- Jul 2022
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During the seventeenth century, this associative view vanished and was replaced by more literallydescriptive views simply of the thing as it exists in itself.
The associative emblematic worldview prevalent prior to the seventeenth century began to disappear within Western culture as the rise of the early modern period and the beginning of the scientific revolution began to focus on more descriptive modes of thought and representation.
Have any researchers done specific work on this shift from emblematic to the descriptive? What examples do they show which support this shift? Any particular heavy influences?
This section cites:<br /> William B. Ashworth, Jr. “Natural History and the Emblematic World View,” in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westfall, eds #books/wanttoread<br /> which could be a place to start.
Note that this same shift from associative and emblematic to descriptive and pedantic coincides not only with the rise of the scientific revolution but also with the effects of rising information overload in a post-Gutenberg world as well as the education reforms of Ramus (late 1500s) et al. as well as the beginning of the move away from scholasticism.
Is there any evidence to support claims that this worldview stemmed from pagan traditions and cultures and not solely the art of memory traditions from ancient Greece? Could it have been pagan traditions which held onto these and they were supplemented and reinforced by ecclesiastical forces which used the Greek traditions?
Examples of emblematic worldview: - particular colors of flowers meant specific things (red = love, yellow = friendship, etc.) We still have these or remants - Saints had their associative animals and objects - anniversary gifts had associative meanings (paper, silver, gold, etc.) We still have remnants of these things, though most are associated with wealth (gold, silver, platinum anniversaries). When did this tradition actually start? - what were the associative meanings of rabbits, turtles, and other animals which appear frequently in manuscript marginalia? (We have the example of the bee (Latin: apes) which where frequently used this way as being associated with the idea of imitation.) - other broad categories?
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This perspective has been called an “emblematic worldview”; it is clearly visible in the iconography ofmedieval and Renaissance art, for example. Plants and animals are not merely specimens, as in modernscience; they represent a huge raft of associated things and ideas.
Medieval culture had imbued its perspective of the natural world with a variety of emblematic associations. Plants and animals were not simply specimens or organisms in the world but were emblematic representations of ideas which were also associated with them.
example: peacock / pride
Did this perspective draw from some of the older possibly pagan forms of orality and mnemonics? Or were the potential associations simply natural ones which (re-?)grew either historically or as the result of the use of the art of memory from antiquity?
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- Mar 2022
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In a study published in 2020, for example, Macedonia and a group of sixcoauthors compared study participants who had paired new foreign-languagewords with gestures to those who had paired the learning of new words withimages of those words. The researchers found evidence that the motor cortex—the area of the brain that controls bodily movement—was activated in thegesturing group when they reencountered the vocabulary words they hadlearned; in the picture-viewing group, the motor cortex remained dormant. The“sensorimotor enrichment” generated by gesturing, Macedonia and hercoauthors suggest, helps to make the associated word more memorable
Manuela Macedonia and co-authors found that pairing new foreign words with gestures created activity in the motor cortex which helped to improve the associative memory for the words and the movements. Using images of the words did not create the same motor cortex involvement.
It's not clear which method of association is better, at least as written in The Extended Mind. Was one better than the other? Were they tested separately, together, and in a control group without either? Surely one would suspect that using both methods together would be most beneficial.
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- Feb 2022
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This is why it is so much easier to remember things we understandthan things we don’t. It is not that we have to choose to focus eitheron learning or understanding. It is always about understanding – andif it is only for the sake of learning. Things we understand areconnected, either through rules, theories, narratives, pure logic,mental models or explanations. And deliberately building these kindsof meaningful connections is what the slip-box is all about.Every step is accompanied by questions like: How does this fact fitinto my idea of ...? How can this phenomenon be explained by thattheory? Are these two ideas contradictory or do they complementeach other? Isn’t this argument similar to that one? Haven’t I heardthis before? And above all: What does x mean for y? Thesequestions not only increase our understanding, but facilitate learningas well. Once we make a meaningful connection to an idea or fact, itis difficult not to remember it when we think about what it isconnected with.
Our natural associative memories make learning easier when we can associate a new piece of knowledge into our previously existing framework of knowledge and understanding.
Associative questions can help us to assume new knowledge. Try some of the following:
How does this new fact X fit into my conception of Y?
How can new phenomenon be explained by theory Z?
Is this new idea contradictory with this prior theory or do they complement and reinforce each other?
Is this new argument similar to that one? Is one subsumed into or abstracted by the other?
This sounds familiar, haven't I heard this before?
What does x mean for y?
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