02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Eisenhower's Ability to "Sneer" a Powerful Motivator
By the time Dwight David Eisenhower was first elected president in 1952, he was already 62 years old. Despite this, he had had a relatively unremarkable health history. A 1923 appendectomy left him with a predilection to develop lesions between the lining of the abdominal cavity and the scar. In 1949, his doctor told him to cut down on his four-pack-a-day smoking habit. Eisenhower, after just a few days of limiting his cigarettes, quit cold turkey and never smoked again. He attributed his suc...Folksonomies: motivation
Folksonomies: motivation
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notes19 JAN 2018 by ideonexus
Wonder and Awe as a Habit of Mind
When students approach me with amazement in their new knowledge, I can hear the awe in their voices for all there is to learn about the world and I ask myself, “How can we inspire such excitement every day? How can we identify the best vehicles to facilitate student learning by fostering wonder and awe in our classrooms?
Some of the true experts in fostering a habit of responding with wonderment and awe are early childhood and primary grade teachers. Teachers of our youngest learners fill ... 1 notes
notes29 MAY 2014 by ideonexus
Against Mindfulness
It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.Folksonomies: mindfulness thought
Folksonomies: mindfulness thought
1 Automation is more desirable than thinking about what we are doing.
21 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Technological Humanism
The habit of apprehending a technology in its completeness: this is the essence of technological humanism, and this is what we should expect education in higher technology to achieve. I believe it could be achieved by making specialist studies the core around which are grouped liberal studies which are relevant to these specialist studies. But they must be relevant; the path to culture should be through a man's specialism, not by-passing it.... A student who can weave his technology into the ...Folksonomies: technology humanism
Folksonomies: technology humanism
1 notes
notesEducation in technology should enable a student to "weave" technology into society.
24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Pragmamorphism
Anthropomorphism means attributing the characteristics of human beings to inanimate things or animals. I have invented the word “pragmamorphism” as a shorthand abstraction for the attribution of the properties of inanimate things to human beings. One of the meanings of the Greek word pragma is “a material object.”
Being pragmamorphic sounds equivalent to taking a scientific attitude toward the world, but it easily evolves into dull scientism. It’s pragmamorphic to equate material ...Emanuel Derman on the habit of attributing properties of inanimate things to human beings, like PET scans to emotion, or IQ to intelligence. Like making a digital representation of an analog system.
29 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
When Memes and Genes Conflict
Memes and genes may often reinforce each other, but they sometimes
come into opposition. For example, the habit of celibacy is presumably
not inherited genetically. A gene for celibacy is doomed to failure in the
gene pool, except under very special circumstances such as we find in
the social insects. But still, a meme for celibacy can be successful in the
meme pool. For example, suppose the success of a meme depends
critically on how much time people spend in actively transmitting it to
othe... 1 notes
notesMemes can override genes, which means a meme like 'celibacy' can prevent the genes from reproducing.
26 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Definition of Meditation
The Buddhist meditative exercise has its roots in the metaphysical tenet of “emptiness,” particularly emphasized by the Zen schools [3]. According to this view, reality is originally devoid of ontological properties and it is only via an incessant and largely unconscious habit of emotional self-reference and categorization that a conceptual structure is created and ultimately reified; a process necessary for daily life, but that also tends to condition the individual into predefined patte...Folksonomies: meditation
Folksonomies: meditation
The human brain naturally categorizes things, but things are not naturally categorized. Meditation is the exercise of not thinking in order to free the mind of categorization and self-reference.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Scientific Crime of Cremation
Nothing is more detestable to the physical anthropologist than... [the] wretched habit of cremating the dead. It involves not only a prodigal waste of costly fuel and excellent fertilizer, but also the complete destruction of physical historical data. On the other hand, the custom of embalming and mummification is most praiseworthy and highly to be recommended. Folksonomies: anthropology cremation
Folksonomies: anthropology cremation
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notesIt robs nature of the nutrients and the anthropologist of evidence.
28 APR 2012 by ideonexus
The Problem with Reductionism
The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and natural objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms—these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature which have been made during the last four hundred years. But this method of investigation has also left us as a legacy the habit of observing natural objects and natural processes in their is...Folksonomies: reductionism holism
Folksonomies: reductionism holism
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notesIs that we also need to look at phenomenon in the context of their web of interactions with other phenomenon in the world.
23 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Embryonic Recapitulation
By considering the embryological structure of man - the homologies which he presents with the lower animals - the rudiments which he retains - and the reversions to which he is liable, we can partly recall in imagination the former condition of our early progenitors; and we can approximately place them in their proper position in the zoological series. We thus learnt that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habit, and an in... 1 notes
notesDarwin seems to hint at it in this passage.
