02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Knowledge Work
The growing importance of knowledge as an economic resource reflects the fact that, as economies and production technologies develop, they become ever more complex and specialized, leading to increasing coordination costs. In the language of information economics, the organizational or informational task of coordinating the diverse steps in the productive chain grows, as the number of transactions within and among productive units increases (Joncher, 1983). Logically, the increasingly complex...Folksonomies: knowledge work symbolic work
Folksonomies: knowledge work symbolic work
1 
notes
notesKnowledge is becoming increasingly specific. Professionals of all types are managing larger quantities of sybolic reasoning. Informational laborers or symbolic analysts are a growing portion of the workforce.
18 MAY 2017 by ideonexus
Emergent Curriculum
Whereas teachers and school boards typically decide in advance
what knowledge children should receive based on their age, emergent
curriculum is the technique of letting topics for study arise out
of student interests and actions. Curriculum becomes what actually
happens, rather than what was planned to happen. After all, children
design their own “curriculum” all the time, simply by playing in,
exploring, and studying the world. In schools inspired by the Italian
Reggio-Emilia approach, ... 1 notes
notes20 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
Reason: A Fictional Software
Reason allows users to specify in advance the decision they want it to reach, and only then to input all the facts. The program's task was to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion. The only copy was sold to the US Government for an undisclosed fee. 1 notes
notes24 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Shotgun Seminar
At our Institute in Princeton we sometimes organize meetings which are announced as Shotgun Seminars. A Shotgun Seminar is a talk given by an Institute member to a volunteer audience. The subject of the talk is announced a week in advance, but the name of the speaker is not. Before the talk begins, the names of all people in the room are written on scraps of paper, the scraps are put into a box, the box is ceremoniously shaken and one name is picked out at random. The name picked out is the n... 1 notes
notes21 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Knowledge Grows Faster Than Compound Interest
Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it differs from the accumulation of capital in this; that the increase of knowledge produces a more rapid rate of progress, whilst the accumulation of capital leads to a lower rate of interest. Capital thus checks its own accumulation: knowledge thus accelerates its own advance. Each generation, therefore, to deserve comparison with its predecessor, is bound to add much more largely to the commo...
1 It accelerates beyond the comparatively stunted growth of wealth.
24 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Directing Focus
When psychologist Peter Gollwitzer
tried to determine how to enable people to
set goals and engage in goal-directed
behavior as effectively as possible, he
found that several things helped improve
focus and performance: (1) thinking
ahead, or viewing the situation as just one
moment on a larger, longer timeline and
being able to identify it as just one point to
get past in order to reach a better future
point; (2) being specific and setting
specific goals, or defining your end point
as discre...Folksonomies: mindfulness focus
Folksonomies: mindfulness focus
Peter Gollwitzer's rules for maintaining focus.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science is Not Built, But Evolves
The advance of science is not comparable to the changes of a city, where old edifices are pitilessly torn down to give place to new, but to the continuous evolution of zoologic types which develop ceaselessly and end by becoming unrecognisable to the common sight, but where an expert eye finds always traces of the prior work of the centuries past. One must not think then that the old-fashioned theories have been sterile and vain. 1 notes
notesIt is not like a city being built through dramatic changes, but like a species that gradually changes, leaving hints of what it once was.
20 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science Inspires a Love of Life and Morality
Science enhances the moral value of life, because it furthers a love of truth and reverence—love of truth displaying itself in the constant endeavor to arrive at a more exact knowledge of the world of mind and matter around us, and reverence, because every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being. Because knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our existence.
12 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Each Scientists Adds Their Own to What Came Before
The advancement of science is slow; it is effected only by virtue of hard work and perseverance. And when a result is attained, should we not in recognition connect it with the efforts of those who have preceded us, who have struggled and suffered in advance? Is it not truly a duty to recall the difficulties which they vanquished, the thoughts which guided them; and how men of different nations, ideas, positions, and characters, moved solely by the love of science, have bequeathed to us the u...Folksonomies: shoulders of giants
Folksonomies: shoulders of giants
A search for truth continuing from century to century.
23 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Fact Can Impede the Progress of Science
It surely can be no offence to state, that the progress of science has led to new views, and that the consequences that can be deduced from the knowledge of a hundred facts may be very different from those deducible from five. It is also possible that the facts first known may be the exceptions to a rule and not the rule itself, and generalisations from these first-known facts, though useful at the time, may be highly mischievous, and impede the progress of the science if retained when it has... 1 notes
notesBecause they are the first-known, and taint the understanding of later facts discovered.
