MY World

When I was seventeen, I had little respect for Western liberals. I lived in the USSR back then and was a member of an anti-government underground organization established by my friends that at its peak numbered a couple of dozen people. “Those little fucks,” I thought, using, of course, Russian expletives, “would come to Moscow to protest nuclear arms race without giving a second thought that whoever protests against the very same things in Soviet Union has a very good chance to end up never being capable to protest against anything. They would give interviews to ‘Pravda’ about the Native Americans imprisoned after the Pine Ridge incident, and not even cringe that this issue of ‘Pravda’ will be read by Ukrainians and Jews, Latvians and Estonians who were put in a close proximity with polar bears’ habitat for ‘offences’ that don’t come even close to what was done at Pine Ridge. Those liberal souls would be oh so outraged that Angela Davis did not get a proper shower in prison – well, h...

Choose some “Viewpoints” questions from Keen and Valley-Fox from Chapter 5 for developing the Goals Statement. Chosen: Play God and make this the best of all possible worlds (p85). My “best of all possible worlds” is the world of the Free Communicators. The conscious creatures of the world have the ultimate possibility to communicate with each other, instantaneously and with the ultimate efficiency. They all have the ability to understand each other’s messages and ideas immediately. This pertains both to the ability to pass them along and to understand them. The conscious creatures can also shield themselves from communication, if and when they wish. The conscious creatures – animals, people, other – are free. They are all endowed with the Free Will, the ability to direct their behavior to their own liking. The creatures are all born with a repertoire of behavioral skills at their disposal – ability to walk, communicate, etc. They can use and develop them as they please. There is pain,...

The value survey I went through showed some interesting things. First of all, it seems that my grouping would not coincide with the factorial analysis so far, as my evaluations for God/heaven related questions do not go in the same directions as the family/relationship questions. While the second group is very important to me, I could not but give 0s for the first group as I'm not convinced in the reality of the afterlife and salvation, not to mention the concepts behind them. Second, I found myself to be lower than the lowest average point on all variables. May be, it's because I was very cautious in giving 4s and 5s? If I look at the values I deemed most important, I would see a continuum between person- oriented values (marriage, for example) and humanity-oriented values (e.g., spreading philosophical knowledge). They all seem to be related, though: 1 - Enjoying a good marriage or lifetime partnership 28 - Working to educate children 32 - Providing a good life for your ch...

A. What are the last four things you have written (excluding short notes), and who read them? 1. Corporate review of my company – my lawyer 2. A self-made myth on the origins of death – my wife, kids, and the INO 501 professor 3. Learning autobiography for INO 501 – INO 501 class 4. Learning experience post on my blog for INO 501 – INO 501 professor B. In general, how do you feel about writing? I love writing and feel that I do it well. C. Do you find it easy to write papers that say what you wanted them to say ? In practical terms, is writing a relatively efficient process for you in which your time is in proportion to your intentions? I do find it relatively easy to express myself in writing. Writing is a relatively efficient process for me, more efficient than speaking most of the time. D. How many hours did you spend writing (including drafting, writing, revising) the last three papers you did? Give the number of hours and number of pages written. Is this "normal" for you...

When I saw the Viewpoins quesiton in Your Mythic Journey that asked to write a myth about dying, I couldn't ignore it. For one, our family likes myths and folk tales - I'm trying to read one to my wife and kids every night. So I sat down and came up with a piece. Then I decided to present it to my family as a Malagasy myth - and they actually believed me after listening to it. I was honest and did disclose the scam, though. There were times when men were gods and women were goddesses. They cruised between the sun and the moon and the stars, they could see the past and the future, they knew everything there was ever to be known. They did not have body and they never died. Men and women with no body circled the earth and watched the oceans roar in anger and calm in relief, the mighty volcanoes breathing fire and dying in exhaustion, the mighty trees growing and the doe leading her fawns to a spring. But they could not touch a trunk of a tree, smell a flower or taste a fruit. Th...

A recent task in INO 501 was to write a dialogue. Usually I don't have much of a problem to write things. However, I've never written a dialogue before, and it proved to be quite hard. After staring for a while at the words "Characters" and "Setting" typed on a fresh white Word document and trying Elbow's method of writing whatever I think (in vain), I decided to look for help on the web. I found plenty of it - yet none helped much. Mostly it was about the style. Since Socrates was not around, I decided to engage my 12 year old daughter's help. I started a dialogue with her, and lo and behold: it worked so well that after fifteen minutes I was enthusiastically typing the actual piece. This learning style would probably best classified as Diverging, that combines concrete experience and reflective observation.

The Kolb learning inventory shows that I learn better from Abstract Conceptualization (sounds rather abstract to me...) than from Experience, while the Reflecting and Doing are balanced in their minimal contribution to my learning. I would say that this analysis coincides with my own self-assessment, but that's only part of the story. I believe that my learning style depends on the subject matter and on the purpose of learning. When I'm trying to acquire expertise in certain area, be it software quality assurance, HTML or philosophy, I conscientiously would follow a process which starts with the conceptual learning: Step 1. Understanding the concepts In any field I can imagine it's possible to rush into action and even achieve something. Yet from my past experiences I learned that if you don't invest in getting to the roots of things, in getting to know the methods that govern the fields, it will harm you badly when you will try to do some advanced stuff. So I will wor...