Working with a fellow student we can share each other's notes, but here I question their worth, that coming from your personal choices and sensibilities that should trigger in you the original reasons why you picked a thing out, they often appear disjointed and illogical to another. Perhaps when you sit down together like pushing a couple of combs together the mesh offers a third interpretation from which you can then work?
This may be a good or bad thing, depending on what is keeping you busy.
I need to find the perceptive Stephen Appleby cartoon that expresses this very well. It shows a guy riding an escalator which represents life and getting older; this character moans about life going too fast and immediately the escalator turns into a ramp. Of course, faced with this greater struggle our character bemoans his lot even more vosciferously.
(I liked it so much I cut it out and put in a portfolio - the physical kind. Today I would photograph and upload ... I'd digitised it).
I think this New Scientist article is saying take up Kite-surfing or rock-climbing.
Or gymnastics for the mind.
I feel for one year doing an MA course with the OU I have experienced three.
'People with busy lives don't necessarily live longer, but they might feel as if they do.'
All this is from a New Scientist news story 29 Jan 2011.
So how does someone gaoled for 25 years feel?
'Our brains use the world around us to keep track of time, and the more there is going on, the slower time feels.'
I'd hardly say I felt that time was grinding to a halt, but this last 12 months, with the OU MAODE in the vanguard, I've packed in a good deal. It's starting to feel like 'Groundhog Day' at the point where Bill Murray (Phil Connors) has gone positive.
People with busy lives are happier, so long as the degree of business is something that they control.
“If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person.”
Find out more in 'Current Biology'
I relish phrases such as 'adaptive use of stochastically evolving dynamic stimuli' and 'a process of Bayesian inference based on expectations of change in the natural environment.' These phrases are food for the brain, like eating gizzards for the first timne, as I recall doing at the Auberge Les Allouettes age 15. I had this habit of always trying something I'd had not tried before; this I never attempted again. I did take to steak tartar
Neuroscience interests me; my steak tartare.
Which is another way, I am sure, to stretch time - keep a diary, blog, do an OU course, and so live in the past, present and the future.
Your inner voice.
How talking to yourself makes you smarter.
The Voice of Reason. Robson. (2010)
I was initially attracted to this edition of the New Scientist as the cover story offered to shed light on the value (or otherwise) of what some term ‘stream of consciousness’ others ‘this voice in our heads.’ Of what value is it? And if I can type as fast as I can think it is this a true reflection of what I am thinking, at the pace at which I am thinking it – or does the process lose something in translation? Using how we think and what we verbalise is given value here, which ought to bolster the views of H.E. institutions that ‘reflection’ has a purpose. The article also explains why we need to give things terms, though I’m also always curious to know why certain words last while others do not. If I’ve understood the ideas correctly then there is a suggestion that loose terminology, words for concepts that are not clear or still debated, are counter-productive, we need to be clear that our interpretation of a word, even something as simple as the colour yellow compared to orange, or hues of the colour blue, match the understanding that others have.
‘On average, 70 per cent of our total verbal experience is in our head.’ Boroditsky (2010)
Language helps us to think and perceive the world.
Naming objects helps us categorise and memorise them. Lupyan (2010)
i.e. things (concepts and objects) are more easily thought about if ‘verbalised’ through having a name.
However, labelling can also bury the detail. Lupyan (2010)
i.e. we humans work best at the macro rather than the micro level of terminology?
‘Labelling objects helps our minds build a prototype of the typical object in the group at the expense of individual features.’
Language shapes perception, argues Gabriella Vigliocca of University College London. Vigliocca. (2010)
The pumpkin test. 80% got the object from seeing it alone. 85 % of those who saw it and were told its name got it. While those who had what they could see in one eye ‘scrambled’ only achieved 75% suggesting that a visual with a verbal clue helps to anchor the object in the mind.
‘It seems that words prime the visual systems of our brain, conjuring up a mental image when it is seen’. Vigliocca (2010:32)
Boroditsky (2010b) recently found that Russian speakers, who have two words for different shades of blue, really are faster at discriminating between the different shades than English speakers. (The once discredited Whorfian hypothesis). The effect disappeared when they repeated a long number to themselves, as this interfered with their linguistic capacities.
Fundamentally, knowing the name for something helps identify it. Lupyan (2010)
‘It seems that our inner voice changes the way we experience the world. Language is like augmented reality – an overlay that changes how we think, reason and see’. Clark (2010:33)
With the above in mind I started the following list with a view to developing reasons for not using the word ‘stakeholder.’ With no end of this list in sight I may need to change my opinion, I may not like the word, but it works. But does it? Whilst ‘stockbroker’ I can see embodies a specific group of people, ‘stakeholder’ for shifts constantly, like a cloud forming under a summer sun.
‘Up to 80% of our mental experiences appear to be verbal rather than visual or emotional.’ Hurburt (2010) from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
‘It’s like a guidebook that has been developed by thousands of people before you, who have figured out what is important for to survive and adapt to our environment.’ Clark (2010)
Do you work with the radio on or off?
With the TV on or off? Or in an Open Plan office? Do you prefer a library or study? Can you work as you commute? Or on holiday?
Based on what we have learnt above what impact might this have on what you are thinking?
Does it depend on how easily distracted you are, how focussed? Work (study) in an environment that is relevant to the task and this enhances it whereas work (study) where verbal noise is a constant distraction and you cannot (or could not) work so well?
REFERENCE
Clark, A (2010) Language and Cognition, University of Edinburgh. Interview for New Scientist. 2776 (4 Sept 2010)
Boroditsky, L (2010a) Interview for New Scientist. 2776 (4 Sept 2010)
Boroditsky, L (2010b) Quoted in the New Scientist. 2776 (4 Sept 2010) from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 104, p7780
Hurburt, R (2010) Quoted in the New Scientist. 2776 (4 Sept 2010) from Psychological Medicine, vol 24 p385.
Lupyan, G (2010) Quoted in New Scientist. 2776 (4 Sept 2010) from Psychological Science, Vol 18, p1077.
Lupyan, G (2010) Quoted in New Scientist. 2776 (4 Sept 2010) from Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, vol 137, p348.
Robson, D. The Voice of Reason. pp30-33 Cover Story. New Scientist. 2776 (4 Sept 2010).
Vigliocca, G (2010) Quoted in New Scientist. 2776 (4 Sept 2010) from Psychological Science, vol 18, p1007.
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