[iDC] on the issue of attentional mechanism
Paul Prueitt
psp at ontologystream.com
Sun Jun 14 16:17:23 UTC 2009
On Jun 14, 2009, at 6:38 AM, Eric Gordon <eric_gordon at emerson.edu>wrote:
>> I'm quite interested to know how others respond to this proposition?
>> and specifically how it might feed into the larger discussion about?
>> labor.? Indeed, students' attention is labor, whether it's undivided?
>> or not.
One topic that has been skirted over the past weeks here is the issue
of mechanism and the use of mechanism to too strongly shape
consumption behavior. We as educators may need to find
natural science (to be clear, I mean a new science that is
not purely reductionist) in more of what we talk about with students.
I wish to gain attention on this topic. <s>
A thesis has emerged in my work over several decades that avoidance
behavior in the mathematics class is an immune response like
phenomenon having the form of a socially induced cognitive disability.
The thesis claims evidence of specific biological mechanism in the
cognitive and immune response systems of individuals.
This absence of real skill in arithmetic, demonstrated by now a
large percentage of the adult population, is a behavior maintained by
replication - of parts of attention phenomenon, as experienced by
young college students.
The parts to whole aggregation of individual behavioral
patterns is then dependent on (replicated) parts of attention
phenomenon.
The thesis and a recommendation is given in
www.mathPedagogy.com/bridge.doc
The core conclusion is that failure of shift viewpoint is a form of
fundamentalism,
and that the media - in spite of its "attentional diversity" -
has but one message:
buy, buy now, buy this, buy anything, just buy.
The evolutionary solution piggy backs on social networking
technology, and use phenomenon.
This fundamentalism phenomenon is based, my monograph claims, on how
the brain uses
phase coherence and thus to the notion of coherence.
A theory of multi-modal thought, and the regaining of the ability to
shift viewpoint is indicated
as a lifting pedagogy; Socratic and constructivist in nature.
The new technology paradigm presented in the monograph is ideal for
aggregation of
social networking intention,
The user is assisted in building profiles that are 100% under the
individual's control -
and this assistance gives the individual control over "individual
information space".
Once this assistance is embodied as a part of the social
communication medium,
deep change in behavioral patterns are expected.
I conclude this note with the observation that positive evolutionary
forces would be expected,
under the lifting pedagogy thesis, to evolve an individual ability to
maintain
many distinct information spaces,
and to flee into those that are comfortable when social forces forces
us into conflicts.
The mathematics class has been for decades a social abuse,
as experienced by the most
common types of student.
However, the control over the individual by the consumption economy
can become "uncomfortable" as the individual reaches into self
identity and re-expresses the
native desire to know about the physical world - through science and
mathematics and
through contemplation. The shift is then made as we more fully
understand the
interdependencies in economic and environmental systems;
and the necessity of behavioral shifts involving
a finer actual control over attentional mechanism.
I am making a number of deep assumptions regarding the "nature of
self", of course;
and stand ready to acknowledge errors in my thinking regarding these
assumptions.
Paul Prueitt
Norwich University Advanced Computing Center
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