Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Thinking Skills

In our youth most of us have biological thinking skills - our thoughts go where our hormones lead us. Obviously our genes' highest priority is to not die out so convincing us to reproduce and devote the next 20 years to childrearing dominates. So what happens when all those hormones wane. The older brain want to be the wise brain and therefore needs to figure out how to think clearly. That seems fairly straight forward but I'm collecting a set of links to show just how complex a goal that is.

The Critical Thinking Community
http://www.criticalthinking.org/articles/index.cfm

Stephen Downes Guide to Logical Fallacies
http://web.uvic.ca/psyc/skelton/Teaching/General%20Readings/Logical%20Falllacies.htm

Wikipedia List of Cognitive Biases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Wikipedia List of Fallacies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

Cognitive Bias: A Visual Study Guide
http://www.scribd.com/doc/30548590/Cognitive-Biases-A-Visual-Study-Guide

Monday, May 17, 2010

Facebook

For awhile, facebook became my obsession. Twittering was too short for me and blogging didn't form relationships. Was anyone reading anything I wrote? Did it matter one way or the other? Well it does matter - not to the reader but rather to me. I can post interesting links to facebook and never really think much about them. Only on the blogs do I have to analyze what I'm reading and put it into words. Between my real world friends and my 389 facebook friends, I don't need the blog to be interactive - I need it to be Hansel and Gretel's bread crumbs - a way to mark the path of my life which may take me somewhere amazing or may lead me to a place I'd rather not go. Actually I have multiple blogs - one for my real world friends and family, this one for my connectivism friends, one for trying to create a healthier lifestyle and finally one devoted to neurodevelopment/neurodegeneration - the field my high school yearbook says I wanted to pursue but in the end wasn't brave or confident enough to go after. I wasn't one of those high energy people who can have it all and if I couldn't have it all - I wanted the guy I fell in love with and the children we dreamed into existence.