July 09, 2019 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Is a Mind of True-Believer Programmable?
Once they (True-Believers) have accepted
the five basic tenants of Protestantism (or whatever the theological belief and
core principles they may adhere to) their fundamental view of the universe gets
fixed and unshakable.
This should give some insight into the
workings of a religious brain and mind of faith holder and how no logic or sane
conversation/dialogue or evidence produced to them can possibly have any effect
on their way of thinking.
It is as if their cognition (which is
understood as mental action or processes of acquiring knowledge and
understanding through thought, experience and senses) reaches an impasse that
is impenetrable to any new idea that contradicts their foundational axioms.
I am not sure if a computational modeling
is possible of this peculiar cognitive phenomenon that is known as True-Belief.
This is so because a computational model
would require a mathematical and formal logical representation of this problem
of True-Belief.
This would mean that one would need to use
mathematics and logical coding to program for the generation of irrationality
and “faith”.
Let us leave it at that since now this
subject is breaching understanding and facts and going into the realms of
speculation and cheap conjectures.
This revival of Protestantism and its
various pedigrees and offshoots that started around 1800 is known as the Second
Great Awakening.
If there is second then it naturally
follows that a First Great Awakening too would have happened (which it did as
did the Third Great Awakening) and it just shows the tenacious hold of
religions on the societies in spite of the coexistence of reason and science.
The First Great Awakening or the
Evangelical Revival took place in Britain and its Thirteen Colonies in North
America in the 1730s and 1740s.
It was mainly a revival and mass
conversions seen in Protestant Churches of England in an attempt to get rid of
the practices of Roman Catholicism in the Church of England.
This movement had great impact on the
society of both England and the Thirteen Colonies (for good and bad) as this
movement encouraged strong state interference in regulating the life of the
people – both social and religious.
The wave of Evangelical Revival took place
in an England whose literacy rate was a meager 30% and the religious ministers
strongly promoted education of children both in England and the Colonial New
England.
The Protestants in these Colonies (known as
Puritans) believed that children needed to be educated both for religious and
civil reasons and they strived to achieve universal literacy.
The colonial state of Massachusetts had
made it mandatory or perhaps obligatory that the male head of the household
would teach his wife children and servants basic reading and writing.
This was mandated for two reasons, one of
which is obvious while the other is surprising.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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