Category: Cognition

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Life in the Fast Lane That’s Under Construction and Riddled With Mishaps and Distractions: What I’ve Been Thinking About, But Not Getting Done — PART 1

My Blog entries came to a screeching halt a year and half ago, although it seems much longer to me. Time seems to be moving very quickly and very slowly at the same time. It seems like I have a birthday every few months, but then events that happened not very long ago seem to have happened a much longer time ago. I blame some of this on age, but I’d rather not dwell too much on that three-letter word. My body is screaming at me that I’m getting older, but my mind — for the most part — still feels like 40. My life seems to have veered into two, or maybe more, intertwined worlds. One world is a surreal visionary combination of Salvador Dali, Ingmar Bergman, and Federico Fellini with twists of Luis Buñuel and David Lynch, while the other world is intensely real — whatever that means — and riddled with the suffering indicative of being alive, while also riddled with moments of joy and clarity. Surprisingly, these seemingly different worlds occur in conjunction with one another. The last year and a half, but actually more like seven years, has been a joyful, painful, insightful, and very bizarre and surreal period of time.

In the midst of caring for one of my sons, who’s been chronically ill for 18 years and living his own version of a real—surreal, painful—joyful life, my own body’s aging issues — daily headaches, brain fog, and ongoing muscle and joint revolts, and a wide assortment of everyday life issues with home and car repairs, fighting with corporations who wrongly bill for services or goods not provided, and other issues that seem to be indicative of collapsing social systems. During this particularly intense past 18 months, I haven’t been particularly productive in terms of writing or working on other projects. I’ve started writing a book that has been gurgling along for a couple of decades. But, this project seems to have fallen into a rut in the fast lane construction zone. I’ve started a couple dozen articles and blogs, but they are backed up in long lines of bumper-to-bumper traffic. I’ve also dabbled in several photographic and multi-media projects, but most of these are still in various stages of development.

How do you like these excuses for not accomplishing anything?

But, this very question is a symptom of our real—surreal world. “Accomplishing” is like the gnawing desire to speed along in the fast lane… weaving in and out of traffic… avoiding any connection to the real people in their cars, while tail-gating and cutting them off, barely avoiding collisions, just to get where you’re going a minute or two earlier. But, it’s an adrenalin-rush… that could be deadly… but rarely resulting ins a traffic stop and speeding ticket. Yesterday, I was keeping up with the flow of most of the traffic in a 65 mph speed zone, but going 75 mph, when a state trooper drove by going at least 85 mph. He or she was just cruising by and not in pursuit. “Accomplishing” something just like trying to get somewhere faster and “better.” It’s factory work on steroids. Wanting to produce more, more, more, while desiring more, more, more money and “stuff.” While I was seemingly not “accomplishing” much over the past year and a half, I actually did quite a bit. I help my son with food, appointments, shopping, house repairs, and, I really hope, with maintaining some sense of well-being and some progress (whatever this is) in dealing with his wicked illness that most doctors just don’t understand, and don’t want to understand. I did more plumbing in his house, my other son’s. house, and my own house in the past couple of years, than I’ve done in my entire life… and, of course, I really dislike plumbing… much more than electrical, which isn’t far behind, structural, and painting. And, my aging body doesn’t like any of them any more. I hope I helped alleviate some of the intense stress for my wife in dealing with many of the same issues. However, I also managed to think about all sorts of topics and issues, I want to develop into various writing and/or multimedia projects. I have taken notes and written paragraphs, taken photos, recorded videos, and sketched out various ideas. Will I “accomplish” anything? Well, I already have. I’ve delved into many topics, read more in these areas, and hopefully learned something in the process. But, hopefully, I will produce some of this material for public consumption, but most will probably stay in my notebooks. I still love physical notebooks, but also use notebook apps on my phone and computer. But, there is something deeper, more flexible, and more aesthetically pleasing and stimulating about writing with various colored pens and pencils in real paper notebooks. Many of my notes will never move beyond the notebooks, but will always be there to ponder and expand upon. Others may make their way to documents or other types of projects. But, for me, time is running out…. it’s something I ponder more often now as age is taking on a new meaning that is both real and surreal at the same instant.

And, the idea of using AI to write blog entries and papers is somewhere beyond abhorrent, repulsive, and frightening.

Writing is a wonderful process that involves something like pulling teeth, sitting in a sauna then diving into cold water, and watching the sun rise over the ocean beach with the vibrancy of many lives waking up …. birds flying and singing, fiddler crabs looking for food, insects combing the beaches, fish jumping out of the water, and, maybe a deer or two walking along the dunes. Writing is both difficult and easy. It is cathartic, stimulating, clarifying. It points out very clearly what you don’t know. It helps you explore new crevices in your world. Writing is a set of processes of learning and growing. AI is none of these things. It’s hollow, lifeless, value-less, ….. (add your own descriptors and 4-letter words).

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF SOME OF MY THOUGHTS & PONDERINGS OVER THE PAST 18-MONTHS

BOOK — LEARNING & EPISTEMOLOGY — BUT WITH A MUCH CATCHIER & CREATIVE TITLE

Girls playing around with science. ©2012 Jeffrey W. Bloom

Sounds boring and lifeless, but I’ve been trying to bring this project to life. I want to push away from the jargon and stifled writing styles of academia — styles of writing that are mindless, but formulaic and easy to do. What I’m trying to do in this book is look at learning as a fundamental set of processes that are descriptive of all living things. This perspective tries to stretch our understandings of shared experiences, but also our understandings of diverse and wonderfully complex differences. “Epistemology” is used, from the perspective of Gregory Bateson, to describe how we and all living things organize our own personal and socially-shared knowledge. I’m hoping this book will be of interested and helpful to teachers, future teachers, parents, and researchers, if they can stand reading a less formally and academically written book.

PROBLEMS WITH DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

Washington,DC, Vietnam War Moratorium. © 1970/2023 by Jeffrey W. Bloom

This is not at all in my area of expertise, but has become a growing and increasingly important issue to ponder. We’re now in the midst of crumbling political, economic, and social systems…. and not just here in the United States, but in countries around the world. Democracy seems to be completely unstable, with no viable ways of self-correcting. Autocracies are gnawing at the bit and threatening democratic forms of governments from both the inside and outside, like internal and external parasites. But, those autocracies that do exist are not doing well either. The entire set of nations is wobbling out of control. Our futures are more uncertain than ever before. And, all of this uncertainty and crumbling of social and political “structures” are occurring in a world of dwindling resources, a population that is completely unsustainable, and a growing divisiveness among people within nations and between nations. There is no ONE solution… and even MANY solutions may not be enough. So many intertwined and interdependent patterns of being and living and believing and thinking and desiring … And, to make it all work again is seemingly out of reach. Change can’t be forced upon others. Change happens whether we like it or not. And, all of humanity is unable to control the change. It seems that all we can hope for is to somehow find a way to get along with each other and to develop the flexibility to adjust to the changes occurring throughout the biosphere. Empathy and a sense of humor may be very helpful in this regard.

LEARNING & THE FEAR OF LEARNING PARADOX

I continue to be flummoxed by the fear of learning that appears to be ubiquitous within the United States, and many other countries. I can understand, but do not like or support, governments that intentionally dumb down children and adult students, so that they pose very little threat to the perpetuation of the power elite. But, people’s fears of learning is baffling to me. We have the capability of learning all kinds of things, but what we learn doesn’t necessarily have to threaten our personal or culture beliefs or our ways of being. We are quite capable of learning about autocrats without becoming an autocrat, or learning about psychopathology without becoming a psychopath, or learning about all religions without believing in one or any of them. Of course, this paradoxical situation is much more complex and is a situation I continue to explore.

THE DISCONNECTS & SCHISMOGENESIS BETWEEN SCIENCE & THE GENERAL POPULATION — OR — MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF SCIENCE AS PROPAGATED BY SCIENTISTS, SCIENCE TEACHERS, THE MEDIA, & POLITICIANS

Very little attention is paid to how scientists and the institutions of science have perpetuated and continue to perpetuate certain misrepresentations of science, barriers to understanding science as a process, and barriers to understanding scientific concepts. Scientists, as well as teachers, the media, and politicians exacerbate these disconnects, misrepresentations, and barriers to varying degrees. In addition, the institution of science and its members often portray themselves as intellectual elites and use ways of communicating that prevent even the educated public from understanding almost anything that is communicated. Science teachers pass on the same misrepresentations, since the vast majority have learned from the very scientists who perpetuate the somewhat misleading nature of science and scientists. The media and politicians can and often do twist everything about science even further out of whack. People are left confused, misled, and in a very mucky muddle of misunderstandings. No wonder people don’t trust scientists and doctors and are drifting into “anti-science” stance.

A 10-year old’s drawing of a scientist.

PANDEMIC OF DISTRUST

For millennia, distrust seems to have been a staple of leaders… from family clans and tribes to nation. But, in the everyday lives of people, trust was a necessary ingredient of relationships with others. Of course, the whole notion of “trust” has issues. Putting total trust in someone else, even in oneself, can be risky. There is a long history of a trusted leader turning around and killing his or her “trusted” advisor. Personally, I trusted my Doberman Pinscher more than I’ve trusted just about any person. And, I suspect she trusted me more than any other person, but I’ll never know. As for trusting oneself, I keep a little slogan by my desk and try to remember to repeat it to myself often: “Don’t believe everything you think.” My own thoughts can certain turn around and bite my butt, poison me, or lead me astray. However, relationships that depend on a fair degree of trust are beginning to fall apart as that trust is being destroyed. We see this collapse between doctors and patients, journalists and readers, parents and children, teachers and children, law enforcement and citizens, politicians and voters, priests—rabbis—pastors—mullahs—gurus—other-spiritual-leaders and their followers, and so on. What happens when such relationships fall apart? We’ve seen some of the consequences, but how have you experienced this collapse in trust? Although the demise of trust can have huge effects on large groups of people, such loss of trust can have very deep and devastating effects at a very personal level.

THE POLITICS OF HEALTHCARE & THE PROPAGATION OF LYING & DISTRUST: THE PATHOLOGIES OF DOCTOR—PATIENT RELATIONSHIPS

Photo of an Ivory Skull. From the Wellcome Collectoin.

As politicians, the judicial system, and law enforcement systems take more and more control over healthcare, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare workers are being caught up in incredibly awful double binds. They have to dispense medications according to some randomly formulated algorithm that has no relationship to the complexity of and variability among individual patients. Doctors can have their licenses revoked or end up in prison for caring about his or her patients and for making informed decisions about their care. Patients can end up in prison or psychiatric wards for trying to deal with their health issues when doctors can’t take the types of steps that need to be taken. And, then there is a public uproar about sick people committing suicide or becoming addicted to some street drug, when the care they need isn’t and can’t be provided. And, it’s the rare health professional who has some understanding about what “addiction” is and is NOT. Certainly, politicians, media pundits, and media commentators are clueless. Addiction is a deeply transcontextual or multi-contextual issue. While the “object” of addiction, such as oxycodone or morphine, is always blamed as the great evil monster, the object is only a part of the complete story. Addiction always involves the context of one’s own cognitive contexts. We are very good at making up stories and justifications for our actions, and justifying the taking of a particular drug is just one of many rationales for any kind of addiction. But, there are always one or more other contexts involved in addiction, as well. Someone, who is under incredible stress in the workplace or living in a dysfunctional family or trying to cope with being stuck in poverty or whatever, can often be driven to finding some way to cope with all these intense situations through addiction. Addiction is a way of learning to cope. It may not be a very healthy way of learning, but it is nevertheless a way of learning. And, most of us are addicted to one or more “things,” though we probably don’t want to admit it. Some common “objects” of addiction may include, Facebook, texting, Fox “News(????),” electronic games, gambling, TV, shopping, chocolates, anger, sexual gratification, hate, guns, aggression, our own ideas of who we are, and on and on. — And, here we are in the middle of a dangerous muddle of double binds, fear, anger, desperation, confusion, agony, despair, and nowhere to go, no one to trust, and seemingly helpless to make a difference.

THE DYNAMICS OF RELATIONSHIPS, IDENTITIES, & PERSONAL FEELINGS ACROSS GROUPS AND COMMUNITIES — THE STICKINESS, STUCKNESS, SUCKINESS, BUT HOPEFULNESS OF PEOPLE IN GROUPS

More and more frequently, I find myself pondering how humans almost always find ways to make things very difficult, painful, stressful, and confusing for themselves. I don’t think bacteria, fungi, plants, or any other kind of animal is quite as adept of creating such bizarre situations for themselves. Pondering such contrasts seems to lead back to the question of “what is intelligence?” Somehow one’s ability to survive as both an individual and as a group or species should be a characteristic result or process of intelligence. If that is the case, bacteria, fungi, many plants, and many animals seems to be much more intelligent than us. At the same time, there are glimmers of hope, when people’s courage, creativity, empathy and compassion, insight, and selflessness shine through and illuminate, even if just for a moment, our lives as humans. The processes involved in these contrasting tendencies are fascinating and complexly intertwined in ways that are often quite befuddling. But, maybe this befuddling quality is where human creativity and hope lie… if we can just figure out how to manifest this creative befuddlement in ways that will help humanity survive.

I’ll post Part 2 of this list of ideas I’ve been pondering as soon as I can. Please stop back, leave comments &/or questions, and share your thoughts and experiences.

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The Problems With Scale and Scalability

The notion of scale can provide a powerful perspective to understanding. However, “scale” also can create greater confusion and deeply entangled, nasty problems.

Developing an understanding of the scale of the Solar System can be eye-opening. But, if not done appropriately can result in even greater confusion. In textbooks, the solar system may show the Sun and planets in scale according to size, but it is physically impossible to show the arrangement and distances to the same scale in a textbook. And, then there is a third dimension that is almost never represented or discussed, and that is time. To do a truly representative scale model of the Solar System, one has to find a do-able scale for size and distance. With my students, I’ve used a 1 to 20 billion scale. However, to do so makes replicating the size difficult, but the distances are pretty reasonable to scale down. We made the Sun and planets out of modeling clay, with the Sun at 6.95 cm and the Earth at about 0.6 mm (which was difficult to do and when done, was easy to lose). With each object constructed, we walked out the distances, which extended over 2.5 American football fields in length. When we included Pluto (it will always be a “planet” to me), Pluto averaged about 290 meters from the Sun, but Pluto’s orbit is elliptical and extends from inside the orbital path of Neptune to about an equal distance beyond the 290 meter scaled distance. To include the time dimension, we would need to scale down the orbital speeds by the same ratio. You can then add scaled down rotational speeds, as well. But, even doing all of this scaling down, we still misrepresent the actual solar system. And, this problem goes back to Korzybsky’s notion that the “map is not the territory.” Our representations, whether in our minds or with objects, can never completely represent the actual “thing” we are trying to represent. But, we can get close, and working towards accurate scale models can help us to refine our cognitive models.

Physical and mechanical systems are easier to scale, but not without issues. Physical and mechanical systems, such as cars, computers, etc., may be very complicated, but they are not complex. Complex systems are living systems. Such systems are unpredictable, self-regulating, and self-maintaining. Mechanical and physical systems are more predictable, but not entirely. Climate and weather systems are more unpredictable than other physical systems, such as planetary motion. And, this unpredictable quality is due to the interdependencies between climate systems and ecological systems. With mechanical systems, we may scale up some transportation system, say from bicycle to motorcycle to car to semi to ship to train to airplane. At each level of scale and change in context of use, the devices become more complicated. At each level, the variables that affect and are affected by the increase in complicated-ness make it more difficult to fully predict. And, then when we add the human component to the system, the complicated mechanical system becomes a merging of complicated and complex systems, which adds even greater uncertainty to the functioning of the complicated—complex transportation system.

Another application of scale that can be interesting, but which can become problematic involves working across levels of scale. Let’s say we identify some pattern in the dynamics of a relationship between two people or between a person and a dog. Maybe this pattern involves a lopsided control issue. One person tries to control the other or, in the case of the person and dog, the person or dog may be the one trying to control the other (I’ve seen both of these patterns of human—dog relationships). Then, say, you see two nations behaving in a similar way, where one nation is trying to control the other. This comparison across levels of scale can be insightful, but not without issues. The specifics of this more general pattern of relationship are not scalable. The danger is that we may get stuck assuming that there are more similarities to the dynamics than there really are. Within the general pattern of lopsidedness control, there are all sorts of other patterns occurring that are specific to the contexts involved. The dog—person contexts are completely different from the person—person and the nation—nation contexts. So, more generalized patterns may be interesting and informative to compare across levels of scale, while the more contextually specific patterns are much more difficult to compare.

Another version of “scalability” that is problematic from the start involves applying some strategy or approach that works well at a small scale and then trying to apply that same approach at a larger scale. The minute we try to “scale up” some approach that in any way involves living or social systems, all sorts of unexpected problems pop up. We may try to scale up the idea of community gardens then lose sight of the contexts that allowed one community garden to be successful. Every community has different characteristics, dynamics, issues, needs, and so forth. And, every community is comprised of distinctively different people. And, communities exist among diverse types of ecosystems, from deserts to rain forests. The “idea” of scaling up some great approach in one context seems wonderful, but that “idea” does not account for the complexity of each individual context or set of contexts, and especially in terms of the exponential increase in complexity encountered when “scaling up.” Even naturally increasing sizes of “things” creates tremendous difficulties. When a democratic form of government was first established in the the United States shortly after getting its independence, the designers of the system were dealing with a population of about 2,000,000 non-slaves and non-indigenous people. And, of people who could vote, that population was about half that size (women could not vote). The contexts that were at play involved a history of colonization, of a dependence on slavery, of women as of lesser status than men, of the natural and physical environments in which people lived, of the technology of the time, and so on. Even from the beginning, the democratic process was bumpy. And, much of this bumpiness arose from the unpredictability of complex social systems. As contexts change, the entire political system can crumble or, at least, face huge challenges in maintaining its stability and functionality. And, as the population increases — a naturally occurring scaling up — the difficulties of maintaining the original system increase exponentially. These “created” complex social systems never seem to address ways of adjusting to major shifts in contexts, major challenges to the viability of the system, and so forth. In the U.S., we seem to be at just this point of near collapse of the original system, where scalability fails.

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Pondering Courage and More

Just pondering a recent Facebook post….


Some people hate. I’ve had people tell me to hate some one, some group, or some thing. I can’t muster up the energy to do that. Some people lash out with toxic aggression (seems to be a trait of the United States “mindset.” And, then there are people who can remain calm in the midst of turmoil and act with no fear for themselves. Neerja Bhanot was one of those people. 


I think there are many people who have these attributes, but who fortunately are never put to the test. There were a plane full of people on United Airlines flight 93 headed to Washington on 9/11/2001. We see many such people during the big disasters that becoming more frequent. We see it among teachers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, policeman….. We see these qualities among mothers and fathers. We also see it among dogs, who will put themselves at risk to help or protect others without any training or request. 


But, here in the U.S. and in many other places around the world, aggression and violence are valued and promoted. The toxicity of anger, hatred, and violence is a pandemic in the U.S. that is a greater threat than the pandemic of Covid-19. In fact, this pandemic of aggression-hate-violence is so threatening that it is likely to bring down this country along with a huge death toll. We find ourselves in a pandemic of delusional psychosis (a) on the “right” of the political spectrum (I don’t know what to call it) and (b) on the left, which seems to be stuck in another kind of delusion of normalcy and self-absorption. 


If only we had a vaccine for this pandemic….

FACEBOOK POST:

Gregory Hilton —- Snietpstemebeiir 10, otedrne2019  · 

33rd Anniversary: Flight Attendant Who Saved American Lives Shot Dead By Terrorists.

She was the youngest person and first civilian to posthumously receive India’s highest award for gallantry. 


This week in September 1986, Flight Attendant Neerja Bhanot, 23, of Chandigarh, India was shot dead while shielding three children on the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73. 


She is credited with saving the lives of 360 passengers when radical Islamist terrorists hijacked her aircraft in Karachi, Pakistan. She informed the pilots who used their escape hatch to get away. When the terrorists demanded to know who the Americans were on the flight so they could execute them, Bhanot gathered all passports and hid those belonging to Americans under seat cushions.


The terrorists confused and unable to determine the national origins of the passengers didn’t execute anyone. When Pakistani police raided the plane she was able to nearly singlehandedly evacuate all the passengers as the firefight ensued.


She was one of the last people on board and found three children still hiding. As she led the children to safety the surviving terrorists spotted the children and opened fire on them. Neerja jumped in the way of the bullets and was mortally wounded.


She was able to evacuate the children to safety before dying from her wounds. She also posthumously received a “Special Courage” award from the government of Pakistan and recognition from the U.S. Department of Justice. The 2016 Indian Hindi-language biographical thriller drama, Neerja, is about her life.

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A Tribute To the Mind and Heart of Gregory Bateson on the 40th Anniversary of His Death

Some of us may be quite fortunate in having one or more people outside of our families, who have a huge, positive, and lasting impact on our lives. One of those people for me was Gregory Bateson. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Gregory, he was the son of William Bateson, a biologist who coined the term “genetics.” As a young adult, he was an anthropologist in the South Pacific, where he met and later married Margaret Meade, his first of three wives.

During his time in the South Pacific, his thinking began to expand beyond the typical bounds of anthropology. Over the years, he was involved in studies of communication, learning and cognition, psychology, biology, evolution, systems thinking, and cybernetics. His thinking has and continues to influence diverse disciplines and domains of interest. He was one of the great intellects of the 20th Century, whose influence was much more expansive than his popularity among the general populace.

In 1975 and after my year as a middle school science teacher, I had the opportunity to study with Gregory during a 5 week, live-in workshop of education, at what was known then as Naropa Institute in Boulder Colorado. There were only about 12-15 people in this class. And, we all stayed in a big house near the base of the Flatirons, the steep cliffs at the start of the Rocky Mountains. We ate all of our meals together, some of which Gregory prepared, including Oxtail Soup. This experience allowed all of us to be totally immersed in thinking about some of Gregory’s key concepts: relationships, patterns, double binds, context, epistemolgoy, cybernetics, systems, and so forth. But, much of what learned went beyond these intellectual pursuits. We also learned a great deal from being together, exploring our own humanity. Gregory manifested tremendous generosity, kindness, humility, ordinariness, endless curiosity, humor, and so forth.

Re-enacting Shakespeare

He was a remarkable human being. And, to this day, I value having had this opportunity to get to know Gregory and soak up mostly the curiosity and patterns of thinking, as well as some of his major ideas, which have continued to influence my own thinking.

Exploring Pond Ecology

This is dedicated to Nora Bateson (who was present in 1975 at 7 years old), who has picked up the Batesonian torch and taken it to even greater heights…. and to all of the people around the world, who are working on keeping Gregory’s ideas alive and expanding them in a multitude of new directions and contexts.

Shakespeare Discussions

Some Readings and Links

Gregory Bateson Books

Nora Bateson

International Bateson Institute

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Learning, Complexity, Improvisation, & Relationships

Many years ago, during my second year of teaching middle school science in Brooklyn, New York, we took our students to a 5-day long, environmental studies program. The program took place at a summer camp during its off-season. It was late May in the Adirondack Mountains. We had taken these same students to a different program in Vermont the year before, which is where the students, who were new to the middle school, went this particular year. The principal of the middle school and several teachers went with the group to Vermont and several of us who had gone the previous year went with the “veteran” students to the Adirondacks.

Middle school kids during the first trip to Vermont.

When we arrived at the camp, the kids came off the buses and cars and started running around in their typical fashion, while cursing and laughing and letting off steam after a long ride. Shortly, after arriving, the camp personnel held a meeting, where they laid out the RULES. “This is an elite camp. There is no cursing. The boys’ cabins are off-limits to the girls and the girls’ cabins are off-limits to the boys. Blah, blah, blah…” And, so it went on for 30 minutes. We, the teachers, were looking at one another and rolling our eyes. The kids were squirming and rolling their eyes.

Afterwards the kids were sent to unload their packs in their assigned cabins. The teachers obediently went to the cabins to which we were assigned. When I walked into my boys’ cabin, they were diligently unpacking, while cursing and laughing and groaning about the camp personnel. I, of course, cursed at the kids to stop cursing. It broke the tension.

We then met for the first set of activities. It was hot and humid, and the black flies (if you are not familiar with black flies, they are small and aggressive biters) were eating everyone alive. The activities were boring and lifeless and mostly involved being talked at by the camp people.

The next day was rainy and very chilly. The kids and teachers survived another day of dreadful activities. And, the kids were amazingly patient with and tolerant of the people running the program, but their patience was running thin. In the middle of that night, a camp counselor came into my cabin and woke me up. “I just wanted to warn you that we’ve had 2 feet of snow and all of the power and phone lines are down, and the roads are impassable,” he whispered.

No one packed for winter. We arrived in shorts and sneakers. I packed rain boots and a raincoat, with a sweater and light jacket. In addition, a small group of our kids went on a 3-night survival trip… in sneakers and light clothing. By the time they arrived back at the camp after their first night out, they all had hypothermia. A few of the boys, who in most schools would be the troublemakers, leapt into action. They went around to all of the cabins talking other kids out of extra blankets to use to get their hypothermic classmates warmed up.

The entire trip became a survival trip, which in an odd way saved this trip. All of the rules were dropped and everyone helped in dealing with this unforeseen event. On the last day, the principal who had gone to the Vermont trip, showed up. The other camp had had the same snowstorm. He left that camp as soon as he could to come check on how we fared.

It took a disaster to prevent a disaster at the Adirondack trip.

In looking back on this trip, the school, the teachers, and the kids, a few things jump out at me now. Although I really liked the kids, the teachers, and the school at the time, I was still near the bottom of my multi-contextual-learning-about-teaching arc. I don’t want to call it a “learning curve,” because the learning doesn’t go up and then down, the learning just keeps going, while getting deeper and more integrated with one’s life. But, now with many years of experience and learning under my belt, I’m finding this story, and many others, to be very interesting. In one sense, which I will not go into here, there are glimmers of various themes that developed and grew into major guiding “frameworks” for my own thinking and practice as an educator and ordinary human being — by the way, I don’t like the word “frameworks,” because it is much too static. In the other sense, I can look backwards and see how “advanced” we were at the time, as well as to see how many of the ideas involved in complex systems were remarkably evident.

Relationships

As far as I can remember, as teachers, we never really talked explicitly about relationships. But, most of us seemed to work on developing relationships with the kids and with one another. Going to the camp and sitting through that awful initial meeting was a shared experience of shock and disappointment. The teachers knew it and the kids knew it. And, my going into the boys’ cabin and saying, “Stop the *$@#& !&%@#! cursing,” was a way of connecting into that shared sense of relationship. The kids laughed and we moaned together, while comparing how different this year’s trip was to the previous year in Vermont. But, the relationships went much deeper. We all showed our vulnerabilities, even though some of the kids tried to hide them. We also trusted and respected one another. The kids were never shy about giving teachers advice, any more than we were shy about giving them advice.

Taking the helm. These kids could always be relied upon in a pinch.

As teachers, we tried to work with the kids to share in the running of the school… in making decisions, dealing with issues, and so forth. We weren’t always successful in this endeavor, but I do think that such an emphasis played out in situations where they could step out and take control, such as with helping the kids with hypothermia on this trip and on a sailing trip where most of the kids were seasick and the ones who were not sick manned the helm and ropes, when the others couldn’t. No adults ever needed to tell them what to do.

Complexity

In order to understand complex living systems, we need to see the webs or matrices of relationships that are involved, that arise, and that disappear. There’s a fluidity in these relationships. When the kids were reprimanded in the beginning of the trip by people with whom they had no relationship, it broke the relational potentiality and trust. But, as a group of kids and teachers who had developed relationships of trust, at least some degree, the group “identity” and relationships were maintained. Had we, the teachers, sided with the camp counselors, we would have threatened the integrity of our complex system. As it was, the interaction between the two systems of the camp and our school group was problematic, but to our own group system, this interaction was more of an interruption or interference to our more established system. Our group system recalibrated and adjusted, while maintaining our own relationships within the system. After the snowstorm, our more established system recalibrated again and self-organized to meet the newly imposed demands. The camp system became irrelevant except as the source of local knowledge.  

Improvisation

The highly structured and mechanized system of the camp with its strict set of rules and regulations (could be policies, laws, etc. in other contexts), had little flexibility to address drastic changes in the context. Even though the individuals within that system changed their approaches, the camp system faltered. The relational “structure” cracked. However, the school group system was inherently flexible. Middle school children are in the midst of testing limits, exerting their own control, and of becoming adults. Trying to restrict and solidify the boundaries and processes in this age group is self-defeating. But, this school’s approach provided the space and contexts for children to develop within a supportive environment and, in reflection, as a complex living system. As a result, flexibility was built-in. With such flexibility, the kids and the teachers were free to improvise. The notion of being a leader was not some static and singular entity. Yes, the teachers were leaders, but not autocratic. The children were free to jump in and be leaders.

Having been prepared for a spring trip, but finding ourselves in a winter environment, forced kids and teachers to improvise. My summer rain and shallow wading boots along with layers of socks became tolerable winter boots. Layers of clothing worked for everyone helped us deal with the cold. Improvisation became a survival strategy.

Learning

The learning that took place was more aligned to the type of learning described by Nora Bateson: Symmathesy or mutual contextual learning (SEE the symmathesy chapter in Small Arcs of Larger Circles: Framing Through Other Patterns). This type of learning is at the interface between contexts, systems, groups, and/or individuals.

Note that individuals, groups, contexts, and systems are all the same. Each of us is a context made of contexts, as are groups. Each of us is a system made of other systems and connected in various ways to other systems. You can even use “system” and “context” interchangeably.

We are not always aware of this kind of symmathesetic learning. It occurs in the immediacy and intimacy of our interactions with others and other contexts. It seems to me to be the most fundamental of learning that occurs at the level of perception. Although this learning is not the same as what we usually think of as learning, such as learning facts, concepts, theories, and so forth, symmathesy feeds the raw nuggets of information on relationships to this other area of learning that creates what we can think of as our individual and social epistemologies or sets of knowledge.

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The Dissolution of the Personal and Social Fabric

by Jeff Bloom
posted 2020-02-07
first posted in the Exploratory Nook & Store Blog

Disconnected Connections… New York City (Jeff Bloom, 1970)

From individuals to families to society to the global context, the connectedness or integrity of individuals, as well as social integrity is crumbling. Although throughout history there have been conflicts and acts of incredible aggression towards one another, we seem to be entering a new and frightening era of disconnection at all levels of scale.

We disconnect with ourselves, while falling into patterns of not engaging in our worlds, not being kind to ourselves, feeling sorry for ourselves or feeling somehow entitled, or acting out in ways that are hurtful and dishonest. Family life for many is similarly disconnected from the beginning. And, as families grow older, family members disperse with varying degrees of disconnection to others in the family. Schools and classrooms have become more like factories, where teachers, by not particular fault of their own, attempt to mold children into some sort of clones of “normality,” while focusing on teaching to tests and forgetting about the beautiful diversity, creativity, emotions, and individuality of each child. In societies, people rarely interact with one another in meaningful and empathetic ways. We’re divided by politics, religion, skin color, language and accents, nationality, livelihoods, how much money one has, or how many and what kinds of “things” one owns. We also suffer from lack of long-term relationships. People move away from their childhood community, then continue to move chasing dreams and money or running away from oneself or various forms of aggression, loss, and upheaval. The same patterns of disconnects are occurring globally. As we’ve become a global “society” of sorts, we’ve also increased the psychosocial, emotional, and cognitive demands on people from extremely diverse cultures and belief systems.

The pressures on individuals and social groups that have been leading to massive changes in the dynamics and relationships within oneself, between people, and even to our environments and to learning itself, has not been a recent onset of some singular cause. This trend has been going on for millennia.

From the beginning of humankind, people have clustered together. We are social animals, after all. We have always wanted to be loved and appreciated. At the same time, we have helped and cared one another, we have protected our social groups, and we have worked to maintain the integrity of our group. Some current tribal cultures that have kept and valued important aspects of their lineages, of their belief systems, and their ways of life. As a result, they have been able to maintain a certain individual and social integrity. David Maybury-Lewis’ wonderful TV series and book, Millennium: Tribal Wisdom in the Modern World, provides a powerful examination of the wisdom found in such tribal societies. And, that wisdom is based on notions of connectedness and interdependency, as well as on the relationships to their environments, to their ancestors’s wisdom, and to one another.

However, the increasing disconnectedness across most human societies has been due to a variety of changes in technologies, in the way humans have organized their societies, and in the way that philosophies and religions have viewed people and the living natural world. From the first wood and stone tools to huge passenger jet airplanes, humans and their societies have undergone huge and dramatic changes periodically. This sort of pattern of big changes after periods of very little change is similar to Stephen Jay Gould’s idea of punctuated equilibrium in biological evolution. I suppose we can refer to these big social and cultural changes as “punctuated equilibrium in cultural evolution.”

Some of the big moments of changed occurred with the technological advances of manufacturing of wood and stone tools and of controlling fire. All of a sudden humankind could hunt more easily, keep warm, and cook food. Pottery allowed food to be stored and even transported. And, with each transportation advance can huge changes in the mixing of culture and trade. Horses, the horses pulling vehicles with wheels, boats and ships allowed travel up and down rivers, across lakes, and then across the oceans. Trains provided for fairly rapid travel from one place to a distant location. Motorized vehicles suddenly made huge differences in travel to places of work and even migrating across one’s country or to other countries. Propeller planes and then jets made travel across the country or halfway around the world possible in only a matter of hours instead of days, weeks, or months. Each such change made huge differences in how we related with one another, with our environments, and with ourselves. These changes transformed violent conflicts from face-to-face battles in relatively contained areas to remote killing and destruction from an armchair or from miles above ground. The extent of disconnection has seemed to increase exponentially. Even when driving a car, we can curse and disparage other drivers and drive in ways that are like video games, but with much greater risks. We can shop without ever talking directly to another person. And, we can sit at family dinners and be totally engrossed in a remote world, while never even talking to our families. We can walk through forests listening to music or talk shows and never hear a cricket, a bird, or the wind rustling the leaves of trees. We no longer allow time to relate to our own experiential worlds or to wonder about big questions.

Although all of these advances are not necessarily “bad,” we have allowed the technologies to usurp our hearts and minds. As with technologies, we also have succumbed to ways of thinking that separate us, from the Biblical notion of the Earth is here for humans to use as desired to the separation of humankind from nature by René Descartes to the Ayn Randian ego supremacy and to the notions of technology as savior. As a result of all of these changes mixed with greed for power and money and the separation of the elite and wealthy from everyone else, we are now facing major intertwined issues across all sectors and contexts of our lives and our environments.

As Robert Bly discusses in The Sibling Society, we live in a society of adolescents and run by adolescents. The lineage of increasing disconnects and superficial learning and thinking promoted by schools, families, and societies has brought us to a point where our fellow citizens do not have “the thinking and conceptual tools” that have been side-stepped by the politics of schooling, where the agenda, under the guise of raising standards and improving teacher accountability, is to keep the general population “dumbed down” so that they can be controlled. A wide assortment of resources that discuss aspects of this agenda can be found in the Learning and Teaching section of The Exploratory Nook & Store, where many of authors follow the history of intertwined contexts and agendas that have contributed to our current state of affairs. Other authors offer ways to counter such agendas through the way we can create contexts of deeper learning and complex thinking.

© 2020 by Jeffrey W. Bloom

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The Poison That Will Destroy Humanity… & What We Need to Do About It

From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

definition of poison

1 a : a substance that through its chemical action usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism
b (1) : something destructive or harmful
(2) : an object of aversion or abhorrence
2 : a substance that inhibits the activity of another substance or the course of a reaction or process
a catalyst poison

It eats away at our hearts
It erodes our minds
It clouds our vision
It destroys our relationships
It poisons the depth of our humanity
And, it poisons everything and everyone we touch.

The more we indulge, the more addictive it becomes
The more we indulge, the stronger we rationalize
The stronger it becomes, the more isolated we become.

It crushes the essence of our humanity
It’s the master of disconnection
It eliminates our conscience.
This poison spreads like the plague
We can no longer love or be loved
And, as social contagion, it can extinguish all human life.

This poison is hate… hatred. It’s being promoted by our leaders, notably Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin, Jair Bolsonaro, Giuseppe Conte, and far too many more. They are barely human. And, the poisonous hatred they spread will do no more than destroy our societies and undermine any hope of surviving the impending disastrous convergence of over-population, ecosystem collapse, collapsing biogeochemical cycles, disappearing resources, water shortages, food shortages, rising sea levels, desertification, massive immigrations to and from all corners of Earth, and probably extinction-level human deaths.

If we really want to start dealing with our survival, we have to start working together. Hatred will tear us apart and prevent any kind of meaningful action. We must work despite our differences. In fact, an appreciation of the variation and diversity among us can and should be the very antidote to the poison that permeating all parts of the world.

Hatred has taken over societies in the past. And, they did poison societies. But, the stakes are much higher now. The issues listed in a previous paragraph are going to reach a peak, while the hatred grows. We have no time to bicker and waste.

When a forest faces a crisis, competing species of trees and other plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria work together to help the survival of the ecosystem. There’s no individual survival. They all must survive to maintain the system. But, people seem dead set on individual survival. And, that is not possible.

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Major Contexts, Systems, and Issues Involved in Civilization Collapse

There appears to be a very high probability that human civilization will collapse within the next three decades or so. I’ll probably be dead by the time the mass extinction occurs (if there is reincarnation, there may be nothing left to come back as). But, I’d rather die knowing that my children and all children living today will have a reasonable shot at living a full life.

If we are concerned about averting civilization and massive ecosystem collapse, we can do something. But, we need to take massive and drastic action quickly. But, our actions must be wise and comprehensive. We can’t get caught in trying to find a savior (i.e., a person, a group, an institution, a government, a technology, or whatever). We have to take transcontextual actions (i.e., actions that span multiple contexts, situations, systems, etc.) involving as many diverse people as possible working in between (in the liminal spaces between) institutions and governments.

However, before we go any further with how to take action, I’d like to provide a brief overview of what I consider some of the major contextual or systemic issues that need to be addressed. Although I’ve listed these separate issues, it is best to think of these as intertwined aspects of one major systemic issue.

  • Population — This may be the single most important issue to tackle. There is no way our planetary resources can support a burgeoning population. We must begin efforts for negative population growth. Maybe actions could include global distribution of free birth control, education of women, global economic and equitable wealth distribution, increased taxation on families with more than one child along with tax benefits for having no children, readily available women’s health clinics with abortion services, and so forth.
  • Global Warming, with concomitant sea level rise, flooding, devastating climatic and weather events, desertification, etc. — All of these will tank economies, kill and displace hundreds of millions or more people, increase warfare, increase starvation, decrease resource availability, increase forced immigration for mere survival, and so forth.
  • Capitalism and Emphases on Economic Growth — The current economic system will continue to over-tax multiple complex living systems, deplete resources, increase proportions of those living in poverty, etc., and will magnify all of the other issues.
  • Energy Use and Production — So far, most “green” energies are not so green. I just read about hydrogen cars. They have no emissions, except for water, but all the emissions and resources are front-loaded (manufacturing) or remote (hydrogen production is energy intensive and produces CO & CO2).  The same sort of pattern is true of electric and hybrid cars. Solar has it’s own issues, with resources and the need to replace them every 15 to 20 years. Wind has similar issues, as well.
  • Peak & Dwindling Resources — Almost all resources (e.g., metals, minerals, oil, gas, farmland, water, etc.) are at or near “peak” and are dwindling rapidly.
  • Carrying Capacity (the ability of any particular ecosystem or even the biosphere) to support its living systems) — Most countries are well past carrying capacity. In such cases, what appears to be living normally, is analogous to running out of money, then borrowing a $100,000 or more on which to live. But, you don’t have any way of paying back the debt without drastically reducing your entire lifestyle.
  • Ecosystem Collapse and Loss of Biodiversity, as well as a Corresponding Resistance to Valuing Human Diversity — All living system thrive and depend upon diversity. Ecosystems collapse as they lose their diversity. The current situation with massive losses to insects and other species of living things is going to have a huge impact on ecosystem survival, which in turn will negatively impact human survival.

In addition to addressing these issues, we need to address the core features of what it means to be human living in various contexts. If we don’t address the “warm data,” we will not be able to affect change. We must take into account the emotions, aesthetics, values, beliefs, and other dimensions of being human in today’s world. We also have to short circuit our addiction to “finding one solution,” “finding the savior,” reductionism, mechanistic thinking, and so forth. There have to be multiple possible solutions that address all of the issues in different ways. It has to involve a change in the way we think. It has to involve transcontextual approaches. And, although governments, corporations, and various institutions can help, they can’t solve this crisis. They are too stuck in procedures, policies, and other inflexibilities. Wherever we work, we have to step out of the institutional mindset and join others to work in the liminal (in between) spaces where we can take action without the typical constraints.

SEE:

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How We Think About Animal Behavior — Moving Beyond Behaviorism, Mechanism, Positivism, and Other Problematic Biases

This post has been stimulated by a posting in the “Animal Cognition” group in Facebook that shows a video of a crow trying to break up a rather intense fight between two cats. The crow repeatedly caws loudly at the two cats, then pecks at the base of the tails of the cats (it’s difficult to distinguish whether the crow is pecking at the same cat or at both cats, since the two cats look very similar).

Courageous Crow Tries to Break Up Cat Fight

I’ve been watching my Doberman do the same sort of thing for almost 8 years. If two dogs get into a fight in the dog park, she’ll run up and bark at the two dogs. If that doesn’t do anything, she’ll try to figure out who the aggressor is and pull its tail and run away. She’ll also do the same thing with people who are vehemently arguing (e.g., my wife and I or two people in the dog park), except there are no tails to pull.

In the past, we were stuck in a behaviorist paradigm, where the ideas of animal emotion, animal cognition, and animal consciousness or sentience were dismissed. But, we’re moving beyond such behaviorist views. However, there are still lingering remnants of this paradigm and its companion paradigms of positivism and mechanism and how they affect the way we perceive and think about animal behavior. We may need to consider that behavior, cognition, emotion, learning, etc. manifest:

  • as falling along a continuum of complicatedness (I want to avoid using “complexity,” since I don’t want to confuse this aspect with complex systems, even though behavior, cognition, emotion, etc. do play roles in thinking and learning as complex systems);
  • as adaptive characteristics for the contexts in which an organism lives; and
  • as fundamental characteristics of life.

We seem to get stuck in comparing thinking, acting, learning, etc. to the way we think, act, learn, etc., rather than looking at such things from the contextual perspective of the particular organism. For my Dobie (Dobermans are very sensitive and do not like yelling or fighting), she takes on a role of peace-keeper, which also extends to protecting the perimeter of the house, by alerting us to the presence of people. However, she is extremely observant, so if a person “passes” her visual and other sensory assessments, they can come into the house without further ado. We’ve never had to deal with this, but if a dangerous person tried to enter, I suspect she’d go through several levels of warning before she would neutralize the threat. She did try to warn me about a new vet I took her to. The minute the vet walked into the exam room, she started snarling. I had never seen her do this around any other person, even local gang-bangers who approached admiring my dog and asking how mean she was. But, as I found out, the vet was a money-grubber and psychopath. I should have trusted my dog’s judgment and left immediately.

However, the point is, that every living organism, thinks, learns, reacts emotionally (the biochemical substances associated with emotions are found throughout the spectrum of living things), and interacts with other living things cooperatively and competitively (both can happen with the same organism, but the type of interaction depends on the specific contextual circumstances of the moment).

So, the crow in this video, which like dogs, has developed in ways to or adapted to live in conjunction with humans and their pets. Both crows and dogs are quite intelligent. And, it very well may be that the crow is the neighborhood peace-keeper. This is not to say that all crows act this way. However, this particular crow may have had sets of experiences and particular inclinations that have led to his or her taking on this role. My dog has assumed this role. Not all dogs do, but I have observed other dogs act as peace-keepers, as well.

Intelligence, emotions, and sentience seem to be characteristics of life. From bacteria to humans, organisms think, learn, and act in ways that are appropriate to their experiences in the contexts in which they live. We can’t directly compare and assess intelligence, etc. in terms of our own intelligence and emotions. We can only compare how different organisms’ intelligence and emotions are suited for their own contexts. From this perspective, bacteria may be the ultimate in appropriate emotions and intelligence. They not only survive through multiple assaults from the environment and from humans, but they help other organisms survive (from individual survival to the survival of all life) and have created and regulated the Earth’s atmosphere and biogeochemical cycles that have provided the contexts of survival for all organisms. We, on the other hand, seem to be hell-bent on destroying ourselves and other species. That is not very intelligent in any context.

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Children’s Learning for the 21st Century: It May Not Be What You Think

In various contexts in which education is discussed or promoted, invariably there is going to be a new initiative that sounds something like “21st Century Schools” or “21st Century Skills” and so forth. But, in reality, not much has changed over the past century and not much is likely to change in the near future. Probably for the first time in human history we are facing a clear possibility for extinction. At the very least, we will be facing uncertain and extremely difficult times over the next few decades. At this point, we are not talking about in 50 or 100 years. We are talking about the next 10 to 20 years.

However, the difficulty with the above statements is that we really don’t have any sense of impending doom. We get up and go about our daily routines in much the same way we’ve done for many years. Nothing seems all that different, despite what we may hear or read. Even though we may know that the future looks grim, our everyday experiences communicate a very different message about the future. We’re being screwed with by our very own experiences. And, this situation of contradictory information is dangerous. It’s a bit like driving down a highway in cruise control and not believing the signs warning that the bridge over the ravine has collapsed. “How could these signs be true? It’s a beautiful day and a beautiful highway!”

So, back to what children should be learning. We’re on this highway, but the systems involved in education, including the education system itself, the political system, the economic system, and the social system, are not particularly known for being able to adapt or change quickly. In fact, these systems are resistant to change. All of these systems are deeply intertwined and interdependent that any attempt to change in one will require massive changes in all of the others. And, with the present situation in the U.S. and many other countries, the political and economic systems are working diligently to undermine any attempts to address the monumental issues we are facing. Such tendencies and actions are serving to hasten the collapse of everything we take for granted.

So, we can’t rely on our institutions of education or whatever to address what our children need. They are still out for the quick profits and for keeping the populace dumbed down. And, if you’ve been reading any recent articles about the wealthy surviving the future, you’ve seen that the wealthy don’t care about the rest of us. They are already preparing to survive without us.

Of course, there are exceptions, but they are just that… exceptions. There may be the odd school bucking the system or the occasional teacher risking her or his job to really address children’s needs. But, the fundamental status for “the rest of us” is that we’ll be the first to die off, unless we do something about it.

Children’s relevant learning will have to happen somewhere in between the institutions and despite the conglomerate of systems. It’s up to us. But, what is worth learning? And, who decides what is worth learning? These have been two of the major critical questions asked among curriculum theorists. But, now they have to be asked by us and by our children. As much as we may hope that our children will grow up and get a good job and have a nice family, this may be a pipe dream. But, if you’ve ever played poker, you don’t want to throw away your ace in the hole. Maybe there is an outside chance of that kind of future happening… for a while. But, we need to play all our cards.

If all or most of the infrastructures (electrical grid, health, transportation, etc.) collapse, what will our children need to know? If everyone is scrambling for survival, what will our children need to know about working with diverse people? What else will we need to know? How will the way we think have to change?

…

The near future is likely to be a completely different ballgame. We have no experiences that will prepare us for what could happen. The ways in which we think, which may have been quite useful for us so far, will no longer work. This will not be “business as usual.”