Panga Munthu test of intelligence
To me, this is the way to create tests of intelligence for non-Western cultures: find skills and manifestations of intelligence that are culturally appropriate for a group of examinees and use those skills to tap g. Cross-cultural testing would require identifying skills that are valued or developed in both cultures.
Berry (1986)
John W. Berry is a cross-cultural psychologist whose work stretches back over 50 years. He takes the position (e.g., Berry, 1986) that definitions of intelligence are culturally-specific and are bound up with the skills cultures encourage and that the environment requires people to develop. Therefore, he does not see Western definitions as applying to most groups.
After this study, my position is more nuanced approach. I agree with Berry that the manifestations of intelligence can vary from culture to culture, but that underneath these surface features is g in all humans.
if to do thatis human, if that's what it tak§, tnen I am a human being after all. 'Fully, freely, gladly, for tneficst time.
I have to bring up James Cone and Albert Camus again -- but this time I'm reminded of Camus' The Rebel) and this paragraph from Cone's Black Power and Black Theology: "The crucial question, then, for the black man, is 'How should I respond to a world which defines me as a nonperson?' That he is a person is beyond question, not debatable. But when he attempts to relate as a person, the world demands that he respond as a thing. In this existential absurdity, what should he do? Should he respond as he knows himself to be, or as the world defines him?" Rebellion is what Cone, Camus, and Le Guin decide to do when they redefine what it means to be a person, to be human.
heroes rhey have people in them.
Is she saying that heroes are not human (people)?
It is the story that hid my humanity from me
i.e. one story's version of being human compared to another.Similar to what I was saying in the prior paragraph.
f to do thatis human, if that's what it tak§, tnen I am a human being after all. 'Fully, freely, gladly, for tneficst time.
This brings us back to the point that the definition of human is similar to the definition of rhetoric. The more you try to define either, the more confusing and exclusionary each can get. Just like rhetoric, there is no one way to define human, but instead you stack all definitions on top of each other, without one superseding the others. The definitions are also situational, like Le Guin being human by this definition, but not by the previous one about killing.
The society, the civilization they were talking about, these theoreti-cians, was evidently theirs; they owned it, they liked it; they were human, fully human, bashing, sticking, thrusting, killing. Wanting to be human too, I sought for evidence that I was; but if that's what it took, to make a weapon and kill with it, then evidently I was either extremely defective as a human being, or not human at all. That's right, they said. What you are is a woman. Possibly not human at all, certainly defective. Now be quiet while we go on telling the Story of the Ascent of Man the Hero
Le Guin gives a definition of what it means to be human; the idea of theorists that humans must kill. Then, she makes it clear that this isn't the only definition of human, considering she's human and wouldn't/couldn't act in such a way. Then there's this awesome and gross little paragraph about women possibly not being human, but rather, defective and unworthy of having a say. Ouch.
home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a con-tainer for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred,
These places, these larger containers, have their own purposes and functions, and, according to Rickert's Ambient Rhetoric, they also have a rhetoric of their own. They speak to us in various ways. For Le Guin, these containers speak of her status as human, enable her to feel part of humankind.
We regularly, in the interests of Plato-worship, disembody language and reason, with the narrow-mindedness Mark Johnson points out in an important recent book, The Body in the Mindl3 Our persistent evasion of the "Q" question makes for a great deal of self-centered, self-serving preaching and a great deal of self-satisfied practice. We do sometimes follow that master of contemptuous, self-satisfied self-absorp-tion, the Platonic Socrates, closely indeed.
This reminds me of Albert Camus' thoughts on absurdity, and what James Cone says in his book Black Theology and Black Power: "All aspects of this society have participated in the act of enslaving blacks, extinguishing Indians, and annihilating all who question white society's right to decide who is human....Absurdity arises as the black man seeks to understand his place in the white world. The black man does not view himself as absurd; he views himself as human. But as he meets the white world and its values, he is confronted with an almighty No and is defined as a thing. This produces the absurdity."
Train someone in it and, according co Quintilian's way of thinking, you have trained that person to be virtuous. "Virtuosity is some evidence of virtue." To chink of this at/through toggle switch as "virtuous," as implicitly moral, is to com-prehend the deeply felt "reasoning" behind Quintilian's evasive answer to his own question and to glimpse, perhaps, the beginnings of a legitimate explanation of, and justification for, what the humanities do--or at least can do.
The image of Lady Justice popped into my head as I was reading this, and I was particularly thinking about her blindfold and how it's meant to represent impartiality, the philosphical ideal that "justice should be applied "without regard to wealth, power, or other status." Upon looking at her Wikipedia page, I discovered that Lady Justice did not originally wear a blindfold because her "maidenly form" guaranteed her impartiality. If we're "toggling" between rhetoric and philosophy here, then it must also be argued that we're "toggling" between the feminine and the masculine. And If sex/gender was once what qualified someone to be impartial, how does this complicate the idea of virtue/training someone to be virtuous? How does it complicate our understanding of what the humanities do/can do? How does it help us work at/through what/who was/is/could be considered human?
his great curricular judgment Day when all things rruu human-ist specialization has rent apart will come together, though we continually believe in and plan on it, continues to elude us.
If such an event did occur, would we even be able to handle it as humans, as we are now? Do we fear that this would too explicitly showcase the complexities we try so hard to ignore, as well as our own limitations?
As with Ramus, reason is one thing, and primary; rhetoric is another, derivative and cosmetic. Permitted in the service of n ch, it is otherwise an abomination.
I read this as: Reason = primary = (hu)man/masculine Rhetoric = other = woman/feminine
To be a woman is to be other. To be other is to be an abomination and, therefore, not human.
We believe that members of the public likely learn some inaccurate information about intelligence in their psychology courses. The good news about this implication is that reducing the public’s mistaken beliefs about intelligence will not take a massive public education campaign or public relations blitz. Instead, improving the public’s understanding about intelligence starts in psychology’s own backyard with improving the content of undergraduate courses and textbooks.
To me, this is the "take home" message of the article. I hope psychology educators do more to improve the accuracy of their lessons about intelligence. I also hope more programs add a course on the topic to their curriculum.
This means that it is actually easier to measure intelligence than many other psychological constructs. Indeed, some individuals trying to measure other constructs have inadvertently created intelligence tests
When I learned this, it blew my mind.
many psychologists simply accept an operational definition of intelligence by spelling out the procedures they use to measure it. . . . Thus, by selecting items for an intelligence test, a psychologist is saying in a direct way, “This is what I mean by intelligence.” A test that measures memory, reasoning, and verbal fluency offers a very different definition of intelligence than one that measures strength of grip, shoe size, hunting skills, or the person’s best Candy Crush mobile game score. (p. 290)
Ironically, there is research showing that video game performance is positively correlated with intelligence test scores (e.g., Angeles Quiroga et al., 2015; Foroughi, Serraino, Parasuraman, & Boehm-Davis, 2016).
Not every inaccurate statement in the textbooks was as silly as this one. Readers would benefit from browsing Supplemental File 2, which
Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study
This is a study begun in the 1970s of African American, interracial, and other minority group children who had been adopted by White families in Minnesota. The 1976 results indicated large IQ boosts (about 12 points) for adopted African American children at age 6, compared to the average IQ for African Americans in general. However, the 1992 report shows that the advantage had faded to about 6 points when the children were aged 17 years. Generally, intelligence experts see this landmark study as supporting both "nature" and "nurture."
the Stanford-Binet intelligence test
Although the Stanford-Binet is historically important, the Wechsler family of intelligence tests have been more popular since the 1970s.
Some readers will also be surprised to find that The Bell Curve is not as controversial as its reputation would lead one to believe (and most of the book is not about race at all).
I wrote this sentence. Two coauthors, three peer reviewers, and an editor all read it multiple times. No one ever asked for it to be changed.
Gardner’s multiple intelligences
I have a Twitter moment that analyzes Gardner's book "Frames of Mind" and shows why this theory is poorly supported by empirical data. https://twitter.com/i/moments/1064036271847161857
Most frequently this appeared in the form of a tacit acknowledgment that IQ test scores correlate with academic success, followed by a quick denial that the scores are important for anything else in life
We discussed this point with a reporter for an article that made the front page of the local newspaper: https://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/education/college/uvu/uvu-researchers-found-incorrect-info-in-percent-of-psychology-textbooks/article_6a84fddd-3dba-59bb-9a7e-ed957619ff20.html
this study highlights the mismatch between scholarly consensus on intelligence and the beliefs of the general public
Christian Jarrett of the The British Psychological Society found this as the main message of the article. Read his blog post at https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/03/08/best-selling-introductory-psychology-books-give-a-misleading-view-of-intelligence/
Judged solely by the number of factually inaccurate statements, the textbooks we examined were mostly accurate.
A blog post by James Thompson (psychology professor emeritus at University College London) has a much more acerbic response to the study than this. See his blog post for a contrasting viewpoint: http://www.unz.com/jthompson/fear-and-loathing-in-psychology/
We found that 79.3% of textbooks contained inaccurate statements and 79.3% had logical fallacies in their sections about intelligence.
"Psychology Today" article on this study: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brainstorm/201803/psychology-textbooks-contain-inaccuracies-intelligence
Gottfredson’s (1997a) mainstream statement on intelligence
This article is a classic, and it is required reading in my undergraduate human intelligence course. If you only have time to read 1 article about intelligence, this should be it.
Reflective Design Strategies In addition shaping our principles or objectives, our foundational influences and case studies have also helped us articulate strategies for reflective design. The first three strategies identified here speak to characteristics of designs that encourage reflection by users. The second group of strategies provides ways for reflecting on the process of design.
verbatim from subheads in this section
1.Provide for interpretive flexibility.
2.Give users license to participate.
3.Provide dynamic feedback to users.
4.Inspire rich feedback from users.
5.Build technology as a probe.
6.Invert metaphors and cross boundaries.
Some Reflective Design Challenges
The reflective design strategies offer potential design interventions but lack advice on how to evaluate them against each other.
"Designing for appropriation requires recognizing that users already interact with technology not just on a superficial, task-centered level, but with an awareness of the larger social and cultural embeddedness of the activity."
Principles of Reflective Design
verbatim from subheads in this section
Designers should use reflection to uncover and alter the limitations of design practice
Designers should use reflection to re-understand their own role in the technology design process.
Designers should support users in reflecting on their lives.
Technology should support skepticism about and reinterpretation of its own working.
Reflection is not a separate activity from action but is folded into it as an integral part of experience
Dialogic engagement between designers and users through technology can enhance reflection.
Reflective design, like reflection-in-action, advocates practicing research and design concomitantly, and not only as separate disciplines. We also subscribe to a view of reflection as a fully engaged interaction and not a detached assessment. Finally, we draw from the observation that reflection is often triggered by an element of surprise, where someone moves from knowing-in-action, operating within the status quo, to reflection-in-action, puzzling out what to do next or why the status quo has been disrupted
Influences from reflection-in-action for reflective design values/methods.
In this effort, reflection-in-action provides a ground for uniting theory and practice; whereas theory presents a view of the world in general principles and abstract problem spaces, practice involves both building within these generalities and breaking them down.
A more improvisational, intuitive and visceral process of rethinking/challenging the initial design frame.
Popular with HCI and CSCW designers
CTP is a key method for reflective design, since it offers strategies to bring unconscious values to the fore by creating technical alternatives. In our work, we extend CTP in several ways that make it particularly appropriate for HCI and critical computing.
Ways in which Senger, et al., describe how to extend CTP for HCI needs:
• incorporate both designer/user reflection on technology use and its design
• integrate reflection into design even when there is no specific "technical impasse" or metaphor breakdown
• driven by critical concerns, not simply technical problems
CTP synthesizes critical reflection with technology production as a way of highlighting and altering unconsciously-held assumptions that are hindering progress in a technical field.
Definition of critical technical practice.
This approach is grounded in AI rather than HCI
(verbatim from the paper) "CTP consists of the following moves:
• identifying the core metaphors of the field
• noticing what, when working with those metaphors, remains marginalized
• inverting the dominant metaphors to bring that margin to the center
• embodying the alternative as a new technology
Ludic design promotes engagement in the exploration and production of meaning, providing for curiosity, exploration and reflection as key values. In other words, ludic design focuses on reflection and engagement through the experience of using the designed object.
Definition of ludic design.
Offers a more playful approach than critical design.
goal is to push design research beyond an agenda of reinforcing values of consumer culture and to instead embody cultural critique in designed artifacts. A critical designer designs objects not to do what users want and value, but to introduce both designers and users to new ways of looking at the world and the role that designed objects can play for them in it.
Definition of critical design.
This approach tends to be more art-based and intentionally provocative than a practical design method to inculcate a certain sensibility into the technology design process.
value-sensitive design method (VSD). VSD provides techniques to elucidate and answer values questions during the course of a system's design.
Definition of value-sensitive design.
(verbatim from the paper)
*"VSD employs three methods :
• conceptual investigations drawing on moral philosophy, which identify stakeholders, fundamental values, and trade-offs among values pertinent to the design
• empirical investigations using social-science methods to uncover how stakeholders think about and act with respect to the values involved in the system
• technical investigations which explore the links between specific technical decisions and the values and practices they aid and hinder" *
From participatory design, we draw several core principles, most notably the reflexive recognition of the politics of design practice and a desire to speak to the needs of multiple constituencies in the design process.
Description of participatory design which has a more political angle than user-centered design, with which it is often equated in HCI
PD strategies tend to be used to support existing practices identified collaboratively by users and designers as a design-worthy project. While values clashes between designers and different users can be elucidated in this collaboration, the values which users and designers share do not necessarily go examined. For reflective design to function as a design practice that opens new cultural possibilities, however, we need to question values which we may unconsciously hold in common. In addition, designers may need to introduce values issues which initially do not interest users or make them uncomfortabl
Differences between participatory design practices and reflective design
We define 'reflection' as referring tocritical reflection, orbringing unconscious aspects of experience to conscious awareness, thereby making them available for conscious choice. This critical reflection is crucial to both individual freedom and our quality of life in society as a whole, since without it, we unthinkingly adopt attitudes, practices, values, and identities we might not consciously espouse. Additionally, reflection is not a purely cognitive activity, but is folded into all our ways of seeing and experiencing the world.
Definition of critical reflection
Our perspective on reflection is grounded in critical theory, a Western tradition of critical reflection embodied in various intellectual strands including Marxism, feminism, racial and ethnic studies, media studies and psychoanalysis.
Definition of critical theory
ritical theory argues that our everyday values, practices, perspectives, and sense of agency and self are strongly shaped by forces and agendas of which we are normally unaware, such as the politics of race, gender, and economics. Critical reflection provides a means to gain some awareness of such forces as a first step toward possible change.
Critical theory in practice
We believe that, for those concerned about the social implications of the technologies we build, reflection itself should be a core technology design outcome for HCI. That is to say, technology design practices should support both designers and users in ongoing critical reflection about technology and its relationship to human life.
Critical reflection can/should support designers and users.
Outliers : All data sets have an expected range of values, and any actual data set also has outliers that fall below or above the expected range. (Space precludes a detailed discussion of how to handle outliers for statistical analysis purposes, see: Barnett & Lewis, 1994 for details.) How to clean outliers strongly depends on the goals of the analysis and the nature of the data.
Outliers can be signals of unanticipated range of behavior or of errors.
Understanding the structure of the data : In order to clean log data properly, the researcher must understand the meaning of each record, its associated fi elds, and the interpretation of values. Contextual information about the system that produced the log should be associated with the fi le directly (e.g., “Logging system 3.2.33.2 recorded this fi le on 12-3-2012”) so that if necessary the specifi c code that gener-ated the log can be examined to answer questions about the meaning of the record before executing cleaning operations. The potential misinterpretations take many forms, which we illustrate with encoding of missing data and capped data values.
Context of the data collection and how it is structured is also a critical need.
Example, coding missing info as "0" risks misinterpretation rather than coding it as NIL, NDN or something distinguishable from other data
Data transformations : The goal of data-cleaning is to preserve the meaning with respect to an intended analysis. A concomitant lesson is that the data-cleaner must track all transformations performed on the data .
Changes to data during clean up should be annotated.
Incorporate meta data about the "chain of change" to accompany the written memo
Data Cleaning A basic axiom of log analysis is that the raw data cannot be assumed to correctly and completely represent the data being recorded. Validation is really the point of data cleaning: to understand any errors that might have entered into the data and to transform the data in a way that preserves the meaning while removing noise. Although we discuss web log cleaning in this section, it is important to note that these principles apply more broadly to all kinds of log analysis; small datasets often have similar cleaning issues as massive collections. In this section, we discuss the issues and how they can be addressed. How can logs possibly go wrong ? Logs suffer from a variety of data errors and distortions. The common sources of errors we have seen in practice include:
Common sources of errors:
• Missing events
• Dropped data
• Misplaced semantics (encoding log events differently)
In addition, real world events, such as the death of a major sports fi gure or a political event can often cause people to interact with a site differently. Again, be vigilant in sanity checking (e.g., look for an unusual number of visitors) and exclude data until things are back to normal.
Important consideration for temporal event RQs in refugee study -- whether external events influence use of natural disaster metaphors.
Recording accurate and consistent time is often a challenge. Web log fi les record many different timestamps during a search interaction: the time the query was sent from the client, the time it was received by the server, the time results were returned from the server, and the time results were received on the client. Server data is more robust but includes unknown network latencies. In both cases the researcher needs to normalize times and synchronize times across multiple machines. It is common to divide the log data up into “days,” but what counts as a day? Is it all the data from midnight to midnight at some common time reference point or is it all the data from midnight to midnight in the user’s local time zone? Is it important to know if people behave differently in the morning than in the evening? Then local time is important. Is it important to know everything that is happening at a given time? Then all the records should be converted to a common time zone.
Challenges of using time-based log data are similar to difficulties in the SBTF time study using Slack transcripts, social media, and Google Sheets
Log Studies collect the most natural observations of people as they use systems in whatever ways they typically do, uninfl uenced by experimenters or observers. As the amount of log data that can be collected increases, log studies include many different kinds of people, from all over the world, doing many different kinds of tasks. However, because of the way log data is gathered, much less is known about the people being observed, their intentions or goals, or the contexts in which the observed behaviors occur. Observational log studies allow researchers to form an abstract picture of behavior with an existing system, whereas experimental log stud-ies enable comparisons of two or more systems.
Benefits of log studies:
• Complement other types of lab/field studies
• Provide a portrait of uncensored behavior
• Easy to capture at scale
Disadvantages of log studies:
• Lack of demographic data
• Non-random sampling bias
• Provide info on what people are doing but not their "motivations, success or satisfaction"
• Can lack needed context (software version, what is displayed on screen, etc.)
Ways to mitigate: Collecting, Cleaning and Using Log Data section
Two common ways to partition log data are by time and by user. Partitioning by time is interesting because log data often contains signifi cant temporal features, such as periodicities (including consistent daily, weekly, and yearly patterns) and spikes in behavior during important events. It is often possible to get an up-to-the- minute picture of how people are behaving with a system from log data by compar-ing past and current behavior.
Bookmarked for time reference.
Mentions challenges of accounting for time zones in log data.
An important characteristic of log data is that it captures actual user behavior and not recalled behaviors or subjective impressions of interactions.
Logs can be captured on client-side (operating systems, applications, or special purpose logging software/hardware) or on server-side (web search engines or e-commerce)
Table 1 Different types of user data in HCI research
Large-scale log data has enabled HCI researchers to observe how information diffuses through social networks in near real-time during crisis situations (Starbird & Palen, 2010 ), characterize how people revisit web pages over time (Adar, Teevan, & Dumais, 2008 ), and compare how different interfaces for supporting email organi-zation infl uence initial uptake and sustained use (Dumais, Cutrell, Cadiz, Jancke, Sarin, & Robbins, 2003 ; Rodden & Leggett, 2010 ).
Wide variety of uses of log data
Behavioral logs are traces of human behavior seen through the lenses of sensors that capture and record user activity.
Definition of log data
The distinct sorts of questions asked of science and design manifest the different kinds of accountability that apply to each - that is, the expectations of what activities must be defended and how, and by extension the ways narratives (accounts) are legitimately formed about each endeavour.science is defined by epistemological accountability, in which the essential requirement is to be able to explain and defend the basis of one’s claimed knowledge. Design, in contrast, works with aesthetic accountability, where ‘aesthetic’ refers to how satisfactory the composition of multiple design features are (as opposed to how ‘beautiful’ it might be). The requirement here is to be able to explain and defend – or, more typically, to demonstrate –that one’s design works.
Scientific accountability >> epistemological
Design accountability >> aesthetic
The issue of whether something ‘works’ goes beyond questions of technical or practical efficacy to address a host of social, cultural, aesthetic and ethical concerns.
Intent is the critical factor for design work, not its function.
To be sure, the topicality, novelty or potential benefits of a given line of research might help it attract notice and support, butscientific researchfundamentally stands or falls on the thoroughness with which activities and reasoning can be tied together. You just can’t get in the game without a solid methodology.
Methodology is the critical factor for scientific study, not the result.
Insights into imprinting from parent-of-origin phased methylomes and transcriptomes
“When the IOM report came out, it gave us a focus and a language that we didn’t have before,” says Dr. Wachter, who served as president of SHM’s Board of Directors and to this day lectures at SHM annual meetings. “But I think the general sensibility that hospitalists are about improving quality and safety and patients’ experience and efficiency—I think that was baked in from the start.”
Dr. Wachter and other early leaders pushed the field to become involved in systems-improvement work. This turned out to be prophetic in December 1999, when patient safety zoomed to the national forefront with the publication of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report “To Err Is Human.” Its conclusions, by now, are well-known. It showed between 44,000 and 98,000 people a year die from preventable medical errors, the equivalent of a jumbo jet a day crashing. The impact was profound, and safety initiatives became a focal point of hospitals.
“Our biggest opportunity is leaning into that. It’s either embracing the qualitative nature of that and designing systems that can act just on the qualitative nature of their experience, or figuring how to quantitate some of those qualitative measures,” says Chang. “That’ll get us much further, because the real value in health care systems is in the human interactions. My relationship with you as a doctor and a patient is far more valuable than the evidence that some trial suggests.”
Biggest challenges to redesigning the health care system in a way that would work better for patients and improve health
As the power is unleashed, computers on the Semantic Web achieve at first the ability to describe, then to infer, and then to reason. The schema is a huge step, and one that will enable a vast amount of interoperability and extra functionality. However, it still only categorizes data. It says nothing about meaning or understanding.
The author presents an interesting progression for the Web to eventually learn to reason. The picture he paints of more accessible content on the internet hinges on the internet learning to reason, which is a human characteristic. It seems we need to apply human characteristics to all of our mechanics for them to progress in their usefulness.
For the age of biotechnology is not so much about technology itself as it is about human beings empowered by biotechnology.
From this sentence, my personally understanding is that biotechnology really matters with human being. Biotechnology is "not about technology itself" but "about human beings empowered by biotechnology." In the later passages, author talked about "desire for better children, superior performance..." From this, I can get the message that biotechnology is nothing without making people's life have some changes. And at the same time, author talked about concerns from biotechnology. In fact, what people actually worry about is not just the technology, but the effects that the biotechnology will bring to the human beings based on this sentence I annotated.
People who take pills to block out from memory the painful or hateful aspects of a new experience will not learn how to deal with suffering or sorrow. A drug that induces fearlessness does not produce courage.
He does a really good job pointing out some of the dangers of effortlessly overcoming fear at the cost of learning courage and struggle at the cost of learning discipline but he doesn't really touch on how in time we might recognize the side effect these biomedical technologies bring and human nature might push back against it. Kind of like with genetically modified foods now all people want is organic food.
Instead of taking these characteristics and saying that they are the basis for “human dignity,” why don’t we simply accept our destiny as creatures who modify themselves?
He mentioned several times that human nature can be the basis for values and morality, but here he says that human nature is subject to change. In that case It sounds like he believes that the standards of morality and value which are based on human nature should also change and that doesn't sound like very firm ground to stand on.
What is so important about being a human being in the traditional way that Huxley defines it? After all, what the human race is today is the product of an evolutionary process that has been going on for millions of years, one that with any luck will continue well into the future. There are no fixed human characteristics, except for a general capability to choose what we want to be, to modify ourselves in accordance with our desires. So who is to tell us that being human and having dignity means sticking with a set of emotional responses that are the accidental byproduct of our evolutionary history? There is no such thing as a biological family, no such thing as human nature or a “normal” human being, and even if there were, why should that be a guide for what is right and just?
I think is so important way to have human being characteristics. For example, as the writer said every human being is unique, their race, personality, the way that human react. All of these characteristic is a way to define the difference between every human.
But in this brightest and kindest world, the philosophical problems themselves become intimidating. A mind that stays at the same capacity cannot live forever; after a few thousand years it would look more like a repeating tape loop than a person. (The most chilling picture I have seen of this is Larry Niven’s story “The Ethics of Madness.”) To live indefinitely long, the mind itself must grow … and when it becomes great enough, and looks back … what fellow-feeling can it have with the soul that it was originally? The later being would be everything the original was, but vastly more. And so even for the individual, the Cairns-Smith or Lynn Margulis notion of new life growing incrementally out of the old must still be valid.
This idea that the mind must continuously and infinitely expand is the essence of progression and, seemingly, immortality. As humans, we are constantly growing whether its physically, mentally, emotionally. We are constantly learning and progressing while shedding some old ideas, thoughts, behaviors, attitudes, perceptions to become better and more than we once were as individuals and humanity as a whole. It is possible for humans to evolve later into beings that can grow in all aspects, but it is difficult to say that humans could do so in order to breach our minds' capacity and go beyond to reach infinite knowledge and infinite life itself. We are limited by human condition and always capable of more; however, no more matter how much we creep upon it, the infinite will always be out of reach.
And its very likely that IA is a much easier road to the achievement of superhumanity than pure AI. In humans, the hardest development problems have already been solved. Building up from within ourselves ought to be easier than figuring out what we really are and then building machines that are all of that.
The authors of the text are proposing a radically different approach to the inevitable "singularity" event. They propose the research and development IA, or Intelligence Amplification, is developing computers with a symbiosis with humans. Noting that IA could be easier to develop than AI algorithms, since humanity had to probe what their true weaknesses and strengths are. In turn, developing an IA system that could cover humanities' weaknesses. This would summarily prevent an IA algorithm from getting over itself, which could potentially slow a point when we reach singularity.
Everywhere we remain unfree and chained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are delivered over to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral;
Technology has the human enslave. Giving great thought to this if you look around most humans cannot "live" without technology. Is as if technology has become the oxygen to human life. Parents now a days has use technology to do the parenting and the babysitting for them. You see 2-3 year old toddler glued to the phone. But if technology were to vanish human life would be a lot more difficult than it already is.
Becoming posthuman means exceeding the limitations that define the less desirable aspects of the “human condition.” Posthuman beings would no longer suffer from disease, aging, and inevitable death (but they are likely to face other challenges). They would have vastly greater physical capability and freedom of form
Posthuman beings contradict the human conditions that apply to my life, and every living being for that matter: immortality is non-existent. The passage alludes that the posthuman evolution will oppose the current human condition, and humanity will be redefine its physical form. A reformation in the modern humans understanding of scarcity is entirely different than that of the posthuman. With increased control over the posthumans physical capability are differing in juxtaposition to the human condition in the twenty first century: Prompting our modern society with the question of whether the human condition makes significant biological changes. The change from the former to the latter intertwines technological advancements with physical capabilities, although to what end? The human condition will be a backbone to the technology that manages the posthumans interpretation of reality.
We want towns and cities in Slovakia to be towns and cities for the people. This concept, known abroad as SMART Cities, defines a new approach to the management (control) of towns based on four priorities, namely investment in human and social capital, investing in transport and communication infrastructure, smart management of natural resources and a participatory approach.
Another way to use a classification system is to consider if there are other possible values that could be used for a given dimension.
Future direction: Identify additional sample values and examples in the literature or in situ to expand the options within each dimension.
For researchers looking for new avenues within human computation, a starting point would be to pick two dimensions and list all possible combinations of values.
Future direction: Apply two different human computation dimensions to imagine a new approach.
These properties formed three of our dimensions: motivation, human skill, and aggregation.
These dimensions were inductively revealed through a search of the human computation literature.
They contrast with properties that cut across human computational systems: quality control, process order and task-request cardinality.
A subtle distinction among human computation systems is the order in which these three roles are performed. We consider the computer to be active only when it is playing an active role in solving the problem, as opposed to simply aggregating results or acting as an information channel. Many permutations are possible.
3 roles in human computation — requester, worker and computer — can be ordered in 4 different ways:
C > W > R // W > R > C // C > W > R > C // R > W
The classification system we are presenting is based on six of the most salient distinguishing factors. These are summarized in Figure 3.
Classification dimensions: Motivation, Quality control, Aggregation, Human skill, Process order, Task-Request Cardinality
"... groups of individuals doing things collectively that seem intelligent.” [41]
Collective intelligence definition.
Per the authors, "collective intelligence is a superset of social computing and crowdsourcing, because both are defined in terms of social behavior."
Collective intelligence is differentiated from human computation because the latter doesn't require a group.
It is differentiated from crowdsourcing because it doesn't require a public crowd and it can happen without an open call.
Data mining can be defined broadly as: “the application of specific algorithms for extracting patterns from data.” [17]
Data mining definition
No human is involved in the extraction of data via a computer.
“... applications and services that facilitate collective action and social interaction online with rich exchange of multimedia information and evolution of aggregate knowledge...” [48]
Social computing definition
Humans perform a social role while communication is mediated by technology. The interaction between human social role and CMC is key here.
The intersection of crowdsourcing with human computation in Figure 1 represents applications that could reasonably be considered as replacements for either traditional human roles or computer roles.
Authors provide example of language translation which could be performed by a machine (when speed and cost matter) or via crowdsourcing (when quality matters)
“Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.” [24
Crowdsourcing definition
Labor process of worker replaced by public.
modern usage was inspired by von Ahn’s 2005 dissertation titled "Human Computation" [64] and the work leading to it. That thesis defines the term as: “...a paradigm for utilizing human processing power to solve problems that computers cannot yet solve.”
Human computation definition.
Problem solving by human reasoning and not a computer.
When classifying an artifact, we consider not what it aspires to be, but what it is in its present state.
Criterion for determining when/if the artifact is a product of human computation.
human computation does not encompass online discussions or creative projects where the initiative and flow of activity are directed primarily by the participants’ inspiration, as opposed to a predetermined plan designed to solve a computational problem.
What human computation is not.
The authors cite Wikipedia as not an example of human computation.
"Wikipedia was designed not to fill the place of a machine but as a collaborative writing project in place of the professional encyclopedia authors of yore."
Human computation is related to, but not synonymous with terms such as collective intelligence, crowdsourcing, and social computing, though all are important to understanding the landscape in which human computation is situated.
n human computation, people act as computational components and perform the work that AI systemslack the skillstocomplete
Human computation definition.
therapy with horses
UPenn Vet School
Free Anatomy and Physiology and Human Body Websites for Kids:
Good source/page to find other links from for digestive system
Actually, no, it hasn't, no matter what the Bunny's sign says. The scientific method is designed specifically to root out bias and false assumptions, including political ones. Sure, individual scientists can be political, but the scientific method is not. Its ideological agnosticism is why it works so well. In fact, the self-correcting nature of science means it is the best source of secular knowledge that humankind possesses.
Kahneman concluded his aforementioned presentation to academics by arguing that computers or robots are better than humans on three essential dimensions: they are better at statistical reasoning and less enamoured with stories; they have higher emotional intelligence; and they exhibit far more wisdom than humans.
A little over-the-top?
‘omniscience in the observer’
To illustrate, consider Isaac Newton.
But there are examples of where our theory has led us astray, the heliocentric vision of the universe being an example. If not for that attachment to previous thinking, we might have learned more quickly about the heliocentric truth.
'Even as He hath revealed: "As oft as an Apostle cometh unto you with that which your souls desire not, ye swell with pride, accusing some of being impostors and slaying others."' - Kitab-i-Iqan
However, computers and algorithms – even the most sophisticated ones – cannot address the fallacy of obviousness. Put differently, they can never know what might be relevant.
One goal of systems science and modelling, to explore what might be relevant and give us better heuristics.
At the other extreme we have behavioural economics, which focuses on human bias and blindness by pointing out biases or obvious things that humans miss.
So, given the problem of too much evidence – again, think of all the things that are evident in the gorilla clip – humans try to hone in on what might be relevant for answering particular questions. We attend to what might be meaningful and useful
Consumat, heuristics - actually, this does work with thinking fast and slow. But maybe the divide isn't so clear - a spectrum?
‘blind to the obvious, and that we also are blind to our blindness’
building on Herbert Simon’s 1950s work on bounded rationality
One consequence of thisposition is a more radical understanding of the sense in whichmateriality is discursive (i.e., material phenomena are inseparable from theapparatuses of bodily production: matteremerges out of and includes as part of itsbeing the ongoing reconfiguring of boundaries), just as discursive practices arealways already material (i.e., they are ongoing material (re)configurings of theworld) (2003: 822).Brought back into the world oftechnology design, this intimate co-constitution ofconfigured materialities with configuring agencies clearly implies a very differentunderstanding of the ‘human-machine interface’.
John Hockenberry
In the film John Hockenberry talks about how human enhancement changed through science and technology. Scientist invented robotic human parts connecting to a human’s nervous system that allows a person to move their body parts. Scientist have been concerning cosmetic surgery because the rate in males and females getting cosmetic surgery is increasing as technology is scientifically improving. I think this all relates to transhumanism because it is showing how science and technology is evolving overtime and the physical and mental limitations among humans. Disabled people are starting to live normal lives through scientifically advanced technology that will allow human hand to fix the nervous system.
Where do they speak about the ups and downs of human existence in academic publications?
HUMAN INTERACTION
The serendipity of networked practice together with a heightened attention to the importance of protecting the place of human interaction in education resulted in many conference presentations and publications
Reflective practice, research, publication
High-confidence coding and noncoding transcriptome maps
Indeed, perhaps the most obvious thing to send (though it’s a bit macabre) would just be whole cryonically preserved humans (and, yes, they should keep well at the temperature of interstellar space!). Of course, it’s ironic how similar this is to the Egyptian idea of making mummies—though our technology is better (even if we still haven’t yet solved the problem of cryonics).
Interesting idea. This would tell aliens a lot about us.
Climate science details the threats that climate change poses to the livelihoods and well-being of present and future human generations and ecosystems, while policy approaches increasingly recognize the growing social risks of climate-change-driven vulnerabilities. 8
This is interesting!
Frontal Wigs Human Hair - Nana Hair
improves what in his nature was vicious & perverse, into qualities of virtue and social worth;
The writers of this document seem to view education not only as a means of expanding one's knowledge but as a means of improving one's inherent nature from one of evil and corruption to one of goodness and virtue. I find this notion classist and fallacious, as it seems to suggest that those who are not educated (including those who cannot afford education) are inherently worse as people than those who are educated and also that education can fundamentally change who a person is.
Since October 2016, security forces have carried out a series of brutal crackdowns on ethnic Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State, including extrajudicial killings, rape, torture, and widespread arson, leading to hundreds of thousands fleeing across the border to Bangladesh
the violence of human right in Myanmar make the people decided to immigration to other country.
On5July2012,theUNHumanRightsCouncilalsoadoptedaresolutiononthepromotion,protection,andenjoymentofhumanrightsontheInternet,affirmingthathumanrightsapplytobothonlineandofflineactivities.
Or, as a soldier of a desert war wrote in last autumn’s New York Times, is our central task the task of learning how to die—not (as he put it) to die ‘as individuals, but as a civilization’ (Scranton, 2013), in the Anthropocene?
I found this statement incredibly depressing yet profound. Depressing in the idea that our central task is learning how to die (really who wants to be that morbid and think like that) (potentially digital humanists?), yet profound, because the soldier is not talking about us as individuals, but as a human civilization, as a whole, as a group, as a collective.
Education, in like manner engrafts a new man on the native stock, & improves what in his nature was vicious & perverse
This section reminded me of the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes who believed the nature of man is inherently bad and the purpose of government and education is to control man's selfish desires. In my opinion, I side more with John Locke's philosophy that the nature of man is inherently good but society is corrupted by certain negative people. Education's purpose should be to remind people of their virtuous nature and not become distracted by the inequalities and failures of society.
without being conscious of it, have stored up in idea the greater part of those strong marked varieties of human character,
Unconscious knowledge of human character described by Joanna Baillie, Introductory Discourse
This book is not about religion, although I talk about religion. It's about religious tolerance and the fight for human rights; the first battlefront in public discourse about human rights.
Freedom of religion was the first base upon which other understandings of freedom have been built upon.
Well, I don’t think there is any question about it. It can only be attributable to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before and it has always been due to human error.
this was left on the cutting room floor, but Hal's behavior can actually be attributed to human error. In the novelized version written by co-screenplay author - the famous Arthur C. Clarke - it is stated that Hal is briefed on the mission, but told to lie about it and obfuscate the facts about the mission and it's details to the crew. It is implied that this is what ultimately makes Hal malfunction. This helped me to understand this movement in the context of the film far more easily, and it also highlights Heidegger's focus on mankind's responsibility to it's technology and those unintended consequences.
Open the door, Hal. Rotate pod, please, Hal. Stop pod rotation, please, Hal. Rotate the pod, please, Hal. Rotate the pod, please, Hal.
This movie took place in the future. However there are many parallels it has to present day. Hal, the artifical intellegence on the spaceship, reminds me of A.I personal assistance that we have today. For example, Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Siri. They all were created by humans, for the sole purpose of making life easier. These personal assistance devices can play music, turn off lights, and adjust the temperature in a house. Which is similar to Hal on a spaceship. With that it in mind it is terrifying to see how technology could turn against us and malfunction, like how the director portrayed Hal. Hal seemed perfect at first, but later on in the movie he began to malfunction. This portrays that humans can try to make technology perfect, but there is always human error which makes it vulnerable to malfunctions.
At some point, we may be able to make extensive modifications to human DNA, body tissues, or neurophysiological functioning, or to merge our bodies with sophisticated cybernetic devices.
In this passage the author is allowing his intended audience, people who are curious in transhumanism, a glimpse into the future when technology merges with the human body. At this point one must question at what point does technology becomes a prosthesis? The author uses this imagery of technology merging with our body to form prosthesis, devices that function as a artificial body part, to suggest that technology at one point may be an extension of the human body. This extension of the human body supports his trans humanist ideas because it may allow a person to reach beyond their human potential.
his expert group sends to companies are 'taken very seriously' by both States and businesses. As such they can be key channels for human rights defenders to leverage the UN experts to contribute to their protection, and help respond to situations where human rights defenders are stigmatised, criminalised, attacked or killed.
从ITS 到ATS，捕捉情感实现自适应指导意义非凡
it quickly becomes apparent that people are frequently persuaded by things that most of us would not readily call arguments (and that certainly are not pri-marily linguistic). For instance, we are often persuaded by images, or sounds, or even by physical structures.
Ah ha! I was wondering how this was related to post-humanism. Maybe I'm slow on the uptake, but I'm only finally making these connections. So by expanding this view of rhetoric, "things" can persuade, too.
but as an ongoing series of mediated encounters
Like annotations-on-annotations-on-annotations, but less human-centric?
it really so easy, forexample, to distinguish between a speaker, an audience, a message, anda context?
After last week, we can probably agree that "no"--it isn't. Vatz and Bitzer were talking inside the same "box," regarding the speaker, audience, and context as discrete parts, and the post-human is part of the movement which pushes us outside that box, wanting to argue that the parts are not, in fact, discrete.
He cared for nothing about my story.
Alienation
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The contagious euphoria you felt has a name: “collective effervescence,” coined a century ago by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim. It’s that glowy, giddy feeling where your sense of self slackens, yielding to a connection with your fellow, synchronized humans.
WORLD EVOLUTION
Chapter 14 WORLD EVOLUTION
world evolution.
I speak as one who knows your nature because I understand the fabric of life into which your life is interwoven, and I do not see you as separate or apart from this. I see you as part of a greater tapestry of life, a greater tapestry of life in this time, in this world, in this place, in these circumstances, for the tapestry is changing. Let us not confuse, then, your life within the world withyour life beyond, for they are different. If you think they are the same, you will underestimate your life beyond the world, and you will overestimate your life within the world, and you will make some grave misinterpretations of your abilities and your nature while you are here. You are working in a very limited context. You have physical and mental limitations while you are here. You have experienced these limitations, perhaps painfully, but you need to understand them, and you need to recognize them without self-condemnation, for you have limits. You are working through a limited vehicle in your body and a limited vehicle in your mind. The spirit of you, which we call Knowledge, must exercise its Wisdom and its beneficence and its purpose through these limited vehicles and through the circumstances that you face in everyday life.
or as I jokingly say:
Of course you're in a limited state. Being in a body is a limited state. It's a great nuisance carrying around this hunk-feeding it, housing it, keeping it clean, clothing it, making it beautiful, keeping it comfortable and attending to its many aches and pains. A nuisance, my God! Don't you just want to fly away sometimes? But the body is the garment you wear in being in this world, and it enables you to communicate here. You don't get much attention if you don't have a body and you want to communicate. Then it is hard to get people's attention. And if you do get their attention, you scare the daylights out of them, and they never want to have an experience like that again! So, obviously, our ability to communicate with people in the world seems very limited. We still give them something, but it will arise from within them and they will think it is from themselves.
A team at Facebook reviewed thousands of headlines using these criteria, validating each other’s work to identify a large set of clickbait headlines. From there, we built a system that looks at the set of clickbait headlines to determine what phrases are commonly used in clickbait headlines that are not used in other headlines. This is similar to how many email spam filters work.
Though details are scarce, the very idea that Facebook would tackle this problem with both humans and algorithms is reassuring. The common argument about human filtering is that it doesn’t scale. The common argument about algorithmic filtering is that it requires good signal (though some transhumanists keep saying that things are getting better). So it’s useful to know that Facebook used so hybrid an approach. Of course, even algo-obsessed Google has used human filtering. Or, at least, human judgment to tweak their filtering algorithms. (Can’t remember who was in charge of this. Was a semi-frequent guest on This Week in Google… Update: Matt Cutts) But this very simple “we sat down and carefully identified stuff we think qualifies as clickbait before we fed the algorithm” is refreshingly clear.
Homi Bhabha
Homi Bhabha is an academician who is currently the Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University as well as the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language. He is a significant figure in the contemporary post-colonial studies and had contributed key ideas to the school such as Third-space, Hybridity, Ambivalence, and Mimicry to name a few.
Who is Zinedine Zidane?
Short Answer: A football (or as Americans like to say, soccer) player.
Long Answer: Born in Marseille, France to Algerian immigrants, Zidane is most well known for being a three-time FIFA World Player of the Year who led France to victory in the 1998 World Cup. He has played for clubs in France, Italy and Spain, but his career ended when he was expelled from the 2006 World Cup final for headbutting an opponent.
relievedfromstrainorstress
Rather than saying the relief is what makes the situation humorous, I would be more willing to believe that the humour makes me feel more relieved about the situation.
Or maybe seeing something unexpected would cause you to be relief, and because you're not as tense as before, you're able to laugh and see the humour in it?
ambivalencetheories
So in other words, a situation is humorous if it evokes conflicting emotions within the person viewing it.
Key and Peele - I do feel conflicted about this sketch because on one hand, it's a serious and pertinent problem in reality as the sombre tone of the first few seconds of the sketch conveyed while it was still being pretty normal. However, as it continued on, it got increasingly interrupted by amateur magic tricks by the cop, who also had the most hilarious impressions thanks to Key, that did make me want to laugh. However, I felt that I shouldn't laugh - this conflicting emotions just make me feel guilty, not humorous. Am I misinterpreting this category?
Why do you think Serena Williams danced at the end of her 2012 Olympics final? Do you believe this was a “tasteless” act? Why or why not?
Because she just won the Olympics final and since - very uderstandably - it is an amazing and wonderful accomplishment, she danced in this manner to express her joy in celebration.
The way the act was described covers a layer of deliberate prejudice over her actions, however. "...Crip-Walking all over.." implies a certain amount of chaos or scene being made when in reality, it barely lasted a few seconds, contained within her little spot at her side of the court. And watching her move like that with a huge smile on her face, as well as her sister's, anyone would be hard pressed or extremely biased to interpret this action as anything other than just an automatic reaction borne out of happiness and joy.
What does “playful mocking” mean?
I think it refers to when someone makes fun of certain characteristics or features of another person with the intent to tease or amuse but without any malicious intentions. By this I mean, they did not do it to hurt the other, or would/should not have done it if they knew it would've hurt the person they were mocking regardless of it giving others enjoyment.
Slavery is the price I paid for civilization,
Does she mean the western civilization? That she would not have been part of the USA as she was then had it not been for slavery?
but I was their Zora nevertheless
They were protective of her, then? They cared for her in a more sincere way separate from the superficial way the whites treated her despite the treatment being more "positive" towards her "joyful tendencies".
They deplored any joyful tendencies in me
I wonder why though - is it because they felt the coloredness clearly and constantly unlike Zora and therefore could not share the joy she freely did in her childlike innocence?
warranted not to rub nor run.
I honestly don't understand what she means by this. Help?
queer exchange of compliments
I wonder what about the exchanges were queer to her. Did they compliment each other out of politeness about things they didn't really mean, which struck her, even as a young child, to be strange?
I became colored
I can imagine this statement being very powerful in the social context of that time. When "people of color" was thrown around normatively, this sentence would have made many reconsider their idea of colored was and how one can be considered as such.
On a personal level, I can relate to this very well. As someone who grew up in Asia, I never considered myself a person of color or a minority or any other label that would not only distinguish but also made me inferior in one phrase. We had different ethnicities and different races, sure, but it didn't give me the feeling of somehow being less than "poc" in the USA does, even as the people of color themselves are trying to reclaim these terms as empowerment.
I can't decide if this is a sign of my privilege and luck previously as I am part of the major ethnic group in Burma while Singapore takes extraneous pains to ensure racial harmony and balance, or if it's just an imbalance in the part of the United States.
I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances
The instructions above used this as an example of how Zora Neale Hurston was not ashamed to be colored when to me, I interpreted it as her highlighting some sort of shortcoming on her part at that point of time that didn't make her "colored-ness" less severe.
in an unprovoked attack
The saddest and scariest thing to me about these hate crimes is that it has all to do with something beyond your own control. The perpetrators hate you, hurt you not for something you have done or can do, but rather for the sake of you simply being you. I can only imagine how much worse it would be for those who actually have experienced it and have this threat looming over them every day. It's unbelievably scary to me that we live in a world - no, a society - like this. But perhaps we can be empowered by the the fact that the fault lies in the beliefs and norms we have built around ourselves when it comes to race, and not something that is set in stone. I believe this means that we still have the power to turn these assumptions and harmful stereotypes around.
self-acting
We're essentially creating things on purpose that are going to have the ability to make their own decisions, possibly be smarter than us, and also have a chance of malfunctioning... Why?
a sophisticated creation thatseems to simultaneously extend but also threaten our understanding of what it means tobe human.
So if it threatens our understanding of what it means to be human.. is that beneficial to our ongoing research of essentially what makes us humans by constantly pushing our understanding to be deeper? or is harmful and uprooting of the interpersonal/cultural norms we've established?
The machine, of course, is not complete without a third party, the (human) operator, and it is within this triad that the text takes place.
It reminds me of the machine performance, the human performance and the idea of the text as a performative event (as in Johanna Drucker's theory of performative materiality).
national security initiatives are solely needed in order to tighten stability
Funny how he feels a need to sell this point to his own staff
For “activists working for no-profit organizations … directing their efforts towards small, possibly foreign, technology companies is easy; directing their efforts toward local agencies is hard and risky,” he wrote. “I have a question for you all: PLEASE NAME a single really ‘democratic’ country, a country which does not violate anybody’s rights and has a TOTALLY clean human rights record.”
The company has long denied any implication in human rights abuses, regularly pointing reporters to a policy on its website that says it only sells to governments, investigates allegations of human rights abuses and complies with international blacklists.
our lack of hardwired patterns of behavior
This passage reminds me of Lyotard's introduction to The Inhuman, and this Onion article.
Name /yal05/27282_u00 01/27/06 10:25AM Plate # 0-Composite pg 6 # 6 1 0 1 “Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.” “Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of plea- sure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of differ- ent physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a corresponding di- versity in their modes of life, they neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable.” JohnStuartMill, On Liberty (1859
Therefore, I learned — and learned well — that forgiveness is an essential key to healing. The opposite of forgiveness is judgment, and judgment always creates separation and guilt. Judgment will evoke a sense of guilt in the one who has been judged, unless, of course, they are perfectly awake. But more than this, each time that you judge anything or anyone, you have literally elicited guilt within yourself, because there is a place within you, yet still, that knows the perfect purity of your brother and sister, and sees quite clearly that all things within the human realm are either the extension of Love, or a cry for help and healing.
But at the level of the capability hierarchy where we wish to work, it seems useful to us to distinguish several different types of structuring--even though each type is fundamentally a structuring of the basic physical processes. Tentatively we have isolated five such types--although we are not sure how many we shall ultimately want to use in considering the problem of augmenting the human intellect, nor how we might divide and subdivide these different manifestations of physical-process structuring. We use the terms "mental structuring", "concept structuring", "symbol structuring", "process structuring," and "physical structuring."
The 5 structuring types outlined by Doug Engelbart:
The fundamental principle used in building sophisticated capabilities from the basic capabilities is structuring--the special type of structuring (which we have termed synergetic) in which the organization of a group of elements produces an effect greater than the mere addition of their individual effects. Perhaps "purposeful" structuring (or organization) would serve us as well, but since we aren't sure yet how the structuring concept must mature for our needs, we shall tentatively stick with the special modifier, "synergetic." We are developing a growing awareness of the significant and pervasive nature of such structure within every physical and conceptual thing we inspect, where the hierarchical form seems almost universally present as stemming from successive levels of such organization.
Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially, but he certainly ought to be able to learn from it. In minor ways he may even improve, for his records have relative permanency. The first idea, however, to be drawn from the analogy concerns selection. Selection by association, rather than indexing, may yet be mechanized. One cannot hope thus to equal the speed and flexibility with which the mind follows an associative trail, but it should be possible to beat the mind decisively in regard to the permanence and clarity of the items resurrected from storage.
Selection by association, rather than indexing.
The real heart of the matter of selection, however, goes deeper than a lag in the adoption of mechanisms by libraries, or a lack of development of devices for their use. Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, moreover, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path. The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association. With one item in its grasp, it snaps instantly to the next that is suggested by the association of thoughts, in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. It has other characteristics, of course; trails that are not frequently followed are prone to fade, items are not fully permanent, memory is transitory. Yet the speed of action, the intricacy of trails, the detail of mental pictures, is awe-inspiring beyond all else in nature.
With the advent of Google Docs we're finally moving away from the archaic indexing mentioned here. The filesystem metaphor was simple and dominated how everyone manages their data-- which extended into how we developed web content, as well.
The declaration that Hierarchical File Systems are Dead has led to better systems of tagging and search, but we're still far from where we need to be since there is still a heavy focus on the document as a whole instead of also the content within the document.
The linearity of printed books is even more treacherously entrenched in our minds than the classification systems used by libraries to store those books.
One day maybe we'll liberate every piece of content from every layer of its concentric cages: artificial systems of indexing, books, web pages, paragraphs, even sentences and words themselves. Only then will we be able to re-dress those thoughts automatically into those familiar and comforting forms that keep our thoughts caged.
Availability of the raw survey data is subject to the approval of the UCSB Human Subjects Committee.
if he is unwilling to learn, let another be taught before him, of whom he may be envious.
This aligns with Confucius thinker Xunzi's attitude on properly cultivating morality in others. We are guided by our desires: whatever we feel a sense of lack in, we desire that object. It is the role of those with cultivated morality (gentlemen, sages) to act as an exemplar of moral goods, so that others who have yet to be cultivated desire what they have.
We are by nature most tenacious of what we have imbibed in our infant years, as the flavor with which you scent vessels when new remains in them, nor can the colors of wool, for which its plain whiteness has been exchanged, be effaced. Those very habits, which are of a more objectionable nature, adhere with the greater tenacity, for good ones are easily changed for the worse, but when will you change bad ones into good? Let the child not be accustomed, therefore, even while he is yet an infant, to phraseology which must be unlearned.
Claim on early development (and an accurate one, by contemporary standards).
As birds are born to fly, horses to run, and wild beasts to show fierceness, so to us peculiarly belong activity and sagacity of understanding
This little diddy here smacks of Aristotle: what distinguishes humans from all other creatures are their cognitive faculties.
Again, (4) it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.
Again, rhetoric as what sets humans apart from other animals.
I find this quote to fascinating. Isocrates isn't necessarily a cynic, but he certainly is not the happiest of philosophers.
persuasion is the chief end of rhetoric
Is rhetoric just the title we give to innate, self-interested, behavior? Is the term 'rhetoric' to blame, or is it simply just a label we give to human interactions?