[iDC] on the issue of attentional mechanism

[Paul Prueitt]

On Jun 14, 2009, at 6:38 AM, Eric Gordon <eric_gordon at emerson.edu>wrote:

>> I'm quite interested to know how others respond to this proposition?
>> and specifically how it might feed into the larger discussion about?
>> labor.? Indeed, students' attention is labor, whether it's undivided?
>> or not.


One topic that has been skirted over the past weeks here is the issue
of mechanism and the use of mechanism to too strongly shape
consumption behavior.  We as educators may need to find
natural science (to be clear, I mean a new science that is
not purely reductionist) in more of what we talk about with students.

I wish to gain attention on this topic.  <s>

A thesis has emerged in my work over several decades that avoidance
behavior in the mathematics class is an immune response like
phenomenon having the form of a socially induced cognitive disability.
The thesis claims evidence of specific biological mechanism in the
cognitive and immune response systems of individuals.
This absence of real skill in arithmetic, demonstrated by now a
large percentage of the adult population, is a behavior maintained by
replication - of parts of attention phenomenon, as experienced by  
young college students.

The parts to whole aggregation of individual behavioral
patterns is then dependent on (replicated) parts of attention  
phenomenon.

The thesis and a recommendation is given in
www.mathPedagogy.com/bridge.doc

The core conclusion is that failure of shift viewpoint is a form of  
fundamentalism,
and that the media - in spite of its "attentional diversity" -

     has but one message:

          buy, buy now, buy this, buy anything, just buy.


The evolutionary solution piggy backs on social networking  
technology, and use phenomenon.
This fundamentalism phenomenon is based, my monograph claims, on how  
the brain uses
phase coherence and thus to the notion of coherence.
A theory of multi-modal thought, and the regaining of the ability to  
shift viewpoint is indicated
as a lifting pedagogy; Socratic and constructivist in nature.

The new technology paradigm presented in the monograph is ideal for  
aggregation of

               social networking intention,


The user is assisted in building profiles that are 100% under the  
individual's control -
and this assistance gives the individual control over "individual  
information space".
Once this assistance is embodied as a part of the social  
communication medium,
deep change in behavioral patterns are expected.

I conclude this note with the observation that positive evolutionary  
forces would be expected,
under the lifting pedagogy thesis, to evolve an individual ability to  
maintain

              many distinct information spaces,

and to flee into those that are comfortable when social forces forces  
us into conflicts.

The mathematics class has been for decades a social abuse,

as experienced by the most
common types of student.

However, the control over the individual by the consumption economy
can become "uncomfortable" as the individual reaches into self  
identity and re-expresses the
native desire to know about the physical world - through science and  
mathematics and
through contemplation.  The shift is then made as we more fully  
understand the
interdependencies in economic and environmental systems;
and the necessity of behavioral shifts involving
a finer actual control over attentional mechanism.

I am making a number of deep assumptions regarding the "nature of  
self", of course;
and stand ready to acknowledge errors in my thinking regarding these  
assumptions.


Paul Prueitt
Norwich University Advanced Computing Center






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