"Digital Skills, Globalization, and Education" --by Antonia M. Battro

[Connie Weber]

"Digital Skills, Globalization, and Education" --by Antonia M. Battro

That link is to a Google Books access point to the chapter, which begins on page 78.

I'm going to jump into a most abstract and wild point that Battro is making:

"The digital revolution has also 'opened' the human brain for observation and action. In fact, the new methods of brain imaging are the direct result of the ever increasing computer power that permits an accurate view not only of the anatomical details of the living brain but also of its chemical composition, as well as the identification of the functional changes embodied in neuronal networks of enormous complexity during the most diverse perceptual, motor, and cognitive tasks (Posner and Raichle 1994; Spelke 2002). By analogy to the World Wide Web (www), we could speak of a brain wide web (bww) with multiple cortical and subcortical subsets, some of them hightly modular and stable and others more flexible and plastic, genetically programmed y the biological evolution of our species or epigenetically embodied in the cultural evolution and the educational development of the individual (Huttenlocker 2002)."

"Reciprocally, the www can be interpreted as the 'nervous tissue' of globalization: it is modular and distributed, for it works at the same time at the local and the global level by reaching a restricted group of persons, a local community, and a very large and unpredictable audience connected to the Web." (page 80)

..."The Web can process information sequentially or simultaneously, do serial or parallel processing. In fact, it allows us to deal with many active links at the same time, similar to the way the cerebral cortex activates many areas simultaneously during a particular task or takes one piece of information at a time. The Web works with sensors and motors, memories and representations, like the brain that controls our senses, muscles, images, emotions, thoughts. Finally, on the Web we deal with the continuous and the discrete, the analog and the digital worlds. Our brain does the same." (page 81)

So, am I hearing this correctly--it's like a species-wide brain. Or mind?

Doesn't that just give you a kick, to think about that?

[Connie Weber]

and there's more, much more in that chapter.

look into experiments with contemporary Bushmen, for animal tracking.

look into infants, and sucking skills, to make a picture go focused or fuzzy

look into Irene Pepperberg's parrot studies.

Personally, I can't get enough of this stuff. I think it's infinitely fascinating.

If you get a chance to read the article, let's talk! --Or even if not--what do you think about the idea of the "brain wide web"?

[Vincent Mespoulet]

hmm i'm a little scared by this "deification" of the web as a global God :) In the same time, this theory is close to our european theory of General Intellect. In my opinion, it's not a scientific and neurologic question, it's a political question...

[Connie Weber]

Hi Vincent,
It doesn't strike me as deification, just perhaps looking at us as an organism from a different angle. It's the human community, operating as a whole.
Actually, it brings out the naturalist in me. "Naturalist" as in nature, biology, all that. Think of how ants or wasps are so much more than the individual organisms, in fact, it's valid to view the colonies as organisms.
Just systems thinking, that's the way I see it. Our human intelligence resides in a distributed form. We are individuals, and we are part of something much larger. Maybe that's what you're referring to as the European theory of General Intellect.
Battro is talking about activity on the web mimicking brain activity, or anyway, seeing an analogy there. To me, that's a fascinating thought to ponder.

[Vincent Mespoulet]

dear Connie, you're right of course and i agree with you. But all the scientifical, neurologic arguments are often reversible. Do you remember the (false) theory of a famous neurologist from England telling a few monthes ago that internet was bad for... brain of young people. i don't remember where i read infos about it, maybe inside future of education ning...

I think that you have in US an old and wonderful tradition about naturalism, from Audubon and Thoreau to great contemporary writers like Jim Harrison (i love his books !). Just to tell you i admire sense of naturalism, of "wilderness" in your culture :) You know maybe that in our old Europe, we tend to think with political philosophy tools. In my opinion, one of the most important philosopher around this field is german: Hans Jonas .

Hope you have watched also this wonderful movie of Terence Malick, The New World, a great hymn to Naturalism according to me

[Ian Carmichael]

Thanks, Vincent. The Wikipedia article has a very interesting (unsourced) quote from Jonas
"Jonas insists that human survival depends on our efforts to care for our planet and its future. He formulated a new and distinctive supreme principle of morality: "Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life"."