[MD] George Steiner interview (Andre)

Mon Jan 13 12:42:57 PST 2014

"What may or may not lie beyond experience..."  If you qualify experience as
"physical experience", then a level of experience beyond that makes perfect
sense.

I can think of two self-imposed limitations of the MOQ:
1.	Its deliberate avoidance of theistic language constrains it.  How
can you talk about absolute reality without using the language of Absolute
Reality?
2.	It remains open-ended.  To the extent that open-endedness allows it
to be extended, expanded, enhanced, and in general, used in many ways to
make living, working, and thinking better, that's not a limitation.  I thin
that's what Dr, Pirsig intended.  But if "open-ended" is taken to mean "end
of story; that's all there is", then that's self-imposed limitation. 

There you go, Pilgrims.  Jump on it and have fun with it.

Fraternally,

John L. McConnell
Office:  407-859-2637
Cell:     321-438-6301
Home:  407-857-2004
Email:  trexxtechs at bellsouth.net
-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of
moq_discuss-request at lists.moqtalk.org
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2014 3:06 PM
To: moq_discuss at lists.moqtalk.org
Subject: Moq_Discuss Digest, Vol 98, Issue 18

Send Moq_Discuss mailing list submissions to
	moq_discuss at lists.moqtalk.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	moq_discuss-request at lists.moqtalk.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	moq_discuss-owner at lists.moqtalk.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Moq_Discuss digest..."

Today's Topics:

   1. Re: George Steiner interview (Andre)
   2. Re: 42 (ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR)
   3. Re: 42 (ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR)
   4. Re: 42 (John Carl)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 10:20:36 +0100
From: Andre <andrebroersen at gmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] George Steiner interview
Message-ID: <52D3AFE4.6000309 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

David Morey said:
'Thanks Dave that is great,? George's Grammars of Creation is a great 
book about transcendence if you fancy it,? all about the need to think 
about what may or may not lie beyond experience and how important this 
has been in human culture,...'

Andre:
Lie 'beyond' experience? You sound like Marsha who tried to find out 
what lay 'beyond' the MoQ. And you call that 'An interesting work that 
could, given an open mind,? help develop the MOQ beyond some of its 
self-imposed limitations as I see it'.

It would appear, as you phrase it, that the MoQ has 'self-imposed 
limitations' and that there must be something lying beyond it.

Which limitations of the MoQ? are you thinking of David? And what could 
be lying 'beyond' the MoQ?

Within this context let's look at what Phaedrus suggests in ZMM:
'All the time we are aware of millions of things around us...We could 
not possibly conscious of these things and remember all of them because 
our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to 
think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and 
call consciousness is never the same as awareness because the process 
mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of 
awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world'.(ZMM p75)

In LILA the terms have changed but my take on the last line from ZMM and 
transposing that into MoQ terms is: We take a handful of sand (static 
patterns of value)from the endless landscape of awareness (Quality) and 
call that handful of sand the world (the MoQ). In other words awareness 
is Quality and what we call consciousness are the static patterns of 
value derived from that Quality.

That 'deriving from'...that 'abstracting from'...is the Quality event. 
It is the /cause /of consciousness...the subjects and objects we 
deduce...the static patterns of value. The static patterns of value are 
'in' this awareness as much as that the MoQ is the ink on the page 
called Quality. Quality has the MoQ. Awareness has consciousness. And, 
we can understand Quality, call it non-duality to also 'have' SOM 
(duality). It can simply 'contain' it without any contradiction, to be 
used whenever it is pragmatically useful to do so.

It seems that this is quite consistent with the MoQ as well as all the 
perennial philosophy books I have read.

Anyway, this is my take on it. If there are any serious issues with this 
I'd like to hear them.

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 11:43:47 -0500 (EST)
From: ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu>
To: moq discuss <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Subject: Re: [MD] 42
Message-ID: <742416775.375376.1389631427064.JavaMail.zimbra at psu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

[John]
I really like those animated talk things.  They seem to capture our
attention in a broad way.

[Arlo]
They are very well done, for sure. Here's another one I see come up now and
again: EPIC 2020 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gU3FjxY2uQ)

Its a recast of an older video (EPIC 2014,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUHBPuHS-7s), which was primarily about the
shifting information 'mediascape', using the same 'future voice' to describe
educational changes that occur between now and 2020. However, if you watch
them both back-to-back, you'll see that the original one (2014) wasn't
presenting a utopic future per se, but asked critical questions about where
these changes took (take) us, and what unintentional consequences may be.
The education one (2020) is nearly entirely utopic, condemning the present
state of education and presenting an future-perfect scenario where online,
open, automated (AI), degree-less, tuition-less, 'education' functions so
well that only 'misguided' and 'misinformed' people do not turn to
intelligent online programs for all their informational, educational needs.

"Ph?drus remembered a line from Thoreau: "You never gain something but that
you lose something."" (ZMM)

[John]
And I think that's a good thing because you always value the teaching most
that you seek out rather than have shoved down your throat whether you're in
a receptive mood or not.

[Arlo]
If I'm understanding, this is mostly a comment on public/compulsory (K-12)
education? Post-secondary education, whether technical, academic, vocational
or otherwise is voluntary, so the act of self-registering is a form of
seeking out 'information/learning'. Is this, then, a call for eliminating
compulsory education all together? Or is it more a call for reform to the
way curricula are adhered to (the factory model of ken robinson's video)? 

[John]
Also I realize that this style isn't appropriate for every subject but it
seems to me that for the art of programming - and the culture of
programmers- it's uniquely appropriate.

[Arlo]
How do you mean? I see this simplified to something like "programmers should
not be forced to learn things (about programming?) they don't value"? Would
you say that one of the goals for the instructor is to demonstrate 'why'
something is valuable that not all students may initially understand? Or is
this, too, some form of educational-violence? 

[John]
Again, programming is different.  If you're good at it you can get a good
job.  It doesn't matter if you have a degree or are self taught. 

[Arlo]
How would a prospective employer know you're good at it? Believe me, I do
not think 'degrees' in and of themselves prove a person can do anything (one
of the more recent 'techno' reforms is digital badging, an idea built off of
older competency-based models of education), but if we eliminate
degrees/grades, how do you suggest our skill(s) be packaged so that an
employer can see what we can do? Portfolios try to address this, do you
think these are better? What about certifications? I see computer jobs all
the time that advertised for people with so-and-so certification. Would that
go out with degrees?  

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:29:22 -0500 (EST)
From: ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu>
To: moq discuss <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Subject: Re: [MD] 42
Message-ID: <1083138947.434571.1389634162890.JavaMail.zimbra at psu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

[Dan]
I have a a few questions. Does academic schooling tend to breed out
creativity in students?

[Arlo]
This is (as I see it) actually two separate questions. (1) Does the current
model of education in practice in most schools breed out creativity in
students? and (2) Does academic schooling 'ipso facto' breed out creativity
in students?

That is, is 'schooling' itself the issue, or is it the 'way we school'?
IMHO, the answer to the first is most assuredly "yes", and study after study
shows this to be case. This is starting to change, mostly because
post-industrial economies require original/creative thinking whereas
industrial economies (on which our current educational model still follows)
not only de-emphasized creativity and critical thinking but deliberately and
actively moved to squelch them. 

My answer to the second is "no", schooling (or learning, or instruction, or
education) is not anti-creativity. Bourdieu has suggested that all forms of
'enculturation' were a form of symbolic violence. But, of course,
enculturation was also necessary for agency. The extreme idea of a lone
person who matures in isolation on a desert island may not have any forms of
symbolic violence exerted against her/him, but will have very little agency
to act in the world. 

You give a child a toy car, you've just coerced them (enculturated them)
into seeing the world a certain way. 

The key to this (again, IMHO) is the shift Pirsig made (as an instructor).
He didn't abolish the teaching of rhetorical 'structure' (outlines,
authoritative references, footnotes, etc.) but taught these structures as
ways of increasing learner agency in their writing. In this light, what we
need is not to abolish the teaching of structure, but to contain that in a
larger system where these structures can be evaluated as to how good they
serve an intended purpose. 

[Dan]
Arlo's talk of accessing the student's development and moving it along seems
to indicate there are pre-designated parameters at work. Are these
parameters based upon the individual students or are they cookie-cutter
style textbook learning exercises designed to mimic rather than open new
vistas?

[Arlo]
Of course there are 'pre-designated' parameters, education presupposes that
at point A there is something a person can not do, you have the educational
intervention, and then at point B they can do it. The instructor should know
what is necessary to make this transition and help the student take the
steps they need to bridge this gap. A skilled guitar instructor will see
what you can do, where you struggle, and keep your activities oriented to
keep challenging you, build upon what you know, and offer strategies for
overcoming deficiencies. 

Of course I'm not suggesting a "cookie-cutter style", that is exactly the
opposite of why Vygotsky described the ZPD. I've actually used Pirsig's
example of the student writing about the brick as an example of a ZPD
intervention. Pirsig (the 'expert') was able to determine where the student
(the 'novice') was, and suggest specific opportunities for her to grow
(between stagnating and failing). He was able to help her find that specific
point where she had the prior knowledge but could extend her knowledge into
doing something  she previously could not do. 

[Dan]
Can creativity be taught? Or is the foundation of learning rooted in a kind
of monkey-see monkey-do?

[Arlo]
This question presupposes creativity is either innate or learned. I tend to
see it interwoven between these two 'poles'. Maybe something like the
capacity for creativity is innate, but the ability to create is learned.
And, I'd argue that this ability to create (agency) is inherently tied to
the appropriation of structure (whether learned formally or informally,
structured education or trial-and-error learning). 

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 11:27:54 -0800
From: John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com>
To: "moq_discuss at moqtalk.org" <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Subject: Re: [MD] 42
Message-ID:
	<CAKPdW3mdJJCEDmsD6VTcOJAnkJr6kOj_3Oib_gBQaGLVgb6r8Q at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Arlo,

On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 8:43 AM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR
<ajb102 at psu.edu>wrote:

> [John]
> I really like those animated talk things.  They seem to capture our
> attention in a broad way.
>
> [Arlo]
> They are very well done, for sure. Here's another one I see come up now
> and again: EPIC 2020 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gU3FjxY2uQ)
>
> Its a recast of an older video (EPIC 2014,
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUHBPuHS-7s), which was primarily about
> the shifting information 'mediascape', using the same 'future voice' to
> describe educational changes that occur between now and 2020. However, if
> you watch them both back-to-back, you'll see that the original one (2014)
> wasn't presenting a utopic future per se, but asked critical questions
> about where these changes took (take) us, and what unintentional
> consequences may be.

J:  Yes I was getting tired and in a hurry but I should have said for Point
3: The average child now experiences fast-paced stimuli on an almost
constant basis like never before.

That's a big issue for the future.

A:

The education one (2020) is nearly entirely utopic, condemning the present
> state of education and presenting an future-perfect scenario where online,
> open, automated (AI), degree-less, tuition-less, 'education' functions so
> well that only 'misguided' and 'misinformed' people do not turn to
> intelligent online programs for all their informational, educational
needs.
>
>
J:  I believe more than half the school's function is to socialize humans.
It's already being lost to a virtual world, what happens when you eliminate
all contact with the outside world?  Shivers.

> "Ph?drus remembered a line from Thoreau: "You never gain something but
> that you lose something."" (ZMM)
>
> [John]
> And I think that's a good thing because you always value the teaching most
> that you seek out rather than have shoved down your throat whether you're
> in a receptive mood or not.
>
> [Arlo]
> If I'm understanding, this is mostly a comment on public/compulsory (K-12)
> education? Post-secondary education, whether technical, academic,
> vocational or otherwise is voluntary, so the act of self-registering is a
> form of seeking out 'information/learning'. Is this, then, a call for
> eliminating compulsory education all together? Or is it more a call for
> reform to the way curricula are adhered to (the factory model of ken
> robinson's video)?
>

J:  I'm mostly focused on the k-12 area, yes.  And it's not the compulsory
I despise, it's the compulsory along very narrow lines.  I'm for
decentralizing the education system through vouchers, remeber?  :)

>
> [John]
> Also I realize that this style isn't appropriate for every subject but it
> seems to me that for the art of programming - and the culture of
> programmers- it's uniquely appropriate.
>
> [Arlo]
> How do you mean? I see this simplified to something like "programmers
> should not be forced to learn things (about programming?) they don't
> value"? Would you say that one of the goals for the instructor is to
> demonstrate 'why' something is valuable that not all students may
initially
> understand? Or is this, too, some form of educational-violence?
>
>
J:  For one thing, I think these kids are often the smarter ones.  And the
smarter kids do better at a go-at-your-own pace.  I think many times they
are held back and bored by the system which HAS to be one-size-fits-all and
cater to the lower common denominator.  I'm saying the same pack instinct
that puts nerds together and outcast from most other people at every
school, is a good argument for creating a school tailored to the tastes and
needs of nerds.

> [John]
> Again, programming is different.  If you're good at it you can get a good
> job.  It doesn't matter if you have a degree or are self taught.
>
> [Arlo]
> How would a prospective employer know you're good at it?

J:  That's an easy one.  Have one good coder do the interview and ask some
questions.  And usually a programmer is hired on the basis of the work he's
already done.  His code IS his resume.

> Believe me, I do not think 'degrees' in and of themselves prove a person
> can do anything (one of the more recent 'techno' reforms is digital
> badging, an idea built off of older competency-based models of education),
> but if we eliminate degrees/grades, how do you suggest our skill(s) be
> packaged so that an employer can see what we can do? Portfolios try to
> address this, do you think these are better? What about certifications? I
> see computer jobs all the time that advertised for people with so-and-so
> certification. Would that go out with degrees?
>

As I said, I don't think all degrees are useless.  I just think there are
some people who don't need all that and could use a place of learning
without the academic distractions of record keeping and grades.  But I went
and took college courses without paying attention to what grades I got or
whether I got a degree.  I made good money in construction (once upon a
time... sob ) and didn't need an education for professional reasons but
personal ones.

John

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Moq_Discuss at lists.moqtalk.org
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org

End of Moq_Discuss Digest, Vol 98, Issue 18
*******************************************