[admin]

This came up in the news items today, thought some members might find it interesting :

Article

I really like the way we manage to delve into these areas here a lot ourslelves, just goes to show you don't need to be a Nobel prize winner to discuss these things..

[FuzzieDice]

This guy is not a very good writer. He sure hasn't much of a talent for getting his ideas across without skipping from one topic to another. I can get the gist of what he's trying to say, but he sure can't communicate it well.

As for what he's saying, that may hold true for SOME "humans". But there are some that it DOES NOT hold true. He did not give very much information on these studies he's quoting. Like the demographics of the subjects in the study. IQs, possible brain disorders, what types of work they do. Primates aren't a real good indicator of self-awareness. Too de-evolved. Even some humans are not a good indicator.

There are some that are more self-aware and able to reason better than most of the human population. How this happens is a very technical issue but I undersand fully how this all happens. It's not all in the physical brain either. There are other factors involved which the author of the article seems to completely bypass in his considerations of "self-awareness".

I don't have (and won't have) time this month to write about these things due to my work project (which I am not too far behind in). But maybe some day I can write something that may help put it in perspective.

That is, if I feel that the *human* race is ready to understand it. Some may not be.

All I can do is take notes on what I could write about. Reading (or trying to read) articles such as this shows me there is a lot of stuff that needs to be addressed in a more suitable fashion.

[admin]

Interesting comments FD, To be honest I only scanned over it, seems it wasn't as good as I thought it might be then.

[FuzzieDice]

I know the feeling. I think I have to make a couple more points here now that I am starting to take time to write (even though I probably should have been doing other things but it's the weekend and I needed the break).

First, my comments on the poor writing will make me a hypocrite. LOL! But seriously, I may make the same mistakes but what I'm saying here is that for a scientist, I would have expected better communication and explaination in his article. Unless scientists talk is some sort of special code of double-talk or don't really read everything in a paper but just skim ideas or whatever. I don't know. But if he wanted to get his point across to people and since the internet is read by non-scientists as well, I had expected him to be more clear in his ideas.

That said, I found this to be true of a lot of articles on the internet sometimes. One course I took the professor gave me some extra reading. Problem was it was so poorly written that it was so hard to follow it didn't answer my question. I lost interest before I got to what may have even remotely helped. If he hadn't quoted the one part that DID help, I would have missed it!

I found that when one is busy one may not be able to really read all of an article, but skim it for anything interesting and then post it for reference materials. I noticed it with the teacher, which is not at all his fault as he's a busy person. I also know this from my own experiences trying to find supporting links to tutorials I write at work, for example.

We live in what they say is the "information age". There is a LOT of information written by a LOT of people. We have little time these days to absorb all of it or read it all. When we do read something, we want to know what the bottom line is right away because we have little time and energy to really delve into trying to figure out what an obscure piece of material is trying to show or say. Today we need knowledge. Fast and now. This puts pressure not just on the reader but also the writer. We all have to develop our writing skills a lot more, I agree.

And also we have to find a way to find relevant links that work. I look at it this way, if I find myself getting so bored or tired of reading an article before I can finish it, or if it's too long, chances are my reader will think the same thing. So it won't go in. But then sometimes that doesn't even work as sometimes there IS good stuff in there that I just don't have time to get through it all!

It's hard to tell. So I can't blame you, either. It's just the communication thing that is what I had the problem with.

Another thing that is useful (just a suggestion but you decide if it's of use to you or not). I think if you had mentioned exactly what got you interested in the article. "these things" doesn't really say too much, unfortunately. Maybe you were intrigued with his idea of mirror neural pathways? Or was it the empathic learning study? A quote from the article that got you interested and what you found interesting about that quote may have helped further discussion. Maybe some of us coudn't read it all, but maybe if we had a bit more to go on we could just discuss that one part of it instead. Much like when the professor quoted the one part of the difficult article that did help me with my lesson and if he hadn't I would have missed it as I couldn't read the whole thing.

Now if I can practice what I preach, I will be in business. LOL!

[admin]

Fair points, I mainly posted it because it was short and seemed to be a fairly direct approach to the subject without too much excessive information.  It's a 50/50 chance I think; posting something that will generate it's own interest or if it slips away into cyberspace because it wasn't descibed enough.  Sometimes I post short links because it's just something I came across and don't have time to introduce it as such, another time I may have had the time to do that.

I agree the net can be too much information some times, but I will try and add some description to all my posts in future if it helps - I think I do anyway a lot of the time, but I was a bit lazy with this one.  I probably thought as I entitled the post the way I did then 'these things' would be easily interpreted by a member, maybe not though.