This is about what you would expect from the academic establishment.
In July, Anne Mangen of Stravanger University in Norway published, along with her research team, a study of people reading a fictional story from a paperback book and from a kindle. Her results were that the group using paperback books remembered less about sequence of plot than the people using Kindles. She performed a similar experiment last year with 10th graders who read from an iPad and from a .pdf document. The .pdf readers scored higher on a test.
Manger was at least a true scholar in offering conclusions by saying the studies "suggest" that paper or the imitation of paper, in the study using .pdf documents, help people perform better on tests and provide a better mental framework for remembering sequence in particular.
This is an attempt to try to reverse what is happening in reality. Manger acknowledges that other studies show a tremendous decline in the number of people reading books. She is trying to stem the tide of this trend.
It's not going to happen!
Here's reality. The new world requires interactivity. Reality is not answering questions on a test. It's interacting with your environment as you learn. Disney learned this several years ago. They launched ABCmouse.com and have young children ages 2-5 learning on an iPad all kinds of things because they interact with the tablet. Learning is not compartmentalized, i.e. read something first, then write answers over what is read. Children in STEM schools know this too. Project based learning allows the brain to more lastingly learn (to form synapses along dendrites for long term organization and storage, to use technical jargon) even if the amount of time to "learn" or register understanding takes longer. Learning is integrated into projects and interactive with the environment.
A study like Menger's also ignores what has recently occurred and what is about to occur. The Apple watch is just the beginning of something huge. Icons and apps on your wrist to give you real time interaction in a format handier than your cell phone, quicker than your cell phone, and with improved Siri speaking your results to you will make both books and Kindles archaic almost immediately. The next wave of technology using 3D holographic information delivery will seal the coffins for paperbacks and Kindles alike. After that comes artificial intelligence. At that time, nothing resembling paperbacks will be the way to learn information or enjoy a story.
I knew the academic world would have a contingency of die-hards wanting to stem the tide to a world that is a quantum leap from the world they lived in most of their lives.
You will have someone to teach who doesn't know your language. Your job is to teach him your language, 1 on 1. You will be with this person one time a week for five weeks for two hour sessions. Make a prediction of how much English this person will know.
OK. I will be able to talk to the person in much the same way as I would talk to a child who has had one year of formal schooling. (S)he should be able to take directions, find his or her way around the environment, and tell someone else what is happening to him or her.
Really? 10 hours and the langauge capability of a 2nd grader? People say you are amibitious or arrogant to think you could give a person the same skill in communication as someone who has been raised with a language for 7 years.
We'll see. How can anyone give the gift of language to someone so easily? Of course, it's really not so easy. The ability to give language quickly would have been years and years in the making.
There I was, sitting on a 20-year-old couch. All the lights in the house were turned
off. They were only turned on after the
sun had completely set, then turned off around 10:00 PM so that the other person could
get 8 hours of sleep. The air
conditioner was set on 82 so that it wouldn’t turn on unless it was
needed. 82 degrees was the point where
it was needed. A ceiling fan overhead
spun with a clicking noise. The only
phone in use in the house was a land line. Portable phones like the ones popular in the
1980s were placed at 3 locations in the house.
A TV was in the room, but turned on only for an hour in the
morning to catch the news for the day. For
the rest of the day until evening, the TV was set on a symphonic music
station. In the evening we watched the
news again and 2 hours worth of Waltons reruns on the Hallmark station. Occasionally the channel was turned to the
Inspire channel for a movie. Together we watched
one of those on Labor Day. The story happened immediately following World War II where the storyline traced a woman
who had to find her fiancé because of amnesia.
The love story was in black and white.
There was enough conversation to make the day pass without
feeling lonesome, but there were many pockets of silence also. Computer use to accomplish work, banking, or
any other online function was out of the question since no internet existed in
the house or anywhere nearby. My cell
phone, luckily, did bring me the internet, but typing and banking took twice as
long because of the tiny screen.
Everything in the setting was a result of a rigid belief in
extreme frugality and extreme adherence to routine and religious piety. No television programs could be watched that
had the remotest possibility of “cursing” being used in it. Only 3 channels were watched as a result of
that belief. Outside, the weather was
bright, sunny, and 95 degrees. Inside,
only light filtering through window blinds lighted the areas of the living
room. Lights in the kitchen were
permitted during cooking times, but not before or after. Bathroom lights shone only while the room was
in use. The same was true for bedrooms. If
I left a light on behind me as I left a hallway or room, I was reminded within
two steps of leaving the area that I needed to turn back to flip off the switch.
One’s religious values were scrutinized in this place. A couple of times I was chastised for some of
my interpretations of the Bible. Once I
was told that I wasn’t following the example practiced by Christians in the
Bible. Another time I was questioned
about whether or not I was reading the Bible.
I was probed to see if I still used the particular phrases of my
childhood religious denomination. I
failed this test miserably because I refused to use them even though I knew
what they are.
Yes, I had to check the date several times a day to make
sure I had not become a time traveler and landed in the era of the austerity of the 1950s or
1960s. No, it was 2014. My only word for this experience is unbelievable.
I sat on that 20-year-old
couch for a little over a week. The shrouded, insular existence created by the other person was a result of nostalgia, mistrust of people and modern technology, selective memory of events from the good ol’ days,
and a rabid belief in the divine inspiration and literal interpretation of the
Bible. Just unbelievable. I will definitely buy a t-shirt that says I
survived this environment. on the back I will have printed, " Unbelievable!!!"
Math and language, in the electric impulse stage in the
brain, are driven by the same logic. The
evidence for this is from the way math and English behave. However, most of the brain studies are trying
to determine what people are thinking by identifying areas of the brain that
contain electrical impulses when formulating thoughts of math or language. That is helpful as a first foray into the
study of the brain, but it tells nothing about what is being thought, what is
similar in thought, or even what triggers a thought.
Gary Lynch’s work is a refreshing break from this direction of study because he has been trying to find out how thought is registered and remembered. His work has been ongoing for the last 30 years and will serve as a first step in working with electric impulses. Once we know how a thought is registered as a memory, the next step is to analyze the stages between stimulus and recall. After that,the similarities of thought behavior can be observed.
Observations into what you ask? Into the pathways of
operations of logic. Finding what causes
the various behaviors determining one’s thought. Here’s an example of thought behavior. The use of the adverb in English is mostly
not a word order governed item. The
subject/verb/object order is definitely an ordered item for understanding the
correct semantics. The same logic
applies in math. Addition is not an
ordered item but subtraction is; multiplication isn’t, but division is. The same logic underlying the reason for not
ordering the placement of adverbs and addends and ordering the operations of
subject/verb/object and multiplication seem to hint at what the future of
language holds.
In the big scheme of things, math is considered efficient,
eloquent. Language is considered
imprecise, ambiguous. (I know that some
say that language is precise, but the fact that the words ambiguity, nebulous, and fuzzy can apply to an expression hint
that language is otherwise. Also the
redundancies built into constructions such as subject/verb agreement and two
aspects such as perfective and progressive conveying the same idea tell me that
language is not precise). When communication
passes the threshold of 70% for being visual in nature, needing only words to
identify a category type (like the names of buttons or names of an axis on a
graph), then efficiency and eloquence will be heightened necessities. The logic used for math is already the same
as the one used for English, so logic will help in organizing language use to make it
more precise, less ambiguous.
The catalyst for this change is imminent, within my
lifetime. I may be 80 when 3D,
holographic, visual communication will be the rule rather than the exception as
the principal way for communication, but at that point, the logic for math and
language will be closer than they ever have been. When it happens, I will celebrate that the
slow, antiquated, inefficient, inadequate, and fuzzy nature of reading and
writing has morphed into a smoother, more efficient, more precise method of
expression. Spoken language as well will
tend to pare itself into a more efficient way of expression. I suspect it will trend toward consolidation
into one language, whichever one is deemed most efficient (fewest sounds, fewest redundancies, most component oriented, etc.)
.
The brain seeks the most efficient way to accomplish its
tasks. It will do the same with the two
lines of logic – numbers and words. I
know regular people are ready for efficiency in language. Business is also driven by efficiency, so I
know they will be accepting. Others, who
are slower in accepting what is happening in the real world rather than an
artificial world will have their boat swamped.
I remember so well Mayor Nagan giving a press conference two
days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans. He told the people listening to the sound of
his voice that New Orleans had always known that there might be a time when
“the big one” would hit the city and cause a great catastrophe. Then he added a comment about Katrina, “This
is the big one.” Many ignored his words,
thinking he was overly dramatic, so they didn’t evacuate. Many lives were lost as a result.
Those who are not realists about the disappearance of reading
and writing, as we know its use, need to be given the same warning. This is the big change that will transform
the way business is conducted. If you
don’t evacuate, well, your future will be directly affected.
I really can't see around the corner of the block that I live on either literally or figuratively. I guess that is for my own good. I usually get mad when I get in my car, go down 12 houses to the corner and see all the cars parked on the street because the people don't want to park or walk up about a 30 degree incline of their driveways or when I see garbage carts lining the curbs on Mondays, or lament the condition of some of the yards around the corner because everyone on our street keeps their lawns in grand condition. And there are other things as well, like the retired man at the first house as you round the corner who sits in his yard every afternoon to watch everyone else's comings and goings.
Yes, it's a good thing I don't see what is around the corner most of the time. And in the figurative world, I would see some things that are necessary, that should happen on a regular basis, like the trash carts on the curb, but that I don't really like to see. I would see the immediate futures of my daughter and granddaughter. Those are events that are easy to handle as they happen but that would be hard to handle if I knew them ahead of time. Knowing the deaths of people in my world would not be pleasant. Seeing any setbacks that might occur would be hard to swallow. Watching the eventual outcomes of the efforts I am making today to make things better could be very defeating. Of course, seeing all the successes that happen in life would be sweet. But I don't know but that the effort that creates those successes would be affected if I knew ahead of time that they would pay off.
I really can't see around the corner of the block that I live on. I'm good with that. And I still have faith and hope that my greatest wish in life is somewhere around that corner.
The seasons change with little fanfare. It's normally just a day on the calendar. The first few days of a season are rarely different from the season that just ended. No, the change in weather happens slowly. The 20 degree day in February is greatly different from the 100 degree day of August. But, in between those two days is a gradual slide . 10 degree increments allow the change to happen in quite an unnoticeable way.
By October the 100 degrees of August has change into the 70-80 degree range. By December the range slides to 50-60. Most days in January are in the 40s. But then there's February. The several 20 degree days highlight the month, but most of the time the 30s are the rule. After that warmth begins to return.
Is nature a lesson in this for all to see? Well, if there is one, I suppose it would be that change is constant and expected. However, it also teaches that there are some extremes that we all have to deal with, and fortunately, they don't happen close together. The extremes see a lot of "edging" up or down before the extremes are experienced.
But perhaps the real lesson is the beauty that results during the extremes and the invisible process that causes that beauty in the interim. When grass is no longer green and the scene is rather barren, then come the beautiful layers of snow and ice to glisten in the sun. And the reverse is true as well which Bette Midler reminded us of in the lyrics to The Rose.
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed that with the sun's warmth
In the Spring, becomes the rose.
This process has been in place for millions of years. I look forward to it each of the years of my existence as well.
What happens when children compete is that they learn their strengths and weaknesses. They see the results for themselves. They don't have to have the results explained to them. Competition is merely a fact of life. Competition begins early in life and continues until death. It's a matter of health. Competition is a honing technique. It makes us keen, lean, and more insightful. It merely keeps us alive sometimes, and gives us advantages over those who would harm us at other times.
Because competition is natural in both socialization and specialization of the species, many parents and organizations do an injustice to children to intervene and try to make the playing field level. It's not - it's naturally not. Learning about competition early allows for specialization. Forcing a leveling principle on children only perpetuates a lackadaisical mentality and leads to latent ability too long into adulthood hampering the competitive edge.
That edge is the name of the game for us to be our best, to go our farthest length, to live a satisfied life.
Psychologists refer to abstractions that people view as boundaries for themselves as constructs. Educators use the word paradigm for the set of expectations that are acceptable. Business coined the term box for the acceptable practices that guide them. I suppose it doesn't really matter which term you use as long as you understand that the boundaries people have drawn for themselves are imaginary and arbitrary.
That's not a newsflash. People have known this for at least a century. Philosophers have known it for longer than that. I guess the amazing thing is that people attach expectations and acceptance to boxes, paradigms, and constructs. While I fully understand the need for structure, order, and law, the arbitrary nature of making up more expectations for acceptance than is necessary bothers me tremendously.
People have too many boxes, each with rules, with which to accept others, too many paradigms within which to operate and about which to make protocols, too many constructs by which to keep the mind straightjacketed. I just want to shout, "Break out!" Enjoy the beauty life constantly shows us outside the box, across the boundaries of the constructs, on territory just outside the paradigms. ,
I had settled into bed. Ah-h-h, warm, dark, and cozy. My eyes closed, ready for drifting into that great slumberland. I noticed a flashing of light through closed lids, so my eyes opened once again to see what could be causing the flashes. They were coming from the window. Only lightning could be that bright.
Did I miss something on the weather forecast. It was predicted to be sunny and hot for the next 7 days with 5% chance of rain on a few of the days, but not tonight. The only storms showing on radar at 10:20 PM were about 2 hours south of town and were not moving my direction. I grabbed my phone from my nightstand and hit the app for the local news station's weather radar. Yep, there it was - a storm coming, and it was only a few minutes away.
One of my cars is so old that it has to be weather-proofed in rainy weather so the rain will not rush into it. Then comes the musty smell in the car and the amount of time for drying it out. I don't have time for that, so I had to leave the great comfort of warm, dark, and cozy to go weather-proof. A few expletives came to mind at this point.
20 minutes later I settled into bed again. Ah-h-h, warm, dark, and cozy. Finally, And again. You know, sometimes life just forces those unexpected, unpredicted, and uncomfortable surprises that prod us to do the mundane things that allow us to live a quality life. I've tried the alternative, especially with my health. It's really unpleasant and requires twice as much time to restore than to weather-proof. Definitely when I see signs that a little weather-proofing is needed, I get up from warm, dark, and cozy to handle the situation.
Once in a while I sit on my back patio musing about my life. Sometimes it is just to click through a few scenes in my mind of my current situation. Sometimes it is to look at the events of the last 5 years. Occasionally, I will go further back maybe 10 or 11 years. But it is a rarity to go back much past that. The reason is not that I can't remember that far back. It's that I don't want to recall events or years that represent a lot of pain.
Beyond 11 years ago, I was a very different person. I don't know how I was perceived exactly by others. I just know that I had undergone a decade and a half of loneliness and anger. It continued even after the watershed event of 11 years ago for another 5 years. After two decades of lonely living, I knew that something different had to happen.
I could still detail the times if I needed to. After all, it was during those times that my children were growing up. Many of those memories with them are good ones. I recount them if with my daughter, and she wants to reminisce. Otherwise, I really don't revisit the toxic 20-year period.
On my back patio, watching storms roll in or just musing about shapes in white clouds as they float by, I think often about the time after the 20 years of drought. I'll catch a whiff of the pleasant aroma of rain arriving in the wind just before it starts and flash to a time of sheer happiness. I'll hear words from songs from that time play in my mind and call up visuals of satisfaction and enjoyment. I'll sometimes catch a glimpse from my mind's eye of sacred places full of the most pleasant of memories.
That merges into scenes of a path away from the sacred places into the future where health has had to be dealt with and hard situations have arisen. The trip to the present isn't all grim, however. It includes episodes of laughing in the car wash and playful tickling with my granddaughter. Then I know all is well with the world, and I return to a livable reality.
I can rest at night and dream of the Elysian Fields.
Conversation analysis is an interesting study. It is usually lumped into the general category of discourse analysis, but its behavior is so very different from written discourse or prepared discourse if a person reads from a prepared, written statement that it deserves to be a field in its own right.
There are different ways to study conversation. One way is to chart the topics covered. Another way is to trace participant participation. Even a third way is to notice differences in same sex/cross sex exchanges. Other ways exist, but these three were the initial entrances into the field and, thus, the most explored.
One of my favorite ways for analyzing conversation is to notice the rules or etiquette regarding turn-taking in conversation. This approach has a number of studies written about it, but there are different combinations of ways to study this behavior, so the studies don't address all the possibilities. First, a person needs to know that conversation is built to communicate information. The person can either give it or ask for it, but information is exchanged. If the information is of interest to both parties, a topic or line of reasoning is followed to exchange the information both parties want to have. If the topic is not of interest to both, the imbalance causes a distortion to the ideas of turn-taking.
It's a little like the body. Its different parts work in harmony, but when one part doesn't function according to the rules of balance, disease breaks out and discomfort or pain are generally caused. Some people know when a topic is of interest or not to others and observe a jumping technique, that is, they jump to another topic that might interest both parties. Some people, on the other hand, don't seem to know or at least find a reason to ignore the signs of disinterest shown by the listener.
Yesterday, was one of those occasions that I try to avoid - a person who couldn't discern my limited interest in a topic of great interest to him. The minutes engaged in that conversation were miserable. At the first available opportunity, I extracted myself from the conversation.
It seems that on some occasions, the age and maturity of the person in the conversation determines the ability to judge the interest of the other person, but sometimes that is not the case at all. I would love to look at the conversations of about 100,000 people in various groupings and publish the study. But, that violates a point of etiquette when conducting conversations. Conversations are expected to be fully spontaneous and etiquette is negotiated by the parties enjoined. In research, an observer makes the conversation less spontaneous making the participants wary of just what rules the observer might be "judging" their conversation by. The participants would change their conversational topics, line of reasoning, or words used in the presence of a third party.
An extremely adverse reaction happened about two months ago when Facebook admitted to letting researchers evaluate the written conversations of some of its customers. The move violated the privacy of people. Although spoken conversation behavior is somewhat different from written "conversation" on Facebook, the principle of spontaneity being judged or evaluated by a third party was violated. The backlash from Facebook customers complaining loudly shows the influence if knowledge of a third party is in the mix of a conversation. This is known as the Observer's Paradox, and it is very difficult to avoid.
In the meantime, I'll stick with what the existing literature reveals about the idea of conversational etiquette. This means I'll avoid the people who have a talkative record. And, I'll keep observing the trademarks and indicators of why people don't always know when turn-taking has ceased and one-sided monologs have kicked in.
Song lyrics, like poetry, are works of beauty when they have at least two levels of understanding. The song American Honey is one of those works of beauty. The song works from a symbolic point of view very nicely.
She grew up on a side of the road. Where the church bells ring and strong love grows. She grew up good, she grew up slow, like American Honey.
A girl grows up in a really small town, one where, if you blink, you miss the town. The main road through town didn't go through the middle of it. It went around it since it was so small it wasn't worth stopping in. Oh, but there was magic there. The girl has those great small town morals that come from careful nurturing. She represents the American experience.
This American experience has the same comparative process as honey. Honey takes time. The bees follow a particular process of bringing back nectar to the hive, transferring the nectar to other bees, and those bees following the rest of the process to spread and fill the hive with honey. American honey then represents the average person's process of growing up. This is great nostalgia. The good old days for people are sweet as honey to the figurative palate.
Steady as a preacher, free as a weed, Couldn't wait to get goin', but wasn't quite ready to leave. So innocent, pure and sweet, American Honey.
The childhood experience is so uneven. The road to adulthood is sweet, pure, and innocent, yes, but also is a road filled with contrasts. One can be steady, yet wild as a weed, much like the saying "16 going on 30." The honey making process also contains a bit of uneven drama. The bees have to deal with a wild card, bacteria as they deposit and seal the honey they will eat in the honeycomb. Most of the sticky, digested nectar is, of course, stored successfully as pure, sweet honey although some of it falls to the bacteria.
Get caught in the race of this crazy life, Trying to be everything can make you lose your mind. I just wanna go back in time, To American Honey.
The present day is hard and tedious unlike those sweet, carefree childhood days. People, like the girl, love the thought of going back to those precious, formative years when life tasted good. As for honey, eventually, bees get caught up in doing the same thing time and time again - flying to the flowers to collect nectar, going through the process of converting the nectar to honey, storing it in a honeycomb, then eating it and starting all over again.
The chorus echoes the sentiment containing the message of the poem.
There's a wild, wild whisper blowin' in the wind, Callin' out my name like a long lost friend. Oh, I miss those days as the years go by, Oh, nothing's sweeter than summertime And American Honey.
It also is the point where a person knows for sure that the composer has combined the two processes of making honey and being raised in a youthful, carefree, simple atmosphere. The whisper in the wind is the nostalgia that takes one back to those wonderful, playful days of childhood and the instinctual call of the bee to start the nectar gathering process. The result of remembering is a sweet summer. For the bee, it is the time of the year for productive gathering of nectar. What beautiful symbolism compared to literal honey.
The song's melody is slow and rhythmic, very nostalgically written like a breeze blowing through one's hair. Both words and music take a person's mind back to the uncomplicated sweet things of life.
Now that's the symbolic level. There is the literal level, of course, the obvious level. A woman nurtured from birth that is to have such an appeal that she becomes a man's honey, sweet to the memory every time a person recalls those memorable times. The whisper "callin' my name" has hypnotic power to draw the memory back with every thought to the time when the two were together. What beautiful literality compared to symbolic honey.
The key line for both symbolic and literal levels of interpretation is: Oh, I miss those days as the years go by.
Nostalgia is good. It keeps us centered. Roots are important for tempering what happens in our present and for guiding what ventures are pursued in our future. And while nostalgia is good, the present is where we live. So, I want to add a new stanza (mine, not Lady Antebellum's of course)
Oh congrats on today, what the future brought you, It was built on the past as you made your way through Although it's new, it's sweet too It's American Honey.
My two-year-old granddaughter has lots of play time, so it is interesting to see what she does with her time. She loves the outdoors, so some of her time is spent in exploring the outdoors. She has all kinds of toys, but doesn't spend a lot of time with the toys. She has role playing objects like tables, kitchens, small tables and chairs, tea sets, houses with families, and access to part of a study. This she loves. She will have make-believe tea parties, invite me to eat plastic foods after she "cooks" in the kitchen, ask me to play house with her family in the giant house, and play on my computer in the study.
Some of her time is spent with stories and games. Now, by stories and games I don't mean books and table games. Leap Frog has books with mostly pictures, but a small amount of text. The book has an accompanying bear "reader." When the reader is place on any part of the text, an eye in the reader sees the text and, through a small speaker, reads it aloud to my granddaughter. But, also on the page with the text are pictures of animals, character, and other objects. Placing the reader on the objects also allows the reader to give extra information to the text. She spends a full 10% of her time with these books.
She spends another 10% of her time with a computer built for a two-year-old. It has a screen the size of an e-tablet. It takes pictures and has a scaled down version of photoshop. It has games. It allows her to accumulate reward points. It tells short and simple stories with animated characters. It teaches music appreciation and music reading. It has an art feature, so she can learn to "paint." It has a few more features, but she doesn't spend much time on those.
Only very occasionally does she read a book or ask to have one of the adults in her life read to her. Even when forced to listen to a book once in a while, she fidgets to go elsewhere before the reading is over. I certainly don't begrudge her. Reading and writing are really, really becoming relics of a day gone by.
2017 is the end of the ten-year war between the role of reading and writing and the forms of technology that will liberate people from the tedious, slow process required to read and write. A clear winner for part of the replacement of the two stalwarts of the past is in place.
Other methods and formats will quickly follow. I can choose to read or write because I was born in the old world before 2007. But, those born after that will not need reading and writing to function in society, nor to present for projects to get degrees in college. And eventually not even to obtain advanced degrees. Fortunately, a few schools like the Harmony Schools of Science around the state and the University of Texas system's STEM schools understand this shift. Their students demonstrate their understanding of subject matter with projects using Ipads mainly, but with manipulatives and other graphic demonstrations as well. Kudos, kudos, kudos to those who lead the way into the new era the world is experiencing!
Interesting, really. I watched a current version of Brain Games and saw a program in which the program's originators began the segment with a reference to Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars. The reference was to springboard into the segment that promulgated the idea that women's brains and men's brains are wired differently. The segment continued with a simple test of the idea to show that men are more focused than women and that women are more descriptive than men. This was followed by a game with a team of two women against a team of two men. The questions each team had to answer depicted men answering questions requiring focus and the women answering questions requiring description. It was hardly an experiment... more like an activity illustrating the result of an experiment.
The test and game were based on the premise that evolution played a part in designing the way men and women think. People evolved in a way that caused men to be the hunter of the pair and the women to be the gatherer of the pair. So, men had to be focused, allowing no distractions, in order to track and slay their prey. Women had to gather from places that had to be described, then had to describe what they did (prepared) with the berries (or whatever) they had gathered.
This premise has been around for a while in the field of psychology, about 75 years. Thus, it's not a conclusion that can be dismissed out of hand. It could be true. The mitigating factor against this theory, however, is that not enough time has passed for men and women to have developed these kinds of features. At the very earliest, people with enough mental acumen to describe or to focus need more than the 300,000 years allotted to them to change from Neanderthal to homo homo sapien. No other mammal or vertebrate has developed along the lines of conscious role development that enriches speech in the case of women and filters out speech in the case of men.
Psychologists would like to leave the subject in the realm of how the mind developed over time without regard to speech, but when they bring in how the brain describes an idea or how the brain blocks speech from happening, then speech is involved more than implicitly. And, the reason psychologists don't want speech involved is so that they can leave out the linguistic theories that tend to mitigate the approaches taken by psychology. Linguists and philologists since Lev Vygotsky in the 1920s have been publishing books about speech and thought. Evolution is not a part of the development of the relationship between speech and thought.
So to watch a show on Brain Games based on an old and impartially supported theory of language is disappointing. I understand that TV is about putting science into terms and formats that take scholarly ideas and make entertaining and profitable episodes for a TV format to inform the public. I just wish the ideas TV executives select would be the well established ideas, ones with less debatable evidence, truly illustrating a truth or at least trend.
Psychology and psycholinguistics are often at odds. Linguists start with what is seen and heard - language - and move to mental causation, whereas psychologists start with possible mental causation and show how that surfaces in language. The results are different, naturally, because the starting points are from opposite ends.
The documentary Journey to 10000 BC charts the existence of civilization in North America. It pieces together dates from artifacts found and fossil bones dug up in the various parts of the United States. The story that emerges shows a rather nomadic group of people that followed herds of animals for the food they lived on. They seemed to have lived in a non-iced corridor of Canada and the U.S. until the ice melted from the last Ice Age, and then they lived in regions around Clovis, New Mexico. Later in time by about 4000 years, more of the same kind of artifacts surface in Georgia and Virginia.
That's just in the United States. Archaeology all over the world depicts pictures of civilization that existed during this same period of time. The time table represented by new evidence is very hard to reconcile with both the story taught in World History in public schools and universities and even harder to reconcile to the early history given in the sacred book of Genesis. But underwater cities that were above water until the end of the ice age circa 21,000 till 10,000 BCE, are now submerged because ice from the ice sheets melted and raised the ocean levels, and they are begging to tell their stories.
As archaeologists continue to discover artifacts from very ancient times, a revision of our world's history will be updated and incorporated into the learning material of future generations. The conflict with Genesis on the other hand will be handled in one of two ways. Either the first 11 chapters of Genesis will be relegated to metaphoric interpretation or it will separate itself completely from the science that archaeologists use, therefore, forcing the issue of believing science or believing the Bible, not both.
Knowing what we do about the universe, and predicting what will be found over the next 500 years, I think there will have to be a day of reckoning with those who hold to merely a world of humans since 4000 BCE. I would love to see the picture of civilization that those who live 500 years from now will see. But, I am having to settle for the snail-paced revisionist theories that will surface over the next 30-40 years.
Tonight the moon was shining brightly at about 9 PM about 1/3 of the way on its decline to the horizon. No, it wasn't a full moon, only a crescent moon. But it's hard to see a crescent moon without seeing the Earth's shadow covering about 3/4 of the moon's surface and the sun's light reflecting brightly from the 1/4 for me to notice from Earth. I can still see some of the moon's features that aren't covered.
As beautiful as that is, and as much as that leaves me in awe, it makes my mind wander to what must be on the dark, cold side of the moon. I know it is merely more of the same. But what about those rumors of alien encampments there? True or not true? It's intriguing to think about, but pictures of such bases look like doctored photos. It does allow me to think of possibilities, though. What if the rumors contained truth? That would change a few things I think. Suddenly, Star Trek is not myth and fiction. It's an interesting, even though fleeting, thought.
If they are there, I would love to be a part of the team communicating with them. I'm not sure they use language like we use it. If it's a form of telepathic communication, I want to see that in action. What a beautifully transparent method of "talking," which leads me to want to know about their culture. How would people work together with such transparent thought play?
We're not there yet. Someday,yes. All I have to say is "Bring it!" It's time for us humans to make a quantum leap.
Today was one of those rare days in July that didn't mimic the dog days of summer being in the 100s. It was an anomaly in the weather, only 78 degrees, 22 degrees below what normally happens. In statistics these anomalies are called outliers because they lie outside the averages, the trendlines, the areas where 90% of other items unlike them lie.
I think our lives are lived in much the same way. We count on most of our events to lie along a trendline, to be an average day, or to fall close to where 90% of them fall. The word special is another word for anomaly, a much more common word. It's a word I don't hear in abundance, nor should I since it is saved for occasions that are not normal.
Anomalies like this one in July come about every 7 years or so in a weather cycle. One has to wait a while for them, but they're nice when they happen. If weather cycles also hold true for life cycles, I should be due one of those special years sometime in the next 3 years. I love being around when the weather cycle doesn't follow the dog days of summer routine. And I am going to love one of the next three years when one of them turns special.
The mind is designed to work off of predictions that it makes from available information. It will receive a certain amount of stimuli and project how to fill out the rest of the information that is going to be received. When the information is received, the mind converts that information into what is expected whether or not that information matches what is actual. Steven Pinker aptly demonstrates this in his book How the Mind Works by talking about how the eye takes in stimuli for the brain to convert to the right colors and shapes. The brain will analyze a more or less checkerboard scan of the stimuli and interpret what has been seen based on a projection of what was seen rather than what was actually seen. That's why people have wrecks sometimes. They look in a certain direction not expecting to see anything. A car is coming, but since the brain didn't expect to see it, it tells the interpreter that nothing is coming. A wreck occurs.
Language operates in much the same fashion. People use words in predictable pattern sets much of the time. So, people become accustomed to hearing certain sets of words together. When a word out of the norm is used, many times people fill in the out of norm word with the word they were expecting. If the word is too different from what the original speaker said, the original speaker will correct the listener's word, and an argument ensues on what word was used. This happens a great number of times between people who have been friends a long time or who have been married or together a long time.
I have a high appreciation of those who bring fresh perspectives of life to me. They fill in life in such a different way than the way I have come to expect life to happen. We all have a habit of seeing life like we want it and predict it to be. Different perspectives are needed to jolt us into a new way of seeing things sometimes. I relish the moments of being in the company of people who offer that different perspective to me. They stretch me and make my life so much more enriched than it would otherwise have been.
In case you thought the previous blog was an idea from never never land...
Yeah, Facebook, Twitter, Playlists, GPS, and warnings of collision that speak to you as you drive. A transparent, holographic-like speedometer above the steering wheel. It's on the car lot right now. If I were a betting man on what value reading and writing have, I would begin to bet on what is and what is coming, not on what used to be.
It is unclear exactly to what extent cell phone communication will change the modes of communication, particularly written communication. Weird Al Yankovic created a spoof on some of the extent writing has been affected. But, the more sophisticated the cell phones become, the more written communication will be affected. I see signs along the highways all the time about the hazard of texting and driving. No problem. I simply touch the microphone symbol on my phone and speak into it. Text immediately appears on the screen. All I have to do is press send. Now will that have an affect on writing? At what point will speaking become the preferred method of delivery, not writing. Probably when someone contacts you and you hear their voice in real time and you can see their symbol or their holograph. And that is not 25 years away. It's happening noncommercially already. The reason Yankovic's spoof is funny at all is that writing has already been affected, albeit not so much as to make people think the affectation is here to stay.
But it is. Yankovic's next video could be about writing crimes, not merely word crimes.
This is a big day for one little girl. She has won my heart. She is so full of confidence in her abilities, so exuberant in her conversations. Every picture you ever see of her contains her trademark smile denoting her carefree spirit and love of life. Her positive perspective on life is such a mirror image of her mother that it is hard to see one without seeing the other.
Six is a big number for young ones. It is the year doors start to swing open, the beginning of independence. First grade starts, circle of friends increase, formal learning begins to incubate in receptive children. No one is more receptive than this little lady who has won my heart. Welcome to this big world you are now becoming aware of. Have a fantastic birthday today!!!
Whenever I go walking with my two-year-old granddaughter, we have no plan about where we are going to walk. Sometimes she wants to go around the block to look at houses and their attendant shrubs and flowers. Sometimes she just wants to be outside for a while and not walk out of the cul-de-sac. And sometimes, she wants to walk in the nature area, throw rocks in the creek, watch ducks in the nearby pond, or walk the length of the creek to the point it crosses a major road. It's different each time. She picks wild buttercups or dandelions along the way and gives them to me. She stops to look more closely at potato bugs, ants, dragonflies, and grasshoppers. She has learned the sounds of frogs croaking and owls hooting. She likes to try to find them when she hears them, usually without success, though.
She loves going walking, and I love going with her. It's a new adventure each time. Even though it is the same scenery that we walk in, we see it differently each time. We take different routes, we find new logs or dams that kids have made in the creek. We'll wait different intervals to go on our walks, stay different lengths of time, or go at different times of day. But we always enjoy our walking time.
I have been around a person for two years now that likes to have A LOT of structure in her life. She needs and relies on rules to regulate her days. She has to know where all the boundaries and limits are and is rather judgmental about others who don't follow the rules she keeps or the structures she has put in place. It's not fun to be around her. I can feel the straightjacket being put on the minute I am in her presence. It's so unlike the imaginative, exploratory walks with my granddaughter that I cringe to put the two experiences in juxtaposition to each other. Any time, any day, I would stroll the neighborhood or nature area seeing again what is in my environment than to enter the world of the regulated life.
I know there are rules in life. They keep order on the boundaries between people. But when it comes to enjoying life, I want to see the possibilities, follow the rabbit trails, see what's behind bushes, watch little waterfalls, pursue interests requiring rigor and interests requiring only presence, and note beauty wherever it occurs.
Strata is an English word that shows how meanings change over the years. Romans used the word (in Latin, of course) to mean blankets or materials to cover yourself with when sleeping. Both the derivative Spanish word and English word changed the idea of blanket somewhere around the year 1600 into a layer of something - skin, plant life, and below the surface of the earth. However, the derivative language French multiplied the meaning of the word. Latin was still in ecclesiastical use in the 1600s in France, Spain, and England, so it was still being used dynamically as a language.
Over time, words become unstable and begin to change. So, strata, meaning blanket, lost the semantic domain of keeping something or someone warm as a cover. In France it came to mean a coating on an object and some place soft to lay a baby. In England and Spain strata was left with merely the size and shape of a blanket, but not its function, which allowed people to use it as a layer of something. And, where do you find layers of things? Why, yes, in your body, on the ground, and under the ground.
I had an interesting conversation with my mother not long ago. She was noting some of the great changes that had taken place in my life. While she was lamenting them as unnecessary, I was allowing for the changes as a dynamic part of growth in my life. To me, words like strata have a lot in common with humans as they become older. Both are allowed to take on a life of their own by adapting to the world around them. Sometimes they add more to themselves, sometimes they shed their original essence, but rarely do they stay the same. Maybe there were those who lamented the change in the word strata. But, I rather think the change happened subtly and gradually - without note - and differently, depending on the language. While there is merit to consistency in life, some values mature and become altered with that maturity.
The story is told of William Waldorf Astor about a time when he was traveling around Philadelphia, couldn't make it into the city and couldn't find a hotel to stay in between smaller towns. Finally, he entered a decent sized town and chanced upon a hotel. He had been traveling with his wife, it was 1 in the morning, and rain, lightning, and thunder had followed them for most of the night.
The young man at the desk informed Astor, who was just an elderly man to him since he didn't know Waldorf, that three conventions were in town and there were no rooms available. Then, the young man said, "But I live in the hotel and you can stay with me in my room. It's not a suite or anything, but I don't think you and your wife should have to go back out into the rain at 1 in the morning." Astor declined and turned to go when the young man said, "Don't worry about me. You can have my room." Astor replied, "You are exactly the kind of man that should run a hotel for me." The two had a laugh, the Astors stayed the night in the young man's room and left the next morning.
Two years later, the young man received a letter in the mail inviting him to New York to meet the elderly man he had helped in the storm. Enclosed were round-trip tickets. When the two met on 5th Avenue and 36th street, the older man introduced himself, pointed to a brand new building, and said, "I have built this building for you." Of course, the young man thought the older man was joking because he didn't recognize the name of William Waldorf Astor until he looked on the top of the building and saw the hotel's name Waldorf Astoria and on the door saw his name as General Manager. George Boldt from that moment on was the best operator of the best hotel in New York City.
An ancient Hebrew teacher/philosopher taught, "Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you."
George Boldt would agree 1000 times over. I suspect every living adult has this story to tell in one fashion or another. It's a very trustworthy saying, true in thought and in experience.
On CNN today the author of a book was trying to tell why women apologize "all the time" and men rarely apologize. Her explanation was that women know they are "bitchy" at times. So, they know that saying "bitchy" things takes up time and space to help them clear the air for themselves. That's when they apologize. They know that they have wasted someone else's time just to help themselves. The apology is for a few moments of self centered expression. Men, on the other hand don't take up someone else's space and time to clear the air for themselves, so they apologize when needed, not for "merely breathing."
Well, everyone is entitled to an opinion. Validity, on the other hand, is a little harder to come by. The statement above is by a woman, so who am I, a male, to call her into question too much? I would refer to some literature about the subject, however. Some psychologists would say that women apologize to show deference, to symbolize their role as slightly inferior, or to denigrate their self-efficacy so that the males might have an opportunity to show prowess. Some linguists see the behavior more as a way to manipulate the conversation to get what they want. If a woman shows weakness, the male will respond with a statement of redirection, but in so doing leaves himself open to being led in logic toward a desired goal by the woman. The apology is a distraction from her goal, so that the man doesn't see it but feels inclined to comfort or guide. Then, the woman obtains her goal by leading the thought process from that point.
The CNN author's explanation doesn't seem too plausible because women don't like to waste someone's time anymore than men do. Women's self-efficacy is not deficient in any way to men's. The psychological explanation seems plausible only if women actually feel as if they need to defer for some reason or that they want to cater to a man's view of the world. That seems unlikely since they want just as much from life as men do. But, the linguists' point of view seems to have some merit. Humans in general are manipulative because they seek to control what they can of the world around them. Using language to aid in keeping control is something that both sexes do.
People don't like to think in terms of manipulation. The word connotes deviousness and deceit. But, creating facades is a practice humans commonly engage in. Everyone does this for their own survival first, and for control after that. When I hear an apology from a woman, I know that I should not be distracted. Something in the environment is about to move on me ( a nice way to say something is being manipulated).
I remember distinctly hearing a special education expert say that a method of teaching to special education students was to use hand signals in explaining grammar to them. And then she explained that that what was good for special education students (the signal system) was also good for regular education students.
I thought to myself, "Did I just hear that a method that worked in a special situation for a special population could be generalized to the mainstream population?" Surely not. Oh, but I did. In fact, I heard more than one special education expert say the same thing to different people.
Now I could understand that someone untrained might have the notion that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. But, I would never expect an expert in the field to make such a statement without empirical evidence. None was forthcoming, however. That's because the statement is counterintuitive. What is good for special education students should be easier for regular education students.
I hear too many stories coming out of education like this. I remember the 1990s. It was the decade of the learning style (Ken and Rita Dunn), even the reading style (Marie Carbo). A four segment teaching plan was circulated for a while that bordered on learning style. The categories of styles were different, such as "kinesthetic" or "visual," but were stylistic categories nonetheless.
Of course, if the originators of the style theories had done empirical studies on their theories to prove them, the notion of styles enhancing learning would have been less trendy than they were. But, no, quantitative evidence was not forthcoming. The learning style theory faded into oblivion with other notional ideas about education like hemisphericity of the brain. And, testing over a common curriculum will share the same fate as the rest of the notions as it runs its course in a few more years, thankfully.
I would hope that colleges of education would provide more informed educators in the future in order to lead eager and willing students into a better way of thinking.
I thought it very curious today as I watched and listened to a young high school student from Mexico City join in a discussion with adults who had migrated to the U.S. from Mexico The young student seemed unable to believe her ears, it seemed, at the reasons and other attitudes expressed by her fellow compatriots toward their native country. However, she came to accept their explanations for leaving and ended the discussion by saying that her generation could be ready to reject the current government's status quo and create a nation that gives people jobs and makes the country safer. I hope she has success in this when she returns to her education in Mexico next September and finishes soon with a medical degree. I tend to believe her efforts because of her sincerity and because by going to the best university in the whole of Mexico she has positioned herself in an influential place.
The generation of people 20 or younger right now will certainly come to power in about another 25 years, and they will have absolutely no influence from the generation I am a part of. I trust the swing generation of those in their 30s and 40s currently have done a good job of leaving the world a better place for them. I'm an optimist. The world gets better by degrees as it turns around the sun. The world seems to be coming together a little at a time. Brave New World will come true someday. Probably not in 25 years, but in about 10-15 of those 25-year periods, shades of a one-world government might surface. Katie bar the door when that happens. What the world won't achieve at that point!
The Algonquin Native Americans gathered their strawberries in the first half of June every year. The strawberries had a really narrow window for harvesting the berry. Of course, the moon has its phases in June, but at some point in June a full moon appears. When it does, it has a name just like every other month of the year when a full moon occurs. In May, the full moon is called the flower moon, because all the flowers are blooming during this month, and in April, the full moon is called the pink moon because of the color of the pink phlox that bloom as they cover the ground. So, that's right, you guessed it. For June the full moon is called the strawberry moon.
So, tonight I drove home with the strawberry moon looking through my passenger window. It was really, really pretty. But one thing I noticed was that the strawberry moon was not strawberry colored in the least. In fact, the full moon in June is nearly always a golden color because when it is low on the horizon the heat from the Earth colors the view of the moon, transforming its usually white glow to a honey shade. Those who drink ale or amber beer call it the old word for beer - mead. So, tonight my passenger on the way home from work was the honey moon, the mead moon.
This moon was a little more special tonight than most full moons, though. Tonight is Friday the 13th. What are the odds that a full moon would land on a Friday the 13th? Pretty high, right. The last time that occurred was October 13th, 2000. The next occurrence of a full moon on a Friday the 13th will be in the year 2049. Now, that's special. So, I'm feeling pretty loved for my good fortune of having the honey moon accompany me on my way home tonight. But, this is really a much more special moon than what I would have ever imagined. The last time a honey moon appeared in June on Friday the 13th was in 1919, almost 100 years ago. The next time that will happen will be almost 100 years in the future, 2098.
I am now feeling that the celestial order has treated me royally. The majestic splendor of the strawberry moon rode with me my entire 50 minute commute from work to home. Wow. I haven't been treated so special in I don't know how long, and couldn't help but compare it, figuratively, to times in my life when I was treated that regally. The strawberry moons in our lives, like the real ones, happen rarely, and the figurative honey moons of Friday the 13th even more rarely, so when they happen, we see their majestic splendor. The most recent strawberry full moon for Friday the 13th in my life was so special that I still feel its warmth, its heat coloring my life in the amber of mead. It was my honey moon because it was pure gold, my strawberry moon because of its taste - J ust L ike S trawberries.
I only live on a small block of a very big nation, but the idea of "being smart" is still the talk of young mothers and young teachers.
The idea of intelligence and ranking that intelligence is still alive and well. The arguments that surface most often in favor of its existence are that some kids score high on tests consistently, understand a concept the first time, need very little reinforcement to retain the concept, and retain the concept over a six-month span of time or longer.
They make some good observations that have to be addressed. Those who believe in intelligence take the three observations above and construct measurements that correlate initial depth of understanding, speed of understanding, and length of understanding.
At the outset, a definition of terms needs to be addressed. Understanding and learning are terms that appear to be synonymous among those doing the measuring. In popular vernacular, the two terms certainly have the same meaning. But, when working with statistical measurement, it is important to make all terms clear. Understanding contains the idea that information has been taken in and that a person can manipulate it, use it, have experience with its applications, and have enhanced familiarity with it without forgetting the concept or the mechanics involved in massaging it. Learning is related to taking in information and in a very short period of time after the information has been presented, mimicking or applying the principles to a problem containing them on a test (an artificial written instrument, not experience nor manipulation in real-world use).
So, when people begin to make observations about intelligence, they tend to measure learning rather than understanding, they exclude real world application and experience with a concept in favor of presenting information in books and testing retention. And, they restrict the learning to academic subjects. Of course, many kinds of information can be learned besides what is contained in books in a so-called core curriculum... many, many kinds.
Just on the basis of how restricted the sources for learning are (academic sources only) that are measured, the results should never be generalized from such a narrow database to the larger world of learning. The learning is different outside the books and core curriculum, so the results cannot be generalized. A non sequitur exists.
When it comes to the observations of depth, speed, and length of time applied to learning, then one sees right away that other factors enter in. What is depth? Is it how much that can be reflected in a test once or should it be how much can be applied in 10 different situations? Is it a percentage of correct answers on a test or is it knowing how to act, what to say when one is in the presence of someone whose career or life's work uses the information, someone with the knowledge of something through experimentation and presentation of a variety of problems?
What is speed? Reflecting a right answer on a test immediately following a concept? Showing knowledge after working with carefully constructed experimentation? Spending a year in the same grade level and remembering a particular fact for that length of time? Is it learning something, forgetting it, being reminded, forgetting again, finally seeing the fact appear in one's environment, forgetting, seeing the fact again being presented in the environment, not forgetting finally (like learning the tax code, jumping a car from another car's battery, knowing to check air pressure in tires in spring and fall because of the fluctuation in temperature during those seasons, applying rate of metabolism to exercise and intake of calories, etc.)?
What is length? Understanding implies experience. How long does that take? Learning doesn't necessarily require experience or manipulation. Learning can be a demonstration of facts. Retention of facts depend on how synapses in the brain have been organized by individuals. That organization is dependent on children's backgrounds. So, is length related to a type of background that produces a particular synaptic organizational pattern? Of course, that thought is absurd since synaptic organization is as individual as fingerprints. So, should there be different measurements for length? One for learning facts and one for learning applications?
Even if one could measure what is learned, then is it proper to tie those individual measurements to a general number, an index number? What does a 70 IQ mean? Does it mean that someone has difficulty with understanding or learning? Is the problem with speed, length, and depth, or is one area more affected than another? Is the problem transferring learning to understanding? Oh, right, transfer was not part of the measurement process... ha. And other factors enter in that are considered more minor to the intelligence measurers like background and personality traits, neither of which is considered in their IQ index.
I wish people would not be fooled. Unless there is a defect in the development of the mind in the womb or shortly after birth, every child is smart because the chemicals of the brain are distributed to the same areas and in amounts common to all humans. Biologically, infants learn to navigate their new environments in predictable ways. After two years of age, personality enters into the equation of navigating the environment as does a child's health. As time goes by, the influence of the parents begins to enter into the navigation. And as a little more time goes by, peer influence becomes a factor.
Intelligence is a false notion. It is a game concocted by those who want to structure society according to a system of role recognition so that they can belong to the role in some prestigious way, a way that touts the taste of apples above the taste of oranges or grapes.
On April 17, 2014, an Earth II was discovered in the habitable zone of the Kepler 186 star system, constellation Cygnus. It is about 10% larger than Earth and could contain life. You can read all about it in the journal Science.
On June 2, 2014, an Earth II was discovered in the habitable zone of the Kepler 10 star system, Constellation Draco. It is a little over 2 times the size of earth and has dense composition for rocks and other solids, so life could exist. You can view the press conference made at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society to hear all about it.
There will be many more announcements in the future simply because there are a myriad more planets to be found all around our galaxy. And when we can break free of our own spiral arm of the Milky Way, we'll find thousands more. They're out there. Once you start looking, you tend to find what you're looking for.
Discoveries like this sure make me wonder about life out there. I'm quite sure we'll meet ET sooner or later. It would excite me beyond words to be a part of the first contact. I would love to hear the story he or she tells of the existence each one has in the universe. I won't make it to that point in time, nor my daughter or my granddaughter. But in a couple or three hundred years, I'm hoping that some posterity of mine will eventually migrate to the place I'll be staying at that time and tell me what it is like to know about all those other worlds and the ETs that exist on them. I can't wait to have that conversation.
We all know that scientists have been working on artificial intelligence for 30 years now. It's old news. But news clips have been reporting that progress in the field has made great strides and have shown robots that greet you and carry on a simple question and answer exchange. The military has demonstrated its own success with drones (primitive, but first-step AI) in both a battle and surveillance mode. They run remotely and are controlled to a certain degree, but they also can think for themselves when taking camera shots or adjusting missile ranges and margins of error, or make recommendations to fine-tune any commands they think aren't entirely accurate.
Everyone knows that the day is coming when machines will think for themselves. And we know we will get there step by step. So when Apple held its news conference two days ago, step one for the commercial use of very early AI was seen. My goodness, now the apps on a phone can communicate with each other. Apple called it a "kit." They had two that they announced. The home kit takes a voice command, "I am going to sleep for the night," and turns off the lights in the house or turns off the ones you want off and leaves on the ones you want on. It also adjusts the thermostat, sets the coffee pot to turn on at a particular time in the morning, sets alarms, turns on night lights in halls and/or bathrooms, and activates the alarm system, shuts off or changes the setting of ceiling fans, and about anything else that is electronic in nature. That is all coordinated by a voice command.
Oh, it will get increasingly more sophisticated from here, but this is an impressive first step. I wonder what a person would have had to know to make this kit come together. You would have to know how devices communicate with each other. You would have to know how to bundle them. In old computer terms you would say you have to know how to make the information into a macro. You would have to tie the macro to oral language. You would have to know how to parse speech into the particular syllables that spark the catalyst for the macro to cause all the settings, adjustments, and activations to take place. In other words, you would have to know how technology works, how code works, how algorithms work, how spoken language is keyed to electronic signals, etc.
Would a student in an average school today even understand the first thing about the concept of a kit? They would be reading stories and adding, doing a little averaging, working with fractions, writing an essay or two. Ha! They would know how to work in a job for the 1980s well enough. Can anyone see that the syntax of coding has replaced stories and essays, that sets and algorithm use have displaced averaging and fractions, that the dreaded science fair project is really the kind of logic one needs to have as a rule, not as a project so uninteresting that kids won't do it and their parents try to help them save face? Tell me how important the facts of Westward Expansion are or the Treaty of Versailles in a world where the boundaries of space are pushed outside of our solar system and instant communication happens between people 24/7? The cell phone is a major tool so the apps and now the kits that control a person's environment seem a little more important than learning how a speech course, for example, painfully and slowly reviews the rudiments of face-to-face interaction for occasions that might not even exist in about another quarter-century.
If Apple's announcement didn't get the attention of those in charge of children's learning, then truly they are dinosaurs seeing the meteor streaking across the atmosphere within seconds of wiping them out never to return as one of Earth's life forms again. I trust there are those out there who understand adaptation and make some bold moves. The world is not in books. It's in real time. We'll get more of the past if we continue to prepare people by studying it and filling the ranks with those who know it. 3D copiers, 3D imaging, holographic transmission and viewing are already in use. Tablets (the electronic kind) for two-year-olds contain cameras for pictures and software to photoshop them. That's the new child's play.
Holy Mackerel!!! The Earth has gone around the sun 900 times already since the Medieval Ages, 238 times since the Yankees and Red Coats fought, 70 times since World War II, and even 34 times since the advent of the personal computer in commercial markets.
When my children were in grade school and younger, we used to buy party invitations for their birthday parties, write out the details of the party, and invite the friends they wanted to come. There would always be that R.S.V.P. number on the card for people to reply if they were coming or not. So phone conversations would ensue, at least 10 of them.
That was then. This is now.
I click on the Facebook icon on my computer's favorites bar to bring up my newsfeed. I scroll down and see that there is a picture of a birthday invitation saying that I and only 24 other people have been invited to click on the card. So I do. I am taken to a screen that gives a few details of the party for this person's twin 6-year-olds and a way to reply to the invitation, meaning I acknowledge that I am coming.
If social life has changed this radically in just 20 years, I'm thinking that other things have too. For sure it applies to how information is learned. Dinosaurs on the cusp of the KT boundary of reading and writing from books need to take note - just saying yet one more time.
Manger was at least a true scholar in offering conclusions by saying the studies "suggest" that paper or the imitation of paper, in the study using .pdf documents, help people perform better on tests and provide a better mental framework for remembering sequence in particular.
