the idea of online personality and offline personalityh..not so much a mind body split actually as a mind/mind body/body split. I don’t really think tech does split us but somehow it’s a popular perception:
http://www.networkedresearcher.co.uk/2012/01/09/the-psychology-of-digital-professionalism/
I remember when I started learning about “Learning Theories” thinking – there are so many, it’s so complicated! Then I read an article yesterday in Harvard Business Review about the link between social and spatial intelligence, and it reminded me (I’m really not sure how I got there…but I think I saw it as something to do with the fact that learning about one thing, in one environment, in one way has an impact on everything else we know) that it’s not surprising we need multiple learning theories – because learning IS so complicated and multifarious -and at the same time there’s still only one thing we really need to keep remembering…that learning is living/living is learning, in other words for a long time we saw learning as sitting at a desk, but of course it’s not just that…..it’s not just reading, not just listening, not just about repetition, cause and effect, it’s about being social, being part of a community and overall about being in the world. That includes moving, singing, sleeping, eating (when will there be a theory that incorporates the importance of sleep in learning I wonder…or does it already exist?). We’re only just starting to recognise the importance of all the innumerable factors that influence learning and ways in which we learn – that are all important and very often forgotten in a classroom setting.
I was asking myself in a previous post whether technology was really helpful to support mindfulness…and now I remember how at least some people people it is…
Here, Ariel Garter talks about the “Know thyself” brain scanner:
spotted this recently on Gamasutra – an interactive meditation aid:
I actually HAVE this game. It’s pretty old now, but definitely the forerunner. How could I forget it!
http://www.healthy-heart-meditation.com/biofeedback-game.html
Build a house
Paint more
Do something for the enviroment at the weekend
Mindfulness meditation – raising awareness of emotional state, feelings, sensations improves learning and memory…http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/
…I think all I want to know in addition is whether technology and tools can suport our mindfulness, or whether simple meditation is better without additional support.
Do thoughts have to be able to be verbalised (or at least communicated) to be thoughts? If not are they subconscious? Or might they be described as feelings? Is that the difference between a thought and a feeling? But then feelings can be verbalised. I feel as if philosophy seems to often talk itself into this corner…and I’m not 100% here…and maybe there ARE thoughts that aren’t feelings that can’t be communicated? Perhaps as long as communication can take place (doesn’t need to be verbal), then it’s a thought…if it’s purely instinct…happening without being communicated to anyone else, then it’s not a thought…so then babies – are a lot of their thoughts unconcious? Since they communicate very little despite the fact that they’re processing an awful lot? Guess there’s a grey area but I’d like to explore that a little further. Actually “The Philosophical Baby” might help with that…HA! I bet I have a book that gives me the meaning of life if only I got around to reading it…
Because when we talk about enhancing learning by raising awareness of the body, there’s a point when we have a thought that’s *felt* but not yet communicated it, but perhaps might be communicated?…that I think is quite important..and perhaps that’s the area that I’m working in, and perhaps I’m trying to help raise bodily awareness but then also help that be translated into something that can be communicated? To turn it into words..problem is we’re lacking words…but perhaps Siobhan can help me there….
Bum – this is where I realise that as I’m starting up again thinking about my studies, I’m probably going to have to start somewhere behind where I had reached…..that I had probably solved some if these questions but now I’m having to revisit…..*sigh* I wish I had the unbelievably tenacious memory of my sons.
I’ve been arguing that the lecture is dead for ages – but it’s only dead if no-one’s doing it…so I’m entirely wrong…what I should be saying is that the lecture SHOULD be dead!
At my university I was so disappointed by the teaching and in particular the lectures. Well, Mike Garver, a lecturer at Michigan Uni has my full respect. So much so that he has inspired me to blog after a seriously dry period. Thanks Mike! It also reminded me that I like the true goal of the work I do…although as is often the case, that is frequently mired by lots of pointless tasks.
Short but very interesting snippet from Click On: Series 8 on Radio 4 discussing the value of self-hacking/life-logging for improving one’s well-being. It would be interesting to find out more about the smartphone program and how it supports self-hacking and also the research suggesting increased awareness of personal mood and habit really does improve one’s life (rather than simply encouraging introversion – which is still an ongoing concern in my mind). This area of research will definitely contribute to my own area of interest - understanding the value of awareness of personal activity/emotional state/location – or what has been described as personal informatics or “life-bits” for improving study skills.
Great looking book – Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description
Product Description
Anthropology is a disciplined inquiry into the conditions and potentials of human life. Generations of theorists, however, have expunged life from their accounts, treating it as the mere output of patterns, codes, structures or systems variously defined as genetic or cultural, natural or social. Building on his classic work The Perception of the Environment, Tim Ingold sets out to restore life to where it should belong, at the heart of anthropological concern.
Being Alive ranges over such themes as the vitality of materials, what it means to make things, the perception and formation of the ground, the mingling of earth and sky in the weather-world, the experiences of light, sound and feeling, the role of storytelling in the integration of knowledge, and the potential of drawing to unite observation and description.
Our humanity, Ingold argues, does not come ready-made but is continually fashioned in our movements along ways of life. Starting from the idea of life as a process of wayfaring, Ingold presents a radically new understanding of movement, knowledge and description as dimensions not just of being in the world, but of being alive to what is going on there.
…my pregnant, space-challenged body has just started to develop heartburn. I’ve noticed that the heartburn comes almost always in times of stress (I think that makes sense when you think that stress causes stomach ulcers). Interestingly it’s very instant. The moment I feel stressed I start to feel the burn. I’ve been surprised by what has stressed me out and what hasn’t. Work doesn’t stress me out. C getting up 50 times at night doesn’t. C crying (when I know he’s just looking for attention) doesn’t. R getting stressed out by C getting up 50 times in the night and crying does give me burn! What is stressing me isn’t interesting. But I think the fact I don’t always realise the things that are truly stressing me and am only finding out as my body’s response to stress is becoming more transparent is!