaps the most subtle of all spiritual forces.
The preceding merely defines a way of thinking. But the point is to live."

In a tangental way Camus touches on something important here. Brains don't
like contradiction, will perform all sorts of somersaults to avoid the same.
Yet as the physicist John Wheeler once advised, "In any discipline find the
strangest thing and then explore it." The sad truth is that most of the time
we avoid the strange things, we hate being strangers in a strange land.

And will people stop calling me a behaviorist. That is insulting to
behaviorists!

Regards,

John.

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