Fun Facts

Todays morning meeting was led by Majo. She showed us three videos that are supposed to have fun facts, or in other words, have a whole bunch of facts. The videos we watched today were: You don't type alone (about  the statistics of how many other people are  typing at the same time you are), What is déjà vu? (it talks about déjà vu and other things like it) and What color is a mirror? (trying to figure out the true color of a mirror.

I have to say I enjoyed the videos but I think they could've been much better, I got bored by the third one. I guess they are just not my style.

Thinking Fast & Slow. Ch. 7-8

During our dialogue we came up with some subjects that these chapters talk about that we wanted to emphasize. We only discussed tree of them deeply.
These are the subjects we came up with:

• Finding someone attractive or not (basic assessment)
• Automatic procesing in visual system / internal chatterbox,
• Halo Effect.
• Objactive judgemnt.
• WYSIATI.
• Principle of independent judgement
• Matching sounds and music. 
• Mental Shotgun.
• Framming effect /  colors. 
• Oil / Splash. 

The first subject we really talked about was the Halo Effect. We agreed that this effect was difficult to stop this from happening. This effect happens because we associate things.

The next subject we talked about was how we cant help pour visual system kicking in. We have automatic feedback and this makes us chose or have options. If we listen to our internal chatterbox, it won't let us listen to our system two, so we cant really make rational decisions. Mindfulness means being aware of everything; one can be aware, present, concentrated on what one is doing, or the other way around.

Museum

I gave a tour of the museum Popol Vuj. I dont have much to say, so I will just copy he letter I read at debriefing.

Dear MPC-ers:

What are the standards we want to model? Do each of you want to be free and responsible? Are you really being honest with yourself and with others? Do you really value and understand what we are doing here? Do you remember in the traditional classes when no one or only a few listened to your presentation…? Everyone just paid attention to the teacher, and not even always to the teacher. Are we still waiting for an authority to tell us what to do?

 Today during the visit at the museum Isa, Mabe and I noticed our real standards, rubrics and culture. We simply don’t practice what we preach. Today while I was giving the tour only five people were really paying attention, the rest didn’t seem to care or appreciate the knowledge I was sharing with them. It was like if they were waiting for someone to put them in their place. I was supposed to be a facilitator and once I called for MPC rubrics, which the majority ignored.  Even Ingrid wasn’t really present. In the middle of the tour I got really frustrated and somebody told me that it was because I was giving a lecture. Number one, I told you could interrupt… it wasn’t a lecture, you could have asked questions and made comments. Number two, it was a tour and that’s why tour-guides exist. If not, you could have gone by yourself to the museum and not wasted my time. And number three, we are learners who adapt to ANY resource available of learning: even lectures. It made me feel really bad because I thought that this would be the best tour group ever, I had high expectations because of our rubrics, because of who we are, because we are learners and we ask questions. And it turns that it was this was the worst tour ever, even 9 year old children are more respectful that you guys, we should follow their example.

On the other hand, today in the group of choir we noticed that everyone was really engaged and organized. It was a big challenge and we know we have a lot to do, but you all were really excited and passionate to make this true. Why can’t we apply this values that we showed today in other stuff as well, like the museum? I mentioned today that there are ways to failure, and how we acted today shows the gap that could lead us to failure. How I saw it today, the MPC is more prone to fail than to succeed unless we get our act together. If we want to be independent learners we must be authentic in every single place and situation, we don’t need anyone to tell us. And guys we already practice these standards and values here, they are great, why can’t we practice them everywhere else?

            Sincerely, Isa, Mabe and Katarina.

Consilience 5 & 6

We had a special guest today in our dialogue, Chris Lingle. We started out by telling him what the MPC is all about and our rubrics, amongst other stuff.

We mostly talked about chapter 6. Starting out by how consciousness works as a spontaneous order. None of us really had a choice to have a  consciousness or not, and if there is an actual purpose for it?

We also talked about how we are hard-wired with preferences, so we really don't have free will. We believe that we are really choosing things, but we are really not because all of those inclinations and preferences come with us. So do we really have free will? Wilson says that because he mind can't be fully known and predicted, one believes that we have free will. Wilson also believes that if we find the truth about the mind, it will deteriorate us and slow us down.

The last thing we talked about was memory. If one has no memory, one is not capable of making decisions. What are the limits to human action without memory? Without memory we wouldn't really be able to tell reality.

A Not So Morning Meeting

Todays morning meeting was different. We didn't assign a facilitator so no one led it, but I still think it was one of the best ones we have had so far. We started by saying some announcements and then moved on to other topics. There were 6 people missing, so we talked about ideas to implement ways or to talk to them in order for them to stop missing morning meetings. I made the comment that I feel like our culture is actually becoming worse. I wonder if it is because we are all tired or people just don't take it seriously.
For agora we followed up on our family time. Instead of talking 30 seconds we started asking questions. We ended up talking about the security that the university brings us, with its morals and everything.

3D Illusions

Todays morning meeting was led by Javier Tabush. He had planned for us some optical illusions, that when you don't really focus on the picture, you can see a  3D image. I found this activity very interesting, although I didn't really quite get it at first. It took me while (until the 3rd image) to see the 3D object.

After todays morning meeting, we decided that we were going to get to know each other a bit more, so we had 30 seconds to tell something about ourselves that no one else really knew. I said where and when I was born, that I traveled a lot as a kid, that I am missing 5 states to have seen them all and that I am afraid of crickets.
Some of the stuff that the rest told that I found interesting are these:
-Alejo likes to snowboard.
-Javiers Tabush´s last name was changed.
-Mabe´s family was escaping the mafia.
-Lucia is afraid of frogs.

I really liked this activity because although we have been with each other for 40 or more hours a week for two months, we dont really know anything about each other. I think getting to know everybody more personally is a step that we can take to make us feel like a real family.

Arne Dietrich

Today we had a surprise visit from Arne, the lecturer from last weeks conference Nailing Jelly To The Wall. Arne is a neuroscientist who specializes in creativity and consciousness. He is also a professor of theoretical neuroscience at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon.

We started out by talking about the MPC. We went over our rubrics, our books, our essays and our curriculum, amongst many other things. We were all impressed because he was the first visiting professor who actually commented specifically about our rubrics.

We then started talking about his career and how we came to study neuroscience. He told us that he had always had an interest for human behavior and he has always had a scientific mind. He ended up  in neuroscience because it is the most scientific area in psychology. He got interested in creativity because it is the highest of all cognitive functions. It is what makes us higher  and smarter that the rest of the animals and also because human beings barely know anything about creativity and consciousness.

We later started talking of how neuroscience and told us a few spoilers of what might happen in the future (such as people control in our brain).