The horizon that we face is not the continual advancement of technology, those advancements, whether great or small, will come – but rather our horizon lies within our very thought process, for it is through our thought process, that process by which we think, that our future within the universe will be determined.
Ok....... are you going to give more information than that, or does two sentences constitute what is considered a well thought out proposition now? Perhaps you should expand a little more on this. I'd hate to be writing your philosophy papers for you.
Hyphen RE: "Ok....... are you going to give more information than that, or does two sentences constitute what is considered a well thought out proposition now? Perhaps you should expand a little more on this. I'd hate to be writing your philosophy papers for you." WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD DICTIONARY Philosophy (n.,) 1. [Archaic] love of, or the search for, wisdom or knowledge 2. theory or logical analysis of the principles underlying conduct, thought, knowledge, and the nature of the universe: included in philosophy are ethics, aesthetics, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, etc. 3. the general principles or laws of a field of knowledge, activity, etc.! the philosophy of economics" 4. a) a particular system of principles for the conduct of life b) a treatise covering such a system 5. a study of human morals, character, and behavior 6. mental balance or composure thought of as resulting from the study of philosophy .............................. Nowhere within the above commonly held definition is there any reference whatsoever as to size or make up of a philosophical thought. Also, please note that I made use of a hyphen - not a period. A period is the mark of punctuation (.) used to indicate the end of a declarative sentence. Therefore, my statement is one sentence, not two. Cheers, jocariah
Our Thought Process Our thought process, that process by which we think, can limit our understanding of the world in which we find ourselves. We bring our belief systems, right or wrong, in their entirety with us as we look at whatever it is we are looking at – thereby do we judge that which we are seeing. This process that all of us exhibit is neither good nor bad; it is. That is to say, it exists in us as we go about our lives. This is a marvelous biological machine that we inhabit; we, for the most part, know very little about the way in which it functions. The point here is that we are at the mercy of our ‘own’ thought process, whether or not we have consciously chosen that process which we adhere to – nevertheless it is our own - either way we are subject to it - limited by it, and ultimately relegated to be submissive to it. We see the world not as it is, but rather as a result of out thought process, that process by which we think. We are blinded by our own thought process – thinking that our way of seeing is in actually, the way in which things truly are. Never taking into account that our thought process colors every single thing, which we see. Our belief systems, whether consciously chosen or not, are present at every moment of our lives – continually lying in wait to sort out what we are seeing according to pre-established parameters. What parameters? Those parameters established by our own belief systems. We think, automatically that is, that this process of ours is the way it is, it is how the world around us exists. After all it is our thought process that provides the information, which we process, and use to evaluate our world. It never enters our mind that our very thought process is individually and uniquely our own. That our thought process is the result of our environmental influences and experiences, as well as decisions both consciously and subconsciously made. Whether or not we are bound by these thought processes and belief systems of ours, is not the point; rather it is that they indeed exist within each one of us. Therefore, our salvation comes merely in the knowing. There is and remains a way of seeing, of discerning those things that appear before us. Coming to anything that lies before us with an open mind, a mind devoid of any preconceived notions whatsoever is the only way to discern anything of significance. Those questions that we have, or rather those answers that we seek, are available to us through the tearing down, the putting aside of what it is that we know or have known in the past. For you see, our past acts to limit us by framing what it is that we are seeing “now”, in the present. By so doing, that is by coming to what it is that we are seeing devoid of preconceptions, or any preconceived notions whatsoever, we allow those things sought, to reveal themselves to us. Entities exist in forms that we may never (in this lifetime) imagine, or come to appreciate in any real or significant way. Those of a critical nature, that is to say, critical in their observations, will never see that the intellect is only for the assembling of a matter after it is inhaled by the greater being – the self, as it exists in its entirety. The intellect was never designed to carry the being, but rather to assemble the information once collected. There is indeed a system in place that hides enlightenment from those that lack the wisdom of self – it is not withheld for any other reason than out of respect for what is at hand. For even enlightenment is an entity that chooses to whom it would reveal itself. Lacking an understanding of what it is that entities are, will never excuse one from the principles at hand One must set one's own agenda then, an agenda particular to one's own well being - for there is no sense of well being possible, by having one's agenda set by another; whether or not that decision is a conscious one. It is important then to remember, that we do not find what it is that we seek, but rather, what we seek is revealed to us once we understand that what we seek are indeed themselves entities, who given the chance, are desirous to be discovered. So it can be said: "Intelligence, by its very nature, wants to be discovered, it desires to be known." There again, our responsibility in this endeavor is simply to come to what it is that we seek with an open mind, that is a mind devoid of any preconceived notions, or ideas whatsoever. jocariah
Re: Hyphen Actually, 2,3,4, and 5 both seem to require more than one sentence, and whenever you make a proposition you should have some reasoning behind it, and if its worth posting, and you want us to read and take it seriously, then maybe it's worth spending some time to actually write something that's a bit more brought to light. So what I'm hearing from you is that the most uneducated are the ones that are likely the best vehicles for science? I assume you say this because they "don't know what can't be done"? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that our thoughts and beliefs that we bring to the table shape the questions that we are capable of asking? Frankly without understanding Newton's concept of gravity and its failings, can we really understand the concepts of Einstein/Leibnitzian space (and their effect on relativistic travel)? I'll grant that I can sit a 5 year old down and tell him that matter in its most basic form is simply energy that is in a tactile form, that it's slowed down into points of mass, but I don't for a second think that he is capable of doing it on his own. The point is that education is a process that allows us to keep asking the next level of questions and those questions are provided BY our thought processes, our pre-conceptions and our beliefs. They're not limited by education but instead education is the sole manner in which those questions coupld possibly be asked. Incidentally, those processesses are functions of reason and not imagination.
the Moore method R. L. Moore, a US mathematician of the early and mid-20th century had an interesting <a href="http://www.discovery.utexas.edu/rlm/reference/burton_jones.html">method</a> for teaching mathematics, topology in particular. From the above link: [...] A couple of serious drawbacks is that first, it doesn't help a student learn how to read papers. Second, the student doesn't get coverage of the subject like they would with a normal course. The kicker was how this created good, productive mathematicians despite these flaws. In summary, we have a situation where ignorance turned into benefit. The key here is not so much that the student learned topology or other subjects, but that they learned how to research and do work in a scientific subject, present their results, and critique another's work.
Two problems: 1) Competition really isn't a good driving force for education. In fact, it's actually a very bad driving force, and shouldn't be a primary motivator. Besides the fact that the no two students start from a "fair" background anyway (many will have an intuition for mathematics and others will have the study and teaching skills to make them good teachers. 2) The "free range" approach to teaching means that while the subject matter is more meaningful because it was developed by the student, there is no need to reinvent the wheel every time a new class comes. Well... at least no need to reinvent complex proofs of topological mathematics.
on problems This may be so, but competition already is a strong aspect of education. I think there is natural competition in environments where a person must present proofs in front of a critical audience. I personally think that competition can be a good force in education, but I've heard of apocryphal stories where students vandalize legal or medical journals in order to get an edge over classmates. That's too much competition. I assume you mean that we shouldn't require students to attempt complex proofs because it will take a lot of time (and complex proofs can really chew up the time!)? The key is why would we want to reinvent the wheel? It's because the complex proof isn't the only thing that we're trying to teach the students, but also how to prove complex, difficult things. Ie, it's a lot like "hands-on" teaching. If a class builds their own house or automobile (as a team project), then they learn a lot of things that don't come from merely being told how to do something. They learn how to manage a project, how things and people work together, and how failures happen. But building for the first time your own house or car is a tremendously costly endeavor in terms of both time and resources. At least when you're reinventing the wheel, then you're doing something that you know can be done. I really don't know if society has the kind of resources to teach people this way, but perhaps in the future, if we live longer, then it may become worthwhile to teach everyone how to do some things from scratch.
The reason that it's unnecessary is that when you do those things, while you may come out of it with a better degree of technical skill, you're generally learning the "what" of a car. Of course, for building a car, that's the important part, because it's a craft. The process for building a car doesn't really require that much thought into the functions of the materials, or why they use a certain kind of metal over any other kind. It just is the way it is, and for crafts, it is usually better to learn by doing. On the other hand, you can, as a group, pull apart all of these theorems. Every day there can be an analysis of a different one, discussing its proof and perhaps the professor can even seed the lessons with a proof or two with an error in it.
