Thursday, August 25, 2022

Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead said in his essay on the Aims of Education


" In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call “inert ideas”—that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations." 

That's where the hands come into play, for as Charles H. Hamm had noted, the mind seeks the truth but the hands discover it. Utilizing, testing, and throwing into new combinations is what the hands do best.

Whitehead had described a learning in depth process starting with romance of the idea, then the development of precision in the application of that idea, culminating in what he called "generalization" or the ability to leap toward application of an idea into fresh territory that may appear unrelated to the original application. 

Most internet learning stops short of the precision stage, in that most folks leap romantically from one idea to the next without investing energy in the development of precision. The development of precision requires application of both mind and body in the creative act. The consequence might reasonably be described as leading to a "soul infused notion," one which commands both the wakeful and sleeping mind in continuum.
 
The process Whitehead described is closely associated with the human use of metaphor to leap fro the known to the unknown, the formation of hypotheses, and involve the integration of the conscious and unconscious mind.

I share this kind of thing to counter the absurdities of the internet age, in which all things seem to be at the finger tip, and very little seems to be retained in the heart or mind.

I managed to get finish applied to the Arkansas Governor's Award for Quality base I'm making from walnut and spalted sycamore.

Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning likewise.

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