Replying to LO29184 --
Dear Organlearners,
Mike Jay <coach@leadwise.com> writes:
>Actually, brain research has shown that our "processes"
>--assuming processes to be systems which include input,
>throughput, output and feedback--CAN operate without
>thinking (about them) and MOST of them do "implicitly."
>My information (as I am not a brain researcher) comes
>from a book I highly recommend by Joseph LeDoux,
>called Synaptic Substrates: How Our Brains Become who
>we are. It is a follow-on to the Emotional Brain, which
>LeDoux wrote in 97.
>
>What he says is that we have a high road and a low road,
>the low road being perceptive only through the thalamic
>cortex (oversimplifying here) direct into the various systems
>(limbic) connected to the amygdale--this happens in 15
>milliseconds, or so they say. Seems to me that is pretty
>fast.
Greetings dear Mike,
Thank you for bringing this angle into the discussion.
Allow me first to formulate another system rule for Chris Macrae.
"Before assuming it to be from the genes, seek it in the learning or the
lack of it."
Yes, it is true that the morphology of the human brain has a vast
influence on how humans think. The greatest difference between the human
species and any of the three great apes closest to it (less than 2%
difference in DNA) is in their neurological systems, especially the brain.
But the morphology is not the sole determinant of how a person thinks.
There is not such a thing as a one-way influence. The abstract thinking of
a person has vast influences on the physiology of the brain. In other
words, there is a two way interaction between brain and mind. (If both
ways of the two-way interaction in any system are irreversible -- entropy
producing -- then the system exhibits the extraordinary hysteresis effect,
something which i still want to write about.)
>Anyway, the reason for bringing it up is to say that talent
>is often driven by those implicit systems that may be wired
>in as a convergence between nature and nurture, or what
>they (brain people) refer to as selection and activity.
I myself have learned to be very careful not to allow an important
scientific breakthrough, in this case of talents the genetical basis of
heredity, a MM (Mental Model) inhibiting my thinking. A thoughtful paper
to study is "INNATE TALENTS: REALITY OR MYTH?" at: <
http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.howe.html >
>A talent as identified through Gallup's work
>(www.strengthfinder.com) as a strength conforms to the
>"natural" operating system that is wired "fast" and may in
>MY hypothesis be so fast because it doesn't require
>thinking (routing)--i.e.. consideration as in the high road.
I tried to surf to that site, but it requires an ID obtained by
subscription. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to make a
representative list of the major definitions of talent. Already thirty
years ago i had to convince learners who believe they do not have a
certain talent of the grave error which they might be making. Since then i
came upon dozens of definitions of talent. I now wish i kept book of them.
The same with character.
>Regarding character if I may...Stephen Covey once
>said something that always comes up for me when I
>try to define character for myself...something to the
>effect..."character is what is in place when the emotion
>that created the commitment is no longer present." Or
>something like that.
Thank you Mike This is an intriguing description and i intend to
contemplate it carefully.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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