Did you ever think about the word ‘Learning’?

 

"We define learning as the transformative process of taking in information that-when internalized and mixed with what we have experienced-changes what we know and builds on what we do. It's based on input, process, and reflection. It is what changes us."

-From the New Social Learning by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner-

Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experiences, studying, or collaborating with others. Let us deeply swim inside.  Learning is the acquisition and mastery of what is already known by an individual. it is the extension and clarification of the meaning of an individual’s experiences. Acquiring knowledge and skills to be mentally available from memory so an individual can figure out future problems and opportunities. Learning involves strengthening correct responses and weakening incorrect responses which involve adding or changing information to memory.

The U.S. Department of Labor recently reported that the average 18-year-old will have 10-14 different jobs by the age of 38, with each subsequent position requiring new information and skills. As a result, as a student in college right now we are the first generation in history that must be lifelong learners in order to remain employed. It is essential that we become a highly efficient and effective learner who retains learned knowledge and skills for a lifetime, not just for a test if you are to compete effectively on a world stage.

Have you ever wondered how does our brain learn from the data and information which we get?

According to Dr. Wolfe, “Learning is the act of making (and strengthening) connections between thousands of neurons forming neural networks or maps.” While “Memory is the ability to reconstruct or reactivate the previously-made connections” (pg. 18, Wolfe, 2018). So, when we learn something new, we’re actually creating new connections between our neurons. And when we want to remember something, we call on those neurons to become activated so we can recall what we’ve learned before.

Let us look on a brief biological explanation. The brain is constantly stimulated with information from the body's sensory receptors. So, all learning begins with sensory information. Brain can get data from specialized sensors (reading, hearing, touching, smell, vision) and stored them in relevant memory locations.

In order to learn properly we need logical thinking.

LOGICAL THINKING

Logical thinking is the process in which one uses reasoning consistently to come to a conclusion. Problems or situations that involve logical thinking call for structure, for relationships between facts, and for chains of reasoning that “make sense.”

It has been proven that specific training in logical thinking processes can make people “smarter.” Logical thinking allows a child to reject quick answers, such as “I don’t know,” or “this is too difficult,” by empowering them to delve deeper into their thinking processes and understand better the methods used to arrive at a solution and even the solution itself.

From my experience, I think the perception and argument analysis is the major part of learning in a logical way.

Perception

Perception is the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted. Sense perception is the use of our senses to acquire information about the world around us and to become acquainted with objects, events, and their features. Traditionally, there are taken to be five senses: sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste.

Hallucination and illusion are related with perceptual processes. Hallucinations are false perceptions while illusions are misperceptions as the former merely reacts to nonexistent external stimuli while the latter involves actual stimuli. Unlike illusions, it is difficult to conduct researches on hallucinations due to its uniquely experienced nature.

Illusions and hallucinations present problems for a theory of knowledge: if our senses can mislead us, how are we to know that things are as they appear, unless we already know that our senses are presenting things as they are? But the concern in the study of perception is primarily to explain how we can both perceive and misperceive how things are in the world around us.

Argument Analysis

Propositional logic plays the main role in argument analysis. Which helps us to identify the meaning of an argument without getting stuck with hallucination and illusion. Propositional logic deals with logical relationships between propositions taken as wholes. Propositional logic is interested in how the truth value of compound claims depends on the truth value of the individual claims that make it up. The basic compound claims are, conjunctions, disjunctions, conditionals and contradiction.

Conjunction: - Logical conjunction is an operation on two or more propositions, that produces a value of true if and only if both of its operands are true.

Disjunctions: - Which interpreted as a truth function the output of which is true if at least one of the input sentences (disjuncts) is true, and false otherwise.

Conditionals: - “if P, then Q” compound statement P is called the antecedent, and Q is the consequent. If its antecedent is true, its consequent is also true; any conditional with a true antecedent and a false consequent must be false.  For any other combination of true and false antecedents and consequents, the conditional statement is true

Contradiction: - is a conjunction of the form P and (NOT P). A claim cannot be both true and false at the same time.

DE Morgan’s rules:
NOT (P AND Q) = (NOT P) OR (NOT Q)
NOT P OR Q) = (NOT P) AND (NOT Q)

"The purpose of an argument, should not be victory, but victory."

Conclusion

learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experiences, studying, or collaborating with others. Our brain saves knowledge by learning and transferring of learning. In order to learn properly, we need logical thinking, the act of analyzing a situation and coming up with a sensible solution, where perception and argument analysis plays major role. Argument analysis helps us to identify the correct source of knowledge without trapping into the hallucination and illusion.

References

[1]   Joseph McHugh. (2016). Retrieved on December 11 from https://sites.psu.edu/joem/learning-philosophy-2-0/

[2]   Boundless Psychology. Chapter about introduction to perception.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/

[3]   EDUBLOX. Online Tutor. Chapter about logical thinking.  https://www.edubloxtutor.com/logical-thinking/

[4]   INDEED. Career development. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/strengthen-logical-thinking-skills

[5]   Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/perception/v-1

[6]   Reading material and refences videos in the CN.