Dear Susan
The biology of Humans is rooted in experiencing the world and not in
thinking about the world.
The cognitive system and the physiological systems are made in order
to make sense of the world, the world which is dynamic, live yet with
an inherent order and purpose. But constant engagement with the word
during the formative stage configures both the systems to engage with
the world. The human child is impressionable and the word's
impression totally changes the tools and processes needed for
cognition. Fundamental changes happen to the functioning of the eye,
memory, ear and also to the cognitive process.
The development of a sense of self is the key to our spiritual,
psychological and physical well being and is directly connected with
the authenticity of knowing and being in the world. The process is the
most important aspect as it is through the process the beingness of
the human is formed.
The process is a two-way activity. As the knower is creating knowledge
of the world around, the world is also creating (forming/ shaping)
the knower. Knowing is the process by the human beings transforms
oneself.
What I mean by mediated knowing is that the WORLD is replaced with the
WORD, Experience is replaced with reading and thinking and the senses
are replaced with the mind causing a fundamental rewiring of the
cognitive tools, cognitive process, and the cognitive source.
In a way all that we do in life is to make ourselves! All our
activities are, a doing unto oneself.
We become what we engage with.
just as the cycle teaches you how to balance and ride cycle and water
teaches you how to swim by making the necessary changes in you or by
transforming you, the written word also transforms us to know it.
All learning is a result of inner transformation. The characteristics
of the object of learning will have to imbibed by the learner in order
to know it.
We are formed by our cognitive source!
Learning the written the word from very young age and getting
entrenched in it for most of waking hours rewires our cognitive
system.
Constant engagement with literacy changes the way eye is used. Instead
of seeing which is its physiological function it gets used for
thinking. The constant focal length within a frame makes the
peripheral vision to function less and less. In normal functioning of
the eye it uses two functions which are to scan the whole and attend
to the particular. This focusing and de focusing way of attention is
the normal way of seeing. The need for two eyes and the cones and the
rods in the retina is meant for seeing the three diamentionality of
the world. The two dimentional page/ screen totally changes the
process. As the eye is used more and more for thinking the ability to
see is numbed. Then the seeing becomes framed by thinking. We no
longer see what is there but see what we think!
Literacy, more or less, does the same thing to hearing what it does to
seeing. "Literacy takes the simplest route to dominate senses and that
is textualization where any kind of sense-experince slowly recedes
into the alphabet. Hearing, however, may be easier to take over and
largely ignored as a threat to powers of literacy. Or, may be, seeing
is easier to manipulate and hearing, easier to dominate. This, may be,
because of nature of listening itself, where representation of seeing
may leave some mark, while, representation of hearing does not, rather
it participates in building a memory, for that to assist your sense of
presence and awareness".
Memory
The physiological process of memory also gets rewired due to literacy
as the eye shifts to reading and thinking. In its natural process
whatever comes in front of the eye in its scanning period gets stored
without conscious awareness and when need arises recollection of what
has seen happens.
Conscious memorization of information devoid of experiential reference
disturbs the organic recollection and the process of organic
memorization. In the natural and organic process of memorization, the
input is usually multi sensory and there is an integral connection to
experience. The class room totally disrupts this organic and integral
connection with life. In natural learning process, conscious
memorization has no role. The organic nature of learning makes us
remember in a manner that would allow recollection at the apt moment.
From seeing, experiencing and being in the world to thinking,
measuring and controlling the world.
The real meaning of the child learning to speak means the child learns
to articulate its understanding/ experience of the world. The child's
language cannot be separated from the experience she is having of the
world. There is the integrity of its experience of the world with the
language or languages she uses to express or articulate. The
experience itself is concretized by way of what we call as play and in
the modern context even through drawing. But if language is introduced
artificially (forcefully) and not organically children will learn
language disconnected from experience, and disconnected from the
integral nature of experience and language. Off couse the child learns
the language from the adults around, but only the sound. The meaning
or the connection between the sound and what it means must be made by
the child autonomously in order to 'own' the language.
Mind's taking over the creation of knowledge by bypassing the senses
has resulted in the separation of the mind and the body.
I am tired. I rest my case. But feel free to write to me directly at
[log in to unmask]
Chet Bowers: Part 3: Linguistic Roots of the Ecological Crisis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42UCjOhnxJo
Gregory Bateson’s Contribution to Understanding the Linguistic Roots
of the Ecological Crisis
http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/viewFile/1276/1615
Jinan
On 24/07/2017, Susan Hagan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Jinan and Heidi,
>
> First Jinan I want to agree with the claim that there is a problem when
> conclusions about value place too much emphasis on analysis and not enough
> on “our need to become ‘holistic’” (Jinan)
>
> And I agree that the West fails to value the children you study and what
> they offer. But I am also concerned with the potential for going too far in
> the other direction. For example:
>
> <snip>
> Jinan notes:
> So my re definitions of the literates and the illiterates is the following.
>
> These are two entirely different paradigms of Being. (bolding mine)
>
> One is integral, holistic and is part and parcel of the 'biological'
> nature (nature centric) and the other is fragmented and
> compartmentalized and alienated from the 'living' nature.
> (Anthropocentric)
> <snip>
>
> What I’m about to say might fail to take in the nuance of your longer
> arguments. But in the post, I begin to have problems when a claim focuses on
> conclusions that suggest no intersections are possible (i.e.
> integral/compartmentalized). I feel that way even when I see the potential
> for using hyperbole as a strategy to gain more attention to the problem,
>
> For example, if I am a person who compartmentalizes my thinking, am I
> destined to be entirely alienated from living nature?
>
> When conclusions have no room for intersections, I think that we could lose
> as much as we gain. Consider Heidi’s reference to cognitive science. The
> post is enlightening.
>
> <snip>
> Heidi:
> Western Modernism has
> traditionally understood the mind as something that can be broken down and
> analyzed in terms of discontinuous parts .... Newer cognitive science
> proposes that the
> mind is actually an extended brain-body-environment system, in which the
> elements are non-linearly coupled and therefore cannot be disassembled for
> analysis. (bolding mine)
> <snip>
>
> My question here is how could we uncover the limits of analysis, adding
> weight to your argument Jinan, without the necessary analysis itself? Maybe
> we have different definitions of the term. I hope that you’ll correct me if
> I have misinterpreted your meaning in the following:
>
> <snip>
> Jinan notes:
> in modernityinstructions and teaching children turns their cognitive system
> into analyzer of some one else's information. ( No wonder how reasoning got
> so important. By the by reasoning is a tool for storing information in a
> recallable manner!) (bolding mine)
> <snip>
>
> I’m concerned with how analysis seems to have been partially characterized
> as storing information for recall (again I hope that you’ll correct me if I
> have misinterpreted). It goes against Bloom’s taxonomy (one site is
> <https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/>). If I go
> back to Bloom, in the cognitive domain (and here I agree with you that
> compartmentalizing is artificial, but also helps to see what might be
> missed), I find that remembering is the storage and recall learning
> objective. I can see your point that the end goal should not be to recall
> what the teacher has said. Unfortunately, all too often that is the case.
> But analysis, is taking that information and thinking about it
> critically—exactly what you ask that we do when considering western
> influence on other cultures.
>
> In short, I think that you make a great point, but i worry that passion
> could lead to the same misstep as western perspectives have made.
>
> If I go back to my ongoing work with students from Middle Eastern and South
> Asian cultures, you’ve reawakened awareness of the student’s desire to
> please (recall) and caused me to think more about ways of encouraging real
> analysis leading to holistic thinking. You’ve given me a lot to think
> about.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Susan
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