rattus rattus’ blog

A few days ago, I was skimming through thousands of pictures looking for eyes, preferably eyes of a strong tree out of a dream come true, but that’s another story. In my breaks, I did some day-to-day work like hopping over, actually scurrying over, to Dave Pollard (who we had already referred to) reading his daily blog on why we have not yet saved the world. So much for the history. Recently, Dave was asking for advice in seven words or less. His list, whether I like it or not, made me add our blogs starting credo Stop making sense to the list of comments and further advice. But only when I checked back I found the one advice (to love, to remember, to be and trust)

Breathe!

Added by Siona van Dijk. Or in my mother’s words: Schnaufn nid vagessn (Austrian dialect for “Don’t forget to breathe”). Thus, in a daring attempt to get the feel of an eyes’ glimpse of the air she is breathing, I scurried over to Siona’s profile where she writes

I trust uncertainty, don’t care for irony, and believe that paradox is a profound measure of truth.
— Siona van Dijk

Paradoxes only! Can you see the tree? On the path from trust to truth and back, the very grounds for liars to let trees flourish (trees with leaves of words) what more could we ask for? — Coffee! Of course, yes, but that’s again another story (though the same as above). — Simplification? — This is going to be complicated.

However, in the list of Siona’s bookmarks I found a link leading us to a list of Ten Commandments for a Simpler Way of Life (maybe we should make a list of lists, Juliet, please) where one can find (further) advices such as

II. You shall laugh on a daily basis.
VII. You shall turn off your technology.
VIII. You shall be spontaneous.
X. You shall learn what is ‘enough’.
— Ririan, 2007-04-05

An interesting list of commandments as only no liars could ever compile. A liar, though, cannot resist to add: For to lead a simple life You shall simplify simplification!

Sure, we “believe that all this could very well be wrong” (Siona van Dijk).

Having found the eyes, I’ll now go and look for roots.

But before I gonna move on, one more advice from yours truly rattus rattus: Answer for yourself what advice means to you.

Mercutio:	Why, may one ask?
Romeo:	I dreamt a dream to-night.
Mercutio:	And so did I.
Romeo:	Well, what was yours?
Mercutio:	That dreamers often lie.
Romeo:	In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

— William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

We liars dream of dreams.
And we dream of no dreams.
We dream of the dreamless state of mind.
We dream of pursuing our dreams.
We dream of dreams to come true.

We dreamers often lie.

Today, when using a local e-learning platform to get information about a course on “Interdisciplinary Communication” I learned the imperative way that interdisciplinary communication is inaccessible to guests. Even more so, it is forbidden.
There you learn. Faster than any course could do.

In “le rouge sans le noir” Cairo Otaibi wrote

sometimes we do not care, those are the good times.

And because it is not right what you say I so much trust your words.

[X] [X]

O me, man of slack faith so long!
Standing aloof—denying portions so long;
Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth;
Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself,
Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth does

(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately—But it must be realized;
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And that the universe does.)

Where has fail’d a perfect return, indifferent of lies or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man? or in the meat and blood?
Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return—And that what are called lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth—but that all is truth without exception;
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.

Walt Whitman, All is Truth. First published in ‘Leaves of Grass’ 1855.

At the end of a lecture series (again, and again on human ecology) students were asked for feedback about the lecture series as part of their exams. In order to get a certificate, students have to hand in a written statement including critical feedback about the lecture series.

If I was in need of self-affirmation, I would just do the same. Critical thinking is all good and praiseworthy. Indeed. Please criticize! Them, me, and don’t forget yourself!

Double binds and Catch-22s might be fun as part of brain-teasers, and they build grounds for game theoretic prisoner’s dilemmas. Though, some might want to keep in mind that double binds have also long been discussed in the context of schizophrenia. As much as they are versatile means of breaking one’s personality and self-esteem they are essential not only to modern techniques of torture.

On no side’s side:
You want feedback? — You got it.

Every sentence that I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.

— Niels Bohr (Danish physicist, 1885-1962)

Constructivism is easy to explain: Don’t!¹

Assumption

The basic assumption (or condition) is that there is you. From this it follows that there’s something which — or somebody who — is not you.²

Corollary

In order to know you need to know about what is not you. Thus, whatever you want to know about what is not you needs to find some way into you.

The English language has a huge number of terms for these “ways”: Learn, observe, perceive, watch, hear, realize, comprehend, get, … you name it. Their essential aspect is that something is happening (on the way). Let’s call this the “process of perception” (but you may call it whatever you prefer).

That’s it.

In other words, constructivism acknowledges that — if you assume that there is you and something or somebody who is not you — there is something in between. For instance, a medium (that needs to be passed), some time (that goes by), an act of observation, sensory receptions, a recognition, maybe a translation, a calculation, or a memorization, and probably some thinking. Or else, you wouldn’t be able to know about what is not you.

The visual system (like of human beings), as well as any other sensory system, or a close look into a human eye illustrates the multitude of processes which is involved with the “process of perception”.

Varieties of constructivism

The specifics of the “process of perception” are interpreted and described in varying ways by the many facets of constructivism. Also, some forms of constructivism confine their theories to less general distinctions of you versus what is not you (e.g. social constructivism examines mostly social relations like you and a friend, groups of people, or societies, and how those perceive each other and everything else).

[Radical constructivism] starts from the assumption that knowledge (…) is in the heads of persons, and that the thinking subject has no alternative but to construct what he or she knows on the basis of his or her own experience.
— Ernst von Glasersfeld³

Concluding

Constructivism offers ways of perceiving perception.
If you prefer other perceptions of constructivism, welcome aboard.

—-

1) The presented text is no explanation apart from the fact that you might view it as a plain representation flattened out on a computer screen or paper.
2) If for whatever reason you cannot agree here, either because you think there is only you, or because you think nothing exists independently of you, then you can stop reading since you are already thinking in a most constructivistic manner.
3) Ernst von Glasersfeld: Radical Constructivism. A Way of Knowing and Learning. London: Falmer Press 1995. Page 1.