Cognition, Miscommunication and the Spirit of Inquiry


On cognition - bringing forth a world.

 Our discussion of the excerpt from The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra in class last week has me thinking about how microscopic organisms have interaction too. What is their perception? I have been acutely aware this week, considering that every person has a different experience. I have been very careful in communications amidst a seas of chaos.
On miscommunication - it's a wonder anyone gets through anymore.   

 It's crunch time on the road to burning man.  Repairs require new solutions and re-fabrication.  The best laid plans end up in a redesign, redesign happens on the fly, from the inside, in the middle of the project with half the pieces already cut.  It's exhausting and exhilarating.  I love using my body and mind this way.  The shop is a microcosm of odd personalities, driven to the point of exhaustion with their chosen or assigned projects, wrestling with intense communication requirements.  Its ripe for miscommunication... a comedy of errors in perception.  

 Inches or centimeters?  Instructions given without specificity result in a miniature.  A tiny curtain panel. A pice that doesn't fit.  

 A phone call from the shop ignites a 40 minute home depot treasure hunt.  "You know, the power driver, a right angled metal tool in the electrical section... or is it in hardware?"  or "You just need a feral. A ferrule!"  

 A feral?  I thought the cats were kicked out of the shop along with the rescue organization.  And what is the name of that thing you lay on to roll under the car?  Oh yeah.... creeper.  

 Having the right words for things is tricky enough.  When emotion gets involved things erupt.

 I dictate to my phone a lot.  Siri doesn't take dictation well.  If her translations are any indication of how much an average person might hear and understand, I need diction lessons. If her level of comprehension is any indication of the differences in perception between us, it's a miracle any of us communicate.  

 The hardware arrived - time to get back to it!  
The Spirit of Inquiry

 The TED radio hour this week is amazing.  They chose to follow-up with scientists who had given talks that address the Spirit of Inquiry.  In one of them I realized what we're doing in this course - discourse.  In very few of our classes does the learning focus on collaboration and dialogue; identifying key ideas and discussing them to suss out what else might be in play.  It's the true spirit of discovery. 

A couple of other highlights from my notes on the lecture.  Apologies that they are not more specifically reference.  Listen to the whole thing!! 
*We never know completely... science is taking a bath in the uncertainty and continuing to wrestle the variables every answer or proof is only as good as it lasts or as long as it lasts. Science doesn’t ever actually prove anything.

**We trust our cars because there have been hundreds of years of work and development. A great example of collaboration, multiple contributors, development and progress.  And we trust Chinese medicine because of its thousands of years of repetition reuse etcetera. 

**Whoever gives you a certain answer is either bluffing or making up a part of it. The doctor was embarrassed by his overconfidence. Not by his action or the outcome, but by the conversation that he had with the patient. Humility - careful to respect just how much is still unknown. 

**The blanks in medicine can be just as important as the words that we use. What are the unknowns? 




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