1,049,128 research outputs found
Irregular no. 17; Dec. 1968
The Christmas Irregular issue contains a few items of interest trying to establish the political standing of Walter Gropius (acknowledged as one on the world's great architects), and if his own thinking essentially corresponds with the best thinking of the best socialists
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Between distance and proximity
My practice is a means of dealing with distance and desireâ desire for intimacy and understanding, for clarity in communication, longing to get closer, to see further, to be near the ocean, to touch the horizon, desire for something certain, longing to let it go. The objects and videos I make are metaphors for a relationship between landscape and longingâ gestures of reaching, stretching and trying to span a distance, trying to embody the intangible. Longing is often still present even at close proximity. I want the objects and videos I make to instill an urge to touch, to transgress or press against the boundary between beings. Through these gestures Iâm thinking of ways to communicate touch across distanceâ how to feel presence through absence.Studio Ar
Creative thinking as orchestrated by semantic processing vs. cognitive control brain networks.
Creativity is primarily investigated within the neuroscientific perspective as a unitary construct. While such an approach is beneficial when trying to infer the general picture regarding creativity and brain function, it is insufficient if the objective is to uncover the information processing brain mechanisms by which creativity occurs. As creative thinking emerges through the dynamic interplay between several cognitive processes, assessing the neural correlates of these operations would enable the development and characterization of an information processing framework from which to better understand this complex ability. This article focuses on two aspects of creative cognition that are central to generating original ideas. "Conceptual expansion" refers to the ability to widen one's conceptual structures to include unusual or novel associations, while "overcoming knowledge constraints" refers to our ability to override the constraining influence imposed by salient or pertinent knowledge when trying to be creative. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological evidence is presented to illustrate how semantic processing and cognitive control networks in the brain differentially modulate these critical facets of creative cognition
God, Evil, and Evolution
Most evil is compatible with the existence of God if He has an aim that He can achieve only by using an unguided process of evolution and if He cannot be condemned for trying to achieve His aim. It is argued that there is an aim that could reasonably be attributed to God and that God cannot achieve it without using evolution. There are independent grounds for thinking an evolutionary response is necessary if God is to be defended at all. Issues that require further investigation are pointed out and desirable features of the evolutionary response indicate
Ask a clearer question, get a better answer.
Many undergraduate students struggle to engage with higher order skills such as evaluation and synthesis in written assignments, either because they do not understand that these are the aim of written assessment or because these critical thinking skills require more effort than writing a descriptive essay. Here, we report that students who attended a freely available workshop, in which they were coached to pose a question in the title of their assignment and then use their essay to answer that question, obtained higher marks for their essay than those who did not attend. We demonstrate that this is not a result of latent academic ability amongst students who chose to attend our workshops and suggest this increase in marks was a result of greater engagement with âcritical thinkingâ skills, which are essential for upper 2:1 and 1st class grades. The tutoring method we used holds two particular advantages: First, we allow students to pick their own topics of interest, which increases ownership of learning, which is associated with motivation and engagement in âdifficultâ tasks. Second, this method integrates the development of âinquisitivenessâ and critical thinking into subject specific learning, which is thought to be more productive than trying to develop these skills in isolation
Local authorities and the downturn
After my post on the geography of recession, I have been trying to clarify my thinking on the role of Local Authorities
Rethinking Design Thinking
The term design thinking has gained considerable attention over the past decade in a wide range of organizations and contexts beyond the traditional preoccupations of designers. The main idea is that the ways professional designers problem solve is of value to firms trying to innovate and to societies trying to make change happen. This paper reviews the origins of the term design thinking in research on designers and its adoption by management educators and consultancies within a dynamic, global mediatized economy. Three main accounts are identified: design thinking as a cognitive style, as a general theory of design, and as a resource for organizations. The paper then argues there are several issues that undermine the claims made for design thinking. The first is how many of these accounts rely on a dualism between thinking and knowing, and acting in the world. Second, the idea of a generalized design thinking ignores the diversity of designersâ practices and institutions which are historically situated. The third is how design thinking rests on theories of design that privilege the designer as the main agent in designing. Instead the paper proposes that attending to the situated, embodied routines of designers and others offers a useful way to rethink design thinking
Classroom of the apes: is teaching monkey business?
Between 1973 and 2000, social scientists conducted one of the most significant, innovative and
challenging programmes in the history of linguistic and educational research. âProject Nimâ investigated
both the interaction between nature and nurture and attempted to bring human level gestural
communication to a chimpanzee called âNimâ. The study offered some of the most important insights into
our understanding of language and cognition and what it means to be human, and represents a landmark
in our thinking about teaching and learning, and education itself.
Here, the authors contend that essential lessons from the experiment have been overlooked and risk
being forgotten. This article revisits the study, exploring some of the issues it raises, and attempts to site
what we learnt from Nim in the context of modern teaching practice. Through this reâexamination we
intend to provoke thinking not only about âProject Nimâ, but perhaps also about other lost lessons in
education. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of remembering the lessons we learnt when
trying to teach Nim, and how they can enhance our practice as teachers for all learners
Asimov's Coming Back
Ever since the word âROBOTâ first appeared in a science\ud
fiction in 1921, scientists and engineers have been trying\ud
different ways to create it. Present technologies in\ud
mechanical and electrical engineering makes it possible\ud
to have robots in such places as industrial manufacturing\ud
and assembling lines. Although they are\ud
essentially robotic arms or similarly driven by electrical\ud
power and signal control, they could be treated the\ud
primitive pioneers in application. Researches in the\ud
laboratories go much further. Interdisciplines are\ud
directing the evolution of more advanced robots. Among these are artificial\ud
intelligence, computational neuroscience, mathematics and robotics. These disciplines\ud
come closer as more complex problems emerge.\ud
From a robotâs point of view, three basic abilities are needed. They are thinking\ud
and memory, sensory perceptions, control and behaving. These are capabilities we\ud
human beings have to adapt ourselves to the environment. Although\ud
researches on robots, especially on intelligent thinking, progress slowly, a revolution\ud
for biological inspired robotics is spreading out in the laboratories all over the world
The Doxastic Account of Intellectual Humility
This paper will be broken down into four sections. In §1, I try to assuage a worry that intellectual humility is not really an intellectual virtue. In §2, we will consider the two dominant accounts of intellectual humility in the philosophical literatureâthe low concern for status account the limitations-owing accountâand I will argue that both accounts face serious worries. Then in §3, I will unpack my own view, the doxastic account of intellectual humility, as a viable alternative and potentially a better starting place for thinking about this virtue. And Iâll conclude in §4 by trying to defend the doxastic account against some possible objections
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