How they train you
26 02 12 - 05:59
The more you learn, the less you think:
An M.I.T. neuroscientist named Ann Graybiel told me that she and her colleagues began exploring habits more than a decade ago by putting their wired rats into a T-shaped maze with chocolate at one end. The maze was structured so that each animal was positioned behind a barrier that opened after a loud click. The first time a rat was placed in the maze, it would usually wander slowly up and down the center aisle after the barrier slid away, sniffing in corners and scratching at walls. It appeared to smell the chocolate but couldnât figure out how to find it. There was no discernible pattern in the ratâs meanderings and no indication it was working hard to find the treat.
The probes in the ratsâ heads, however, told a different story. While each animal wandered through the maze, its brain was working furiously. Every time a rat sniffed the air or scratched a wall, the neurosensors inside the animalâs head exploded with activity. As the scientists repeated the experiment, again and again, the rats eventually stopped sniffing corners and making wrong turns and began to zip through the maze with more and more speed. And within their brains, something unexpected occurred: as each rat learned how to complete the maze more quickly, its mental activity decreased. As the path became more and more automatic â as it became a habit â the rats started thinking less and less. - The New York Times
We're just large rats, after all.
This explains modern education: replace the thought with rules.
Yet another way to externalize and thus, lose ourselves in our world, without finding a purpose within.
four comments
however, your inference is a longshot, I think you need automatization of the simple stuff (like addition, sin and cos tables, syllogisms etc... ) to be able to comprehend and deal with more powerful and complex abstractions.
bottom line: train yourself, and burn them down. hemorrhoid - 28-02-’12 05:40