From birth to post-schooling: It’s all Spin

[coberst]

From birth to post-schooling: It’s all Spin

The infant enters into the world that is amazing, frightening, and totally alien in form and content. The infant recognizes that Mom is the life-raft on troubled waters and that to lose Mom is the most terrible experience possible. The infant wants to respond to its natural biological urges but Mom shows the infant that some are acceptable and some are not. The infant does all it can to do those that Mom likes and not to do those that Mom does not like. Like all creatures the infant learns to adjust and adapt to its environment.

One significant difference here is that the human creature becomes a creature of a world of symbols rather than a world of Mother Nature. The infant learns to set aside its animal urges and to accept symbolic meaning and values as the guide to ‘fitting in’.

The infant quickly recognizes that it is an actor on a stage and that the better it adapts itself to the requirements set by the social culture the more likely it will remain safely cuddled within that environment. The infant becomes a social creature ready to play whatever role is necessary to ‘fit in’.

The child grows into adulthood clutched in the embrace of the family and the school or college. The educational institutions educate the growing child in the knowledge that child needs to fit in. Should the child go onto ‘higher education’ then the young person grows more accomplished at becoming knowledgeable of all the symbols of a well structured life within the bosom of the social environment. By observing other creatures within that environment that youngster grows into adulthood fortified with the values that were taught by family and educational institutions.

]b]What happens to this adult who has been raised in this world of spin after school days are over? Almost unanimously this adult holds as sacred all the lessons learned from all the spin doctors of childhood and enters into other spin laced forms of thought.[/b]

From birth to post-schooling we absorb reality as others present it to us. After our schooling is completed we must become learners. After schooling our time has come to prepare our self to learn and from that learning we must make judgments and consider how to make the world a little better than it was given to us.

 

[robertm]

We seem to agree on many points Coberst!

I have often attempted to point out how the modern world is not condusive to the biological nature of human beings. Humans are capable of astounding feats, yet physical and mental potential are far to often never realized.

Example: Stress mechanisms do nothing but make ones life shorter; mental strain, useless adrenaline burst, excess hormonal activity ect... The mechanisms are to allow ones escape from imminent danger. In a modern world, it is really very rarely needed.

Example: unlimited variety of easily attainable sustenance. Many do not have the ability to overcome the biological drive to feed as often as possible, and thus we have an epidemic of obesity.

Example: Boredom. Masses and masses of people who have all the processing power to accomplish a near unbounded amount of learning and memorization. Yet so many waste away in front of modern modes of entertainment never giving a second thought to anything but their social status and frivolous acts of mindless occupation.

I would say, however, that many humans are able to recognize the facetiousness of the spin created by society. But not nearly as many as there should be.

 

[Eidos]

Example: Boredom. Masses and masses of people who have all the processing power to accomplish a near unbounded amount of learning and memorization. Yet so many waste away in front of modern modes of entertainment never giving a second thought to anything but their social status and frivolous acts of mindless occupation.

I wouldn't say near unbounded memory or learning. We most certainly have limitations in our mental faculties. Not a single person on Earth can tell you exactly all the things that make the computers you and I are communicating on, work. In fact, you would find it impossible to recall all the things you've learned in your lifetime in detail. It seems, if you don't use it, you lose it with memory.

[Whats quite amazing though, is something can trigger a flurry of memory to return to you when moments before the information was completely inaccessible. I suspect our brains are using something akin to RAID in our computers :tongue:]

As far as learning is concerned, I lament every now and then that I cannot learn all that there is to know from what we as human beings have discovered so far. I wish I could have every idea we have thought of so far pass through my brain at least once

I don't think the impossibility of such a feat should stop one from learning and committing to memory as much as you enjoy though.

As far as being distracted by modern shenanigans, imagine if everyone engaged their mental faculties all the time. That we all lived deep and meaningful mental lives. I wonder, would the world be better than it currently is? Better how?

 

[coberst]

As far as being distracted by modern shenanigans, imagine if everyone engaged their mental faculties all the time. That we all lived deep and meaningful mental lives. I wonder, would the world be better than it currently is? Better how?

Would we do better if we were all taught to be Critical Thinkers? I think so but I suspect our time is rapidly running out. It appears that our species is a dead end. I think that we must make drastic changes or our civilization will not last another 200 years.