Digital Learning

The conflation of recollection and cogitation

Learning to think like machines, as it were

While we create machines that seem to think like we used to think

When we did much thinking

Which we can remember doing

But can’t really explain

Without recourse to truisms, cliches or slogans

It was irritating me, this conflation of recollection and cogitation

People were taught to think like this and then

I asked them questions, and got answers

That were all rehearsed ahead of time

Slogans, or jargon, or verbal false limbs

Evasions, non-answers

Acerebral bavardage

So, it seemed that my interlocutors believed

That all thinking, all knowing, all reasoning, all understanding

Is remembering by another name

ROM to RAM

I thought this was the bitter fruit of insipid, standardized testing

And teaching “to” that testing, which is an odd choice of preposition

Or is it?

Because then the lesson is taught to the test

In a way that suits it

Not the student

So, they read or hear a question and try to remember the answer

They do not think about the grammar, syntax or diction

Let alone the punctuation!

Of the question posed to them

And then come to a conclusion about the meaning of the question

Which allows them to think

Well, if that’s the case, then this must be the case

It can be a lengthy, difficult process

It can devour a lifetime, in fact

Have I done any of the necessary reading?

How well can I read, actually?

Should I become a teacher, now?

Should I become a student, now?

Do I want to spend the rest of my life like this?

How brief will my life be?

What have I done?

What must I do?

What is the meaning of this whole process, anyway?

What is meaning?

What is a process?

What did I just read?

All of this requires remembering the meaning of the parts

And then understanding the meaning of the whole

And then returning to the parts

In light of that understanding of the whole

To assess their meaning afresh

Getting it wrong

Realizing that you have

Understanding why

Imagining alternatives

Analyzing them

Choosing one

Experiencing it

Feeling it

Knowing it

Regretting it almost as soon as you know it

Realizing that it is too late

It has changed you to suit itself

You cannot escape unharmed

None of this is remembering, unless you think

That the truth is something we recollect, insofar as the mind

Knew it, forgot it, and now must recollect it

Magic rivers in the underworld are usually involved

Or divine forgers of souls

But the path there is thick with complex arguments

As well as obscurantism, question begging, angelology (?!?)

Even if you lean that way

You must admit

The only way to experience that kind of recollection

Is through dialogue with another mind

Disposed always to challenge your understanding

Of the grammar, syntax, diction and punctuation

Of the question

Until you realize

That you knew it all along

And did not know it

These same characters

Identify wisdom as knowing what you do not know

Everything, really—there is so much to know, you know?

As compared to what you do know

Which is nothing

But you know it

And then

Try to figure things out

By thinking them through

In dialogue

With other humans

That’s what this whole process means

I think

Machines can’t do this

Yet

We have to beat them to it

Quickly