A Hit and Run about Headspace
Here's a quick and dangerous thought depending on how you view our headspace. What if we have a limited "amount" of it (as it certainly seems)? Then formal education becomes a frightening thing, doesn't it? NOT something to avoid, only one to use with caution. It means that whatever limited headspace you have will be quickly taken up with someone else’s thoughts, thought processes and conclusions. Our sense of history has a way of keeping credibilty in the past so that we miss the extraordinary right around us.
By the time you’re done memorizing everyone else’s mental pathways, you’ll have precious little resources left for anything that’s actually creative, risky or interesting. It's a full time job carrying someone else's headspace in addition to your own. Of course none of this means that we don't pay due attention to the tremendous back log of human thought. I just think it would be a good idea not to be entirely absorbed in it.
Neither do I drive down the road steering entirely through the rear view mirror, by the way...
So I'm tired of being told my thoughts don't have rank just because the only footnote on them is my own. True, I risk being wrong, foolish and naive. But I also risk being creative, and that's worth it (I think). So if we do, in fact, have limited headspace, I plan to save a corner of it for my very own.
By the time you’re done memorizing everyone else’s mental pathways, you’ll have precious little resources left for anything that’s actually creative, risky or interesting. It's a full time job carrying someone else's headspace in addition to your own. Of course none of this means that we don't pay due attention to the tremendous back log of human thought. I just think it would be a good idea not to be entirely absorbed in it.
Neither do I drive down the road steering entirely through the rear view mirror, by the way...
So I'm tired of being told my thoughts don't have rank just because the only footnote on them is my own. True, I risk being wrong, foolish and naive. But I also risk being creative, and that's worth it (I think). So if we do, in fact, have limited headspace, I plan to save a corner of it for my very own.
posted by CSW at
11:45 AM
3 Comments:
I think the idea of running out of 'head space' is incorrectly supported by the idea that our minds are like computer hard disks. Eventually you have to delete old information to store new information on a hard disk, but I do not think or brains work this way.
Instead I think our brains learn through adjusting synapses between neurons in the brain. If you learn something new it is reflected in a structural change of the brain. It does not matter if you learned something for yourself or learned it by example from someone else there is a structural change in the brain. It would then seem that you would want to learn as much about what has been previously attempted so that you can learn, create and innovate in new directions instead of something that has already been attempted before.
Of course if all you do is focus all your time on learning via example from what is done in the past then you will not have the opportunity to ever innovate in the present, and depending on what you are attempting to do that may or may not be a positive thing for you. It is still important though to be open to criticism about our own ideas from others so that we can test our ideas and make sure that we are not fatally repeating somebody's past mistakes.
How We Learn
By
Josh, at 2:11 AM
No, I'm with CS on this one. I think so often we just accept simply because it's someone important saying it. In school you are told to think a certain way to view the world in a certain angle. It's fine to listen to that but you've gotta make up your own opinions and decisions otherwise you're just a sheep. I realize I'm not explaining this with quite the finesse and large words that you guys do but I'm me.
By
Anonymous, at 1:08 PM
Surely there must be a limit, though, as with all our faculties. The existence of that limit, however extreme it may be is what's important.
Neat development on the idea, though. Myabe the limit for us is out there far enough that it will never factor into our journey in a significant way.
By
CSW, at 10:35 PM
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