The Imitation Game in India

There is an attempt to have different systems of education in India.  Without a difference in outlook the system would not serve any purpose. The outlook is shaped by the trends that constitute a narrow concept of modern India. People are susceptible to influence. There is an uncritical imitation of western trends.

The imitation game has become ubiquitous and people are unable to distinguish between what makes sense and what makes nonsense. They are also not able to tell what is right from what is wrong, morally. The cinema and the media have penetrated into the psyche of people and what follows is sychophancy and camouflage.

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Doesn't this apply to what cinema stars say? People swallow the opinions of celebrities and self-appointed experts on human personality without realizing that they are not thinkers. They cannot see through their glib talk.

Teachers are themselves vulnerable to popular influence. Unless they are immune from influence and critical thinking is given importance, people will study without learning, do without realizing what they have done and exist without living. They live in a false world and thrive on a false sense of security.

Cinema stars and cricketers do not make India. They cannot influence people without their consent. Teachers need to enable young minds to preserve their identity.

A teacher can make or break the world. Textbooks can teach very little about the world we live in. Only experience and insight can.
 

Approaches to the Unknown

The word, ‘known’ indicates that which has been possessed. It is not tangible but it is an abstract object. You can tell you possess an abstract object when you recognize the concept’s presence. The vacant space gets filled. In fact this vacant space is in itself abstract and you realize this the moment you understand a concept. Till then you do not know the existence of this vacant space. You can never really be sure of how many vacant spaces there are. The moment you mentally recognize the presence of a vacant space, it becomes a concept. The vacant space is thought off as there to be filled with something that is not yet known. This is why the unknown cannot exist as a concept. To be a concept it would have to be something that you think exists shielded by mist. You would need to see an attempt from the other side of the mist from a being trying to penetrate your mind.

Visibility is not all. You are yet to understand what you see. If a child sees a dollar or a rupee is he/she seeing the value of it or just the note with a symbol?

The symbol has consumed us. Although we refer to one another as consumers of products, is the value of a product reducible to currency? On the one hand, products are consumed by us and on the other we are consumed by notes and symbols. The dimension of consumerism operates on the semantics of market rate and this has come to define the concept of money.

The lack of experience offers a basis for the unknown. Then gaining experience is an approach to understanding what it is that you need to know. If you want to buy a house then that is when you understand what loans are, what real estate is and what the value of a land is, albeit from your perspective and the nature of the assets involved. The need of the hour is an approach to the unknown.

If you own it, you know it. Ownership is another way of befriending the unknown. You order a book; it finds its way into your shelf. What goes into the journey of ownership? There is a transaction involved and you are part and parcel of that transaction. Every interaction in this process is a transaction. You read a review of the book, there is an interest generated, you look at various sources and when the book reaches you, you find out if the journey was worth it or not. Your reading leads to a response and you have to absorb it in order to respond and the whole process is a learning experience. Owning is an approach to the unknown.

‘’Fear of the unknown” is a natural obstacle. What is it that you fear? The dimensions are not clear. If there is fear of the unknown, then it seems to indicate that there is some aspect about it which is known. How else would the intimidation arise? There are notions about the nature of the ‘unknown’. One is that, it could be difficult to learn. If you feel that you would struggle to learn then a resistance is offered by you. The ‘unknown’ is found to be challenging when the question of capacity is raised. There are other subjective approaches to the unknown. We may declare that different approaches bring out a variety of perspectives.

On Higher Order Ignorance or the Clouds of the Mind

Higher order ignorance is tantamount to an awareness of mystification of larger questions concerning the origin of life and the universe at large. The words that cloud the mind in a state of higher order ignorance resonate with the individual as they fill him with thrill. The idea that you are unlikely to know everything as the human faculties are limited brings about a sense of mystery in the unknown. Paradoxically, it is this tendency to relish mystification that leads to higher order curiosity and what ensues is the desire to find the answers to the larger questions as well. There is as you can see a difference between ‘finding’ and ‘knowing’. Finding implies ‘tangibility’ or discovery while ‘knowing’ implies state of awareness or ‘intangibility’. Anything that is concrete is tangible and anything that is abstract is intangible. You can discover both tangible and intangible aspects of nature. Observations are discovered and never invented. Through manipulation of the laws of nature you can invent devices. Reasons are identified and not usually invented. The phrase ‘inventing reasons’ indicates fallacy. It is ridiculed as it indicates concoction which is more of a device than logical technique. The question of whether it is possible to invent reasons is a matter of dispute.

In adults, higher order ignorance slows down all activities concerning practical matters. What you may call ‘ultimate’ reminds you of what John Lennon, the singer said which is that life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans. When these plans falter an adult tends to encounter questions of ultimate nature. The human predicament induces an inescapable feeling of flight into its origin. If this feeling is frequent it makes truncated approaches impossible to pursue. A truncated approach is an oversimplified approach where complexity is reduced to what can be dealt with for the sake of convenience. Practical knowledge and skill depend largely on truncated approaches. The problem with simplification is that you overlook many aspects that need to be factored in, to account for the real nature of the pursuit which you would endeavour to undertake.    

Pure ignorance is therefore not the absence of knowledge but the emptiness of the vessel. Even when knowledge is present it does not always make a difference in effect. The vessel was not empty in the first place which is why despite endless hours of education people may never develop the right frame of mind needed to bring about mutation in outlook. Descriptive knowledge is reduced to noise and by way of experience it serves no purpose.

Little knowledge is never dangerous. All it means is that more knowledge is asked for to exit from the state of ignorance and become in the profound sense completely aware.  As the author, Isaac Asimov stated without ambiguity that if knowledge causes problems it is not through ignorance you can solve them. Fear of knowledge when promoted is breeding ground for spiritual and cognitive deterioration.  Very often I have heard people say that they are better off not thinking, not asking questions and not wanting to find out. In the worst case scenario they go to the extent of dissuading others from wanting to know. They use clichéd idioms such as ‘curiosity kills the cat’ and ‘analysis is paralysis’ to prove their point when in truth, no progress was ever made without curiosity and paralytic attacks have never been the result of analysis.

Analysis eventually leads to synthesis and harmony. If it doesn’t the line of thinking was probably wrong in the first place.

An Open door can be shut but never an open mind!

The Difficulty with Learned Notions

When we talk about wilful ignorance, an individual chooses to remain ignorant on account of his beliefs or prejudices. This type of ignorance poses challenges of alarming proportions to the teacher. It would help to deal with this challenge by determining exactly those deterring beliefs in question that act as catalysts to a change in direction. Wilful ignorance in adults is more often encountered as they carry a baggage of experiences complicated enough to demean any attempt at progression in the learning curve. It is not uncommon to hear someone say for instance, “my education began after my graduation”. Bertrand Russell said, “Men are not born stupid. They are born ignorant. They become stupid by education”. After I quoted this view of Russell to an entrepreneur friend, he replied, “I am glad I escaped education.” Speaking of wilful ignorance where beliefs come in the way of learning, it is worth considering a joke about Sir Isaac Newton after he discovered why apples fell from trees. He went to the Church and shared with them what he had discovered to which the clergy replied, “Go and find out why oranges fall.”          

In children wilful ignorance can be present but it is usually on account of lack of interest. This lack of interest is in reality more of apathy towards the written text. The teacher cannot expect that a child must show interest as the written text does not appear to have either tangible value or entertainment value. The teacher cannot associate a child’s intelligence with responsiveness to the written text at large. One must understand therefore the nature of ‘appearance’ not so much from a philosophical point of view but more so from a cognitive perspective. Any philosophical understanding of ‘appearance’ is at best subjective as the pursuit of unravelling the mystery of perception is even to this day the holy grail of Physicists. Although many conjectures have arrived at demystifying ‘perception’ the phenomena of ‘appearance’ has not earned any unanimous understanding that can be said to be devoid of tentativeness. David Bohm, the physicist spoke about perception and clearly explained why understanding it in its absolute sense is a mirage of sorts. In education, appearance is a matter of cognition. Its root cause is a feather of subjective mystery. Even if we are not taken away from the real world to the wonderland of appearances’ secret origins we undoubtedly can view the responses to appearances as they affect a learner’s sense perception. We can understand how a certain response is elicited by appearances. The written text may not elicit the kind of response that a toy does because the former is seldom associated with fun. It is divorced from the notion that you can play with text as you can with a toy.  The formal teacher does not allow this and the seed of stereotypes toward learning and text are sown during these early years of development.     

Distraction has little to do with wilful ignorance. Most of what one calls distraction is the result of the diversion of energy from the focal point which is from the instructor to different stimuli that is usually more intense. If the stimulus, extraneous to the instruction, is more intense than the instruction per se, the learner tends to get distracted. This distraction as you can see is perceived to be lack of focus but in reality it is the instructor who needs to ensure that the environment is insulated from unwanted stimuli. If that is on the whole not completely possible than his instruction can do with overriding intensity where any extraneous stimuli such as noise or background visuals go pallid in comparison. 

Let us say that the instructor in a classroom tries to throw light on the nature of chemical compounds. The learner is expected to pay attention to what is being said. If the learner finds it difficult to hold attention to what the instructor is trying to explain than it means that the learner is playing a passive role. Suddenly there are two students distributing advertisements outside and they talk to each other aloud. The learner gets distracted by this unwanted stimulus and loses focus in the process. What has happened here? The learner is perceived to have got distracted. Why did this happen? The learner played a passive role in the instruction process and the instruction was difficult to accommodate. The intensity of instruction was negligible compared to that of the sudden extraneous stimuli and therefore heads turn around.    

What's So Extraordinary About Ignorance!

When there is ordinary ignorance, expect excitement. You get to see the curtains opening out as conceptual play gradually unfolds. The eyes that gaze into the stage observe the acts till the message becomes clear. Or does it? Do you see at all or do you observe? What can you make of the identity of the axioms which for some reason unknown to you exist a priori? It is quite hard to say how objects –intangible and tangible existing before hand is received by a child who sees them for the first time. While it seems tempting to say it is curiosity, you may be overlooking the reaction of indifference.  You tend to think of a child as curious but remember; his curiosity can be selective. Another description of a child that closely resembles ordinary ignorance is innocence. There is a technical difference and not merely a sublimated one. Innocence signals naivety while ignorance is the state of inadequate or complete lack of knowledge having nothing directly to do with naivety.

The curiosity, selective or otherwise that you may observe in a child is a trait also of innocence/naivety accompanied by a readiness to believe. This trait may not present itself to the same degree in most adults. While all adults experience ordinary ignorance they do not experience the same nature of curiosity that a child experiences because of the absent trait of naivety- the locus of an empty mind. As innocence is present the notion of falsehood is not easily understood which is why there is a readiness to believe and as the mind is empty there is a determination to absorb. The child does not even encounter the need to believe as he experiences what can be touched, seen and heard receiving their impact into memory. The notion of what is not is never clear to a child. This trait adds to the ordinary ignorance of a child a flavour not quite present in an adult learner. The idea of falsehood is never quite clear. You can then say that concepts being in the realm of thought do not provoke the same excitement necessarily in a child as would ‘objects’ that can be touched and seen. The reason being concepts are derivatives of axioms.

The idea of the number ‘2’ is the realization/perception of its value. How do you transfer this perception to a child? If you look carefully you will see that the value of 2 that you may consider to have realized is partially taken for granted. You may reflect and recollect how this value gets juxtaposed in the number 2. You are invariably directed back to the number ‘1’. As 2 is the additional value of 1+1, you come to think of it as having 1 apple in your left hand and 1 in your right hand resulting in 2 apples. Note that you are not familiar with the number 2 till you realize its value after counting 1 and 1. The number 2 represents of the value ‘2’. In the case of letters it gets more complicated as each letter in the English language for instance has no seemingly logical connection with any other letter. In effect, you find yourself having to gain familiarity with many axioms. It takes a while before you begin to derive free flowing communication if you proceed in a linear manner. The difference is that you cannot logically realize the value of the alphabets of the English language because you cannot work them out.  The lack of realization or conceptualization, is the most crucial element that has to be identified in the learner’s state of ordinary ignorance.

Is Ignorance a Condition or a Form of Meditation?

Ignorance or the state of not knowing is one that is difficult to mimic. Partly because memory alone cannot reveal the state of mind of what it is like to not know. Knowledge that when acquired makes only the memory of the state of ignorance accessible but not that state itself. Secondly, the impact a concept has on the learner aids in registry. This impact is again difficult to receive a fresh. A child who learns tables for the first time observes only what eludes him. He does not observe the concepts as ‘learned realizations’. A learned realization is the realization of having learnt at the time of learning itself. Learning and awareness of learning is simultaneous.  

Let us take the first reason why it is difficult to mimic the state of being unaware. There is the initial mystification and perplexity associated with not being able to recognize what is out there. What is out there in the text book or in the blackboard is unintelligible. It is elusive and its coherence is in disguise. The teacher though may make no claims to be able to demystify it and unravel their real character.  If it is an axiom that needs to be internalized, you find yourself forced to absorb this axiom which for some elusive reason you have to take for granted. An axiom is established to be self-evidently true. Some emerge fundamentally out of sensory perception while some others are accepted over time as rules of the game to operate on the same plane of consciousness. Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and mathematician as a young learner at the age of eleven was introduced to Euclid by his brother. He found out that Euclid despite his proofs took certain axioms for granted. Disappointed, he refused to accept them. His brother informed him that if he does not take the axioms for granted they would not be able to proceed. Likewise learning has a starting point where you find yourself facing the fundamental elements that work their way progressively towards a larger picture of what is there to be known. This larger picture is not necessarily the complete picture. Supposing you begin with alphabets of a language, you find yourself compelled, so to say to internalize them in order to eventually learn how to communicate, express and describe your experiences in a way so as to be understood by others for utilitarian and non-utilitarian purposes. In the case where axioms are established over time you can think of language as an example. The rules of English grammar are established and may be treated as axioms. There are rules as to how a sentence should be structured independent of the meaning. These rules operate on the same plane of consciousness that human beings share.

For a child where is the starting point? A child learns primarily by seeing, touching and hearing. A child also learns through the emotional impact of an experience. If you see alphabets or numbers for the first time, you can only see the symbols but you cannot touch them. By themselves they do not have any emotional impact. There is an experience that can be created by the teacher to create an emotional impact. The teacher can remember the state of mind when he faced the fundamental elements for the first time but it is this memory that will remind him that he is not the same anymore and this triggers the state of awareness of knowledge gained and blocks access to the genuine state of ignorance.           

If a teacher cracks a joke while teaching alphabets a child may associate alphabets with a joke thereby registering the lessons automatically. This is called positively affected learning but if there is an unpleasant event in the course of learning the child may register the lessons taught. However, the child’s attitude towards the subject may be adversely affected as well.

You need to remember the nature of your affected learning. Try doing that. It seems plausible that the impact would be difficult to receive a fresh because of your awareness of your memory. This in turn denies access to both the impact and your state of mind prior to it.

To think off ignorance as a condition is to get swallowed by the black hole of human understanding. To simulate the state of ignorance would lead to a form of meditation.

The Empty Vessel of Absolute Ignorance

A child desires to make sense out of various observations. This desire is a natural instinct and knows no motive; it is one of utter curiosity. It is like coming out of an empty vessel. As a baby boy or girl, you find the man next to you strange or intriguing; you find the wall clock mysterious and the birds chirping arresting. Why are they the way they are? Is this a natural question that strikes you? It is new to the child with the mind of an empty vessel but for someone who has had frequent exposure to these stimuli, these questions do not arise. They learn to describe them and associate with them through words, the language of discourse. They associate patterns with words, process them and understand what it is that makes them happen.

In the beginning of academic life, you ''the child that you are" find yourself being pushed into something called a classroom to learn. What is a classroom? What will you be learning in a classroom? Why should you learn only in a classroom? Can't you learn what you are supposed to learn outside the classroom? Being pushed is a state that deserves close attention. Why should you be pushed to learn at all? You were learning all the while from the time you started coming out of the empty vessel. It was about the world around you. What can you learn in a classroom? Has it got anything to do with the world around you beyond the classroom?

These questions can arise as reactions to being pushed into the classroom. A classroom is a place where the environment is controlled so that learners are insulated from unwanted stimuli outside the classroom that can affect the focus required to assimilate descriptive knowledge.

First, what is it like being in an empty vessel? Is it pitch darkness where you cannot know anything? In order to know something you need to have sensory experience. Absence of knowledge is not exactly darkness but it is precisely this absence that lends itself to oblivion. You are immersed in a natural state of curiosity and learning has begun even before toddling into the classroom.

 

Welcome to Learning Paradigms

With experience there is an interaction within each individual. This interaction is private and manifests itself in the form of change. The nature of change determines whether learning in question is progressive or destructive. One may argue that there is no such thing as destructive learning. But there is the danger of letting one's mind interpret signals from external sources in its own way. However, when the mind is free to interpret these signals and messages, there is also scope for understanding and perspectives. The interaction within is constant and happens when there is a limit to the possibility of external interaction. Learning is not just about understanding what you are expected to understand. It is about thinking about signals and messages and understanding them as realities.

Welcome to learning paradigms! From my experiences, I have drawn some ideas about the learning process with its paradigms and I would like to share them with my readers. In this blog, I will be posting essays on various matters concerning learning. They are about conditional and unconditional learning.

Stay tuned!