It's All About the Know-how. I Think.

Building on yesterday's excellent discussion, and remembering, always, the importance of holding ways of knowing to only their own standards of proof, let's consider for Tuesday what it means to think.  We do it all the time, and even actively work at doing it in new ways, but I wonder both if it's necessary to know how to think and whether or not we can explain what it is we're doing when we think. Consider first, please, this article on the abject failure of A.I. Then read about one person's determination in the fight to progress.  My Knowledge Question: to what extent is it necessary to know how to do something to be able to perform the action?  Please answer that from the perspective of each article and extract your own KQ from each article.  This writing (focused and mechanically sound) is due Monday at 9:30pm.

Time to Reconsider

Perhaps we've confused psychological relationships to time with time its self.  Consider this perspective.  If "we are prisoners in the present, locked in eternal transition between our past and our future" then at least historians will never be out of work.  Return, please, to the handout on history as an area of knowledge.  Provide one instance of historical knowledge from which you have gleaned self-knowledge.  Do the same, then, for literature.  Be specific about the instances, the revelations they provided, and when in your life they occurred.  Finally, extract a knowledge question from the historical knowledge, the literary knowledge, or their intersection.  Please complete this writing by Monday evening at 9:30 (local time) and, as always, arrive Tuesday having read one another's posts.

Time's Up

We don't seem to be having much luck finding objective truths, but maybe we just need more time.  Surely time is the same for everyone, isn't it?  Spend an hour listening to these perspectives on time.  Extract one knowledge question from one segment of the podcast and begin your post by sharing your KQ and it's context.  Next, formulate and share your definition of time.  Finally, identify and explain one way someone might disagree with your definition.  Please complete your thinking and writing by 9:30 Monday evening and arrive in class on Tuesday having read one another's posts.  Here are a couple musical interludes to pass the time.