ENHANCE THE LEARNING, PERCEPTION AND HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
WHAT is Learning?
Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machines; there is also evidence for some kind of learning in certain plants. Some learning is immediate, induced by a single, but much skill and knowledge accumulate from repeated experiences. The changes induced by learning often last a lifetime, and it is hard to distinguish learned material that seems to be "lost" from that which cannot be retrieved.
HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN LEARNS?
Learning is a complicated practice. Several thousand years ago, the primary obligation of the human brain was to figure out how to find food, avoid getting eaten by a predator (including finding a safe place to sleep), and find a mate. Now, in addition to those basic human functions, our brains are inundated with other facts and tasks that need to be learned.
The brain is composed of a trillion cells of at least two known types, nerve cells (neurons) and glial M cells. Each brain neuron is about one hundredth of the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Even though most of the neurons where information is stored are present at birth, there is lifelong growth of the support and connecting cells that enrich the communication between neurons.
Dendrites are tree like extensions (dendrite actually comes from the Greek word meaning treelike) that protrude from a neuron and receive information from other neurons and transmit information to other neurons along axons. Each neuron can have up to 10,000 branches, dendrites, emerging from its core but only one axon.
New dendrites grow as branches from frequently activated neurons. Once these dendrites are formed, the brain’s plasticity allows it to reshape and reorganize the networks of dendrite-neuron connections in response to increased or decreased use of these pathways. Axons are surrounded by a fatty layer of tissue called the myelin sheath which helps speed up the neural impulses between neuron. Practice, in a variety of formats, helps fatten up the myelin sheath, which strengthens the connections between neurons in different area of our brain and helps those neurons perform in unison. A Practice also helps grow and thicken the dendrites.
Impulses are sent between neurons from the axon’s terminal buttons by shooting neurotransmitters across the synapse. Neurotransmitters are brain chemicals like dopamine, amino acids serotonin, and tryptophan carries information across the space separating the axon extensions of one neuron, from the dendrite that leads to the next neuron on the pathway. Forming and strengthening the connections between the neurons in our brain is the foundation of learning. The next brain lesson will introduce other concepts to help you understand and take charge of your learning process.
A NEW LOOK AT LEARNING
There is a new understanding of how learning occurs, and it contradicts what most students believe happens when they learn. Students must be aware of new discoveries in order to optimize their learning skills.
- Neuroscience research shows that when you learn something new, there is a physical change in your brain. Some of your brain cells establish connections with other brain cells to form new networks of cells, which represent the new learning that has taken place.
- Every time you use or practice newly learned information or skills, the connections between the brain cells get stronger and your ability to recall the information becomes faster. This is called long-term potentiation.
- The important message for all learners is that new learning requires a considerable amount of practice and a meaningful connection to other information in order to become a permanent part of memory.
- Neuroscience research has also found that to form lasting memories, practice needs to happen over extended periods. Psychologists call this the distributed practice effect.
- Cramming is not learning. A day or two of cramming is not nearly enough time for the brain to form the permanent memories necessary to meet the neuroscience definition of learning.
- You can demonstrate learning by using new information to help you learn similar new information or by applying it to problems beyond those you have been doing in class. Psychologists call this transference.
- The human brain is constantly looking for connections to prior knowledge. These connections link previously learned material to new material, creating a more meaningful understanding of the new material.
- The message from neuroscience researchers is simple: “The one who does the work does the learning”. Only when you practice, read, write, think, talk, collaborate, and reflect does your brain make permanent connections. Your teachers cannot do this for you.
PERCEPTION
Perception philosophy is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual facts, particularly how they relate to ideas or knowledge of the world. Any explicit description of experience necessitates a commitment to one of several ontological or metaphysical perspectives. Philosophers distinguish between internalist explanations, which assume that perceptions of things, and externalist accounts, which assume that perceptions of objects,and knowledge or ideas about them are elements of a person's mind, whereas externalist explanations claim that they are actual components of the universe outside of the individual. The presence of perceptual illusions and hallucinations contradicts the stance of naive realism—the 'everyday' sense of physical things constituting what is observed.Considering the relativity of perceptual perception, as well as some scientific findings Phenomenalism, direct and indirect realism are all examples of realist concepts. Idealism and skepticism are two anti-realist viewpoints.A recent philosophical study has gone beyond the singular paradigm of vision to focus on the philosophical aspects of perception.
AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.
-By David Hume
The different species of philosophy
- Moral philosophy, or the science of human nature, may be treated after two different manners; each of which has its peculiar merit, and may contribute to the entertainment, instruction, and reformation of mankind. The one considers man chiefly as born for action; and as influenced in his measures by taste and sentiment; pursuing one object, and avoiding another, according to the value which these objects seem to possess, and according to the light in which they present themselves. As virtue, of all objects, is allowed to be the most valuable, this species of philosophers paint her in the most amiable colours; borrowing all helps from poetry and eloquence, and treating their subject in an easy and obvious manner, and such as is best fitted to please the imagination, and engage the affections. They select the most striking observations and instances from common life; place opposite characters in a proper contrast; and alluring us into the paths of virtue by the views of glory and happiness, direct our steps in these paths by the soundest precepts and most illustrious examples. They make us feel the difference between vice and virtue; they excite and regulate our sentiments; and so they can but bend our hearts to the love of probity and true honour, they think, that they have fully attained the end of all their labours.
- Every one will readily allow, that there is a considerable difference between the perceptions of the mind, when a man feels the pain of excessive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his memory this sensation, or anticipates it by his imagination. These faculties may mimic or copy the perceptions of the senses; but they never can entirely reach the force and vivacity of the original sentiment. The utmost we say of them, even when they operate with greatest vigour, is, that they represent their object in so lively a manner, that we could almost say we feel or see it: But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of vivacity, as to render these perceptions altogether undistinguishable. All the colours of poetry, however splendid, can never paint natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landscape. The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.
- We may observe a like distinction to run through all the other perceptions of the mind. A man, in a fit of anger, is actuated in a very different manner from one who only thinks of that emotion. If you tell me, that any person is in love, I easily understand your meaning, and form a just conception of his situation; but never can mistake that conception for the real disorders and agitations of the passion.
the association of ideas
- It is evident, that there is a principle of connexion between the different thoughts or ideas of the mind, and that, in their appearance to the memory or imagination, they introduce each other with a certain degree of method and regularity. In our more serious thinking or discourse, this is so observable, that any particular thought, which breaks in upon the regular tract or chain of ideas, is immediately remarked and rejected. And even in our wildest and most wandering reveries, nay in our very dreams, we shall find, if we reflect, that the imagination ran not altogether at adventures, but that there was still a connexion upheld among the different ideas, which succeeded each other. Were the loosest and freest conversation to be transcribed, there would immediately be observed something which connected it in all its transitions. Or where this is wanting, the person, who broke the thread of discourse, might still inform you, that there had secretly revolved in his mind a succession of thought, which had gradually led him from the subject of conversation. Among different languages, even where we cannot suspect the least connexion or communication, it is found, that the words, expressive of ideas, the most compounded, do yet nearly correspond to each other: A certain proof that the simple ideas, comprehended in the compound ones, were bound together by some universal principle, which had an equal influence on all mankind.
Sceptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding
- All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, relations of ideas and matters of fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of geometry, algebra, and arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the square of the two sides, is a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence
- Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood.
Sceptical solution of these doubts
- The passion for philosophy, like that for religion, seems liable to this inconvenience, that, though it aims at the correction of our manners, and extirpation of our vices, it may only serve, by imprudent management, to foster a predominant inclination, and push the mind, with more determined resolution, towards that side which already draws too much, by the bias and propensity of the natural temper. It is certain that, while we aspire to the magnanimous firmness of the philosophic sage, and endeavour to confine our pleasures altogether within our own minds, we may, at last, render our philosophy like that of Epictetus, and other Stoics, only a more refined system of selfishness, and reason ourselves out of all virtue as well as social enjoyment. While we study with attention the vanity of human life, and turn all our thoughts towards the empty and transitory nature of riches and honours, we are, perhaps, all the while flattering our natural indolence, which, hating the bustle of the world, and drudgery of business, seeks a pretence of reason to give itself a full and uncontrolled indulgence. There is, however, one species of philosophy which seems little liable to this inconvenience, and that because it strikes in with no disorderly passion of the human mind, nor can mingle itself with any natural affection or propensity; and that is the Academic or Sceptical philosophy.
Probability
- Though there be no such thing as chance in the world; our ignorance of the real cause of any event has the same influence on the understanding, and begets a like species of belief or opinion.
- There is certainly a probability, which arises from a superiority of chances on any side; and according as this superiority increases, and surpasses the opposite chances, the probability receives a proportionable increase, and begets still a higher degree of belief or assent to that side, in which we discover the superiority. If a die were marked with one figure or number of spots on four sides, and with another figure or number of spots on the two remaining sides, it would be more probable, that the former would turn up than the latter; though, if it had a thousand sides marked in the same manner, and only one side different, the probability would be much higher, and our belief or expectation of the event more steady and secure. This process of the thought or reasoning may seem trivial and obvious; but to those who consider it more narrowly, it may, perhaps, afford matter for curious speculation.
- It seems evident, that, when the mind looks forward to discover the event, which may result from the throw of such a die, it considers the turning up of each particular side as alike probable; and this is the very nature of chance, to render all the particular events, comprehended in it, entirely equal.
The idea of necessary connexion
- The great advantage of the mathematical sciences above the moral consists in this, that the ideas of the former, being sensible, are always clear and determinate, the smallest distinction between them is immediately perceptible, and the same terms are still expressive of the same ideas, without ambiguity or variation. An oval is never mistaken for a circle, nor an hyperbola for an ellipsis. The isosceles and scalenum are distinguished by boundaries more exact than vice and virtue, right and wrong. If any term be defined in geometry, the mind readily, of itself, substitutes, on all occasions, the definition for the term defined: Or even when no definition is employed, the object itself may be presented to the senses, and by that means be steadily and clearly apprehended. But the finer sentiments of the mind, the operations of the understanding, the various agitations of the passions, though really in themselves distinct, easily escape us, when surveyed by reflection; nor is it in our power to recall the original object, as often as we have occasion to contemplate it. Ambiguity, by this means, is gradually introduced into our reasonings: Similar objects are readily taken to be the same: And the conclusion becomes at last very wide of the premises.
- One may safely, however, affirm, that, if we consider these sciences in a proper light, their advantages and disadvantages nearly compensate each other, and reduce both of them to a state of equality.
“Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will.”
— Vernon Howard
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