Let’s not be foolish!
In an earlier post (here) I wrote that “What cognitive science proposes is that being wise is the state where we can see through delusion and foolishness and act more closely in line with reality.”
Highly intelligent – indeed, highly educated - people can be foolish. So, what exactly is foolishness?
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Teach or Learn?
I have been introduced to the work of Gert Biesta* who has developed some clear thinking and analysis around the difference between the ‘language of learning’ and the ‘language of teaching’.
He makes the case that the language of learning has gradually achieved pre-eminence within education (for a range of reasons but with no single agenda) and this shift has gradually eroded the importance of the teacher as teacher, moving more towards teacher as a ‘facilitator of learning’.
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The need for connection!
It has been known since the 1980s that people who are more socially isolated tend to have worse health, but still it is not clear why loneliness is so intricately linked to our health.
Gillian Matthews, a researcher in this area (see an overview here https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lockdown-loneliness-neuroscience), with fellow researchers, found that there were neurons which seemed to control animals’ desire for social contact.
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Feelings matter!
I have been reading The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms. The aim of the book is to show that consciousness originates in the brainstem, a part of the human brain that we share with all vertebrates. In short, this means that consciousness is a feeling (and see this article for a briefer look at Solms’ core idea).
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