Unlearning

[Gvac]

When you reach a certain level of understanding of the world around you through life experiences, you begin to realize that much of what you've learned and been taught is simply not practical or true. It's a major stumbling block for some, and they go through their lives angry and frustrated, wondering why the rest of the world is so "insane."

They never learn to unlearn.

I suppose it's like deprogramming yourself, and it can be very difficult, but it's certainly not impossible.

Just like a sculptor chips away at the rock to reveal the final masterpiece, people have to rid themselves of thoughts and beliefs they have been indoctrinated with by parents, teachers, friends, and other people of influence. We must discard all preconceived notions and learn to see things as they really are in our own world, not the world of the aforementioned people.

I also believe that in man's never-ending quest for knowledge we all too often don't take the time to unlearn first, and try to either make any newly acquired learning fit into our rigid frame of reference, or discard it completely because it doesn't fit at all looking at it through the eyes of someone who will not see.

I've unlearned quite a bit in recent years and I'm still chipping away at the stone.

I can't wait for the masterpiece to be revealed.

[Team_Ramrod]

That's goddamned beautiful GVAC, deep y'know.

I wonder now, too.....


Damned you for making me think on a Sunday!

[Friday]

Perhaps you should go here:

InstituteOfUnlearning (http://www.unlearning.org/)

[EliSnow]

When you reach a certain level of understanding of the world around you through life experiences, you begin to realize that much of what you've learned and been taught is simply not practical or true. It's a major stumbling block for some, and they go through their lives angry and frustrated, wondering why the rest of the world is so "insane."

They never learn to unlearn.

I suppose it's like deprogramming yourself, and it can be very difficult, but it's certainly not impossible.

Just like a sculptor chips away at the rock to reveal the final masterpiece, people have to rid themselves of thoughts and beliefs they have been indoctrinated with by parents, teachers, friends, and other people of influence. We must discard all preconceived notions and learn to see things as they really are in our own world, not the world of the aforementioned people.

I also believe that in man's never-ending quest for knowledge we all too often don't take the time to unlearn first, and try to either make any newly acquired learning fit into our rigid frame of reference, or discard it completely because it doesn't fit at all looking at it through the eyes of someone who will not see.

I've unlearned quite a bit in recent years and I'm still chipping away at the stone.

I can't wait for the masterpiece to be revealed.

Gvac is our Yoda:

"You must unlearn what you have learned. "

http://www.grudge-match.com/Images/yoda.jpg

[Team_Ramrod]

Perhaps you should go here:

InstituteOfUnlearning (http://www.unlearning.org/)

Seems to be a quality institute..... nothing happened since 2006.

Is that when they drank the Kool-aid?

[Gvac]

I wonder if it's the responsibility of every parent and teacher to try and avoid instilling things in their children that will later have to be unlearned.

Is perpetuating the belief in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, etc. a bad thing?

Or does it make the child realize that not everything they've been told is true?

How about raising children in a specific religion?

[mugby43]

One of the positive aspects of ficticious characters like santa, the tooth fairy, Easter Bunny, jason, barney, freddy, rudoplf, misfits, beowolf, nixon, iggy stooge, osoma, adolf, jesus, hillary, buddha, el kabong, col. sanders, hary rama, gilead, sly, godzilla, sting, hercules, madonna, the grinch, uncle sam, boogy man, the thing, monty python, gandhi, big bad john, the hulk, batman, spitzer, joe nameth, leary, herod, the green lantern, patton, popeye, freud, asimov, silver surfer, your cousin joey, stum stuck, hilda, GVAC, roosevelt, alexander the great, st paul, yahway, cascious clay, mr. softee, calley, jung, tiny tim, mohamed, weird al yankovich, fez, reeshy, sir edmund hilary, the cyclops, the yankees, I am who am, marley, mr. clean, the michilin man, ronald mcdonald, monroe, ho che ming, fonda (both), scubby doo, juan valdez, bing bing bing ricochet rabbit, bigfoot, rodan, st patrick (and his singing snakes), tojo, paula abdul, sinbad, frodo, ras tafari, frosty the snowman, jimmy carter, rolling stones, elvis, super boy, cat woman, the riddler, rod sterling, lawrence of arabia, gomer pyle, gollum, krushev, ...

wait, wait, did I type that out loud, what was the thread? :wallbash:

[mdr55]

Are you reading those taoist books again????

I have the book 365 tao and it has daily sayings like the stuff you're talking about.

I think like that sometimes.

[Stankfoot]

When you reach a certain level of understanding of the world around you through life experiences, you begin to realize that much of what you've learned and been taught is simply not practical or true. It's a major stumbling block for some, and they go through their lives angry and frustrated, wondering why the rest of the world is so "insane."

They never learn to unlearn.

I suppose it's like deprogramming yourself, and it can be very difficult, but it's certainly not impossible.

Just like a sculptor chips away at the rock to reveal the final masterpiece, people have to rid themselves of thoughts and beliefs they have been indoctrinated with by parents, teachers, friends, and other people of influence. We must discard all preconceived notions and learn to see things as they really are in our own world, not the world of the aforementioned people.

I also believe that in man's never-ending quest for knowledge we all too often don't take the time to unlearn first, and try to either make any newly acquired learning fit into our rigid frame of reference, or discard it completely because it doesn't fit at all looking at it through the eyes of someone who will not see.

I've unlearned quite a bit in recent years and I'm still chipping away at the stone.

I can't wait for the masterpiece to be revealed.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a350/stankfoot/pot.jpg

[Mike Teacher]

Sadly, G, many, if not most, just dont care about changing themselves and/or expolring themselves and the world in such a way that real change might oocur.

Some think learning is something done in a classroom, and that learning ends.

As to Unlearning; a two step process;

first-
Noticing: Can we step outside of ouselves, away from our self-prejudices, and look at ourselves coldly, and ask, blunt questions to ourselves? What state is the creature that I inhabit in? What about this creature I inhabit needs addressing? What do I notice about my actions? What do I notice about my thoughts; about how I do things, how I react in situations.

Can I begin a practice of observing myself in a way such that I may begin...

second-
Correction: Can we begin to work on the things we notice above? Can we begin new patterns of behavior, can we react differently in situation X, can we deal differently with person Y, can we stop habit Z, which is unhealty.

well IMHO...

[lleeder]

I wonder if it's the responsibility of every parent and teacher to try and avoid instilling things in their children that will later have to be unlearned.

Is perpetuating the belief in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, etc. a bad thing?

Or does it make the child realize that not everything they've been told is true?

How about raising children in a specific religion?

Or teaching children to give something up for Lent?

[cougarjake13]

Gvac is our Yoda:

"You must unlearn what you have learned. "

http://www.grudge-match.com/Images/yoda.jpg




love yoda

gvac, not so much

[drjoek]

Gvac is our Yoda:

"You must unlearn what you have learned. "

http://www.grudge-match.com/Images/yoda.jpg

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w307/drjoek/GvacTonguing.jpg
I see the resemblance

[Contra]

I don't think it's about unlearning as much as disecting information. All information is power, even the untrue. Knowing the difference between falsehood and truth, and applying different idealology in a practical way to your life, that's the challenge.

[Gvac]

Learn to unlearn, my friends.

Give up all preconceived notions and indoctrinations.

Live your life, not someone else's.

[Ritalin]

Learn to unlearn, my friends.

Give up all preconceived notions and indoctrinations.

Live your life, not someone else's.

What about The Golden Rule?

And I'm not just saying that to be contrarian.

[Gvac]

What about The Golden Rule?

And I'm not just saying that to be contrarian.

What about it?

[Ritalin]

What about it?

Is that a preconceived notion that I should give up? I dig your Zen outlook, but I think life is about learning, not unlearning. Some of the things we've learned and been exposed to are actually good, and we should hang on to those things, don't you think?

[Gvac]

It's not exactly a "Zen" outlook, but there are bits and pieces of Zen philosophy that I agree with. There are chunks of Taoist philosophy that I adhere to. Ditto for some of the teachings of Aristotle, Socrates, Cicero, Plato, Jesus, etc.

I "unlearned" everything I was taught in Catholic school in order to study these teachings, however.

The Zen goal of "no mind" is particularly useful.

Then I decided as a rational, sane adult what I believed in. Not what I was indoctrinated to believe. Kind of like wiping the slate clean and starting over.

If you do that, I think you'll find that you pretty much agree with The Golden Rule. But because you understand it's a good way to live, not because it's been beaten into your brain.

[One Dead Fred]

I'm more of a forgetter, not an unlearner.

[~Katja~]

this "unlearning" in reality is just another kind of learning...
I find I learn a lot in life and about myself for the past 5 years... and it has not stopped... i amaze myself, never did I think I was a creep or psycho.... now I learned I am....

[Gvac]

this "unlearning" in reality is just another kind of learning...
I find I learn a lot in life and about myself for the past 5 years... and it has not stopped... i amaze myself, never did I think I was a creep or psycho.... now I learned I am....

You learned about yourself because you stripped away your original thoughts about yourself and could see who you really are.

[~Katja~]

who am I


who do I want to be????

I found to be more at ease with just being me....not caring what anybody else thought about me...or who I should be


life sucks, but I love it at the same time

[Gvac]

I found to be more at ease with just being me....not caring what anybody else thought about me...or who I should be

EXACTLY!!!

[Tenbatsuzen]

One of the most important lessons my mother told me was to never be afraid of expressing myself; good or bad, right or wrong - life's too short to leave it all bottled in.

[~Katja~]

I unlearned today that the guy I thought loved me really doesn't.... so I could have hooked up with Larry Bird.....
ok, that was a joke... a bad one at that ;)

[CofyCrakCocaine]

I've been studying this in anatomy lately and it's probably just imagination gone awry on my part, but one thing I've heard over and over is how when you're a child your brain cells have centrosomes in them- basically the things in your cells that make them undergo mitosis to reproduce.

After a certain age, the centrosomes in your brain just disappear, scientists have no fucking idea why they do or where they go, they just "vanish". After that, you're stuck with a finite amount of brain cells for the rest of your life, a supply that is constantly diminishing each and every remaining day.

Going along with this line of thinking, the acquisition of knowledge for children is much easier. Maybe it's their fragile egg-shell minds, or maybe it's the presence of those centrosomes allowing new cells to be made in response to the different synapse responses and chemical reactions to varieties of external stimuli allowing them to adapt more quickly and efficiently. Think about it.

A child can become bi-lingual just like that, learning foreign languages much faster than most fully developed adult brains can manage. Mozart allegedly made his first symphony when he was 6. Beethoven was forced into trying to be like Mozart at a young age- it got him deafness, but at the same time, he achieved brilliance in the end.

So yeah. The older ya get...the more difficult it is to absorb new knowledge. Think it's related to these centrosomes? Food for thought. Would love to hear from Mike the Teacher on this subject...

[RoseBlood]

CCC, I just finished reading "The Brain That Changes Itself". It's a collection of stories about people overcoming various brain afflictions. The author questions everything we've been taught about early childhood hard wiring. He explores neuroplasticity.. the brain's ability to adapt and change over time. He tells about patients whose brains have reorganized and rewired themselves to compensate for strokes, cerebral palsy and blindness. I don't know if I'm completely sold on the authors claims but you might find it interesting.

[Mullenax]

I think unlearning requires total submersion in a new situation, just like rapid fluency in another language. I think it would be harder to do consciously, but if you're capable of realizing that you're clinging to something negative, radical.
The systems put in place to permit denial and internally justify behavior are powerful.

[Mike Teacher]

CCC, I just finished reading "The Brain That Changes Itself". It's a collection of stories about people overcoming various brain afflictions. The author questions everything we've been taught about early childhood hard wiring. He explores neuroplasticity.. the brain's ability to adapt and change over time. He tells about patients whose brains have reorganized and rewired themselves to compensate for strokes, cerebral palsy and blindness. I don't know if I'm completely sold on the authors claims but you might find it interesting.

If you liked that youd Love

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat (http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mistook-His-Wife/dp/0684853949)

its by Oliver Sacks, for movie heads thats Robin Williams character in 'Awakenings'

=

And people are talking about several different things, philosphy and physiology; and someone needs to differentiate learning and unlearning.

[Ritalin]

It's not exactly a "Zen" outlook, but there are bits and pieces of Zen philosophy that I agree with. There are chunks of Taoist philosophy that I adhere to. Ditto for some of the teachings of Aristotle, Socrates, Cicero, Plato, Jesus, etc.

I "unlearned" everything I was taught in Catholic school in order to study these teachings, however.

The Zen goal of "no mind" is particularly useful.

Then I decided as a rational, sane adult what I believed in. Not what I was indoctrinated to believe. Kind of like wiping the slate clean and starting over.

If you do that, I think you'll find that you pretty much agree with The Golden Rule. But because you understand it's a good way to live, not because it's been beaten into your brain.

I'm with you on that. I mentally checked out of Catholic school teachings the day they told us that it was a sin to have a lucky number.

[Furtherman]

I "unlearned" everything I was taught in Catholic school in order to study these teachings, however.

A fantastic way to start. Truly a maddening poison that is forced upon us.

Learn to unlearn, my friends.

Give up all preconceived notions and indoctrinations.

Live your life, not someone else's.

Awesome. Perfectly said.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

Hmm...

When I say learning, I mean being able to adopt new ideas efficiently where they fit like skin in your mind. I know enough foreign people to know that learning a new language isn't impossible for an adult to accomplish, but most of these people who know numerous languages all began when they were very young. This is the "European Factor" of living next door to countries that speak different languages and the large interaction with foreign crowds all the time. Contrast that with your average American, who cannot fathom speaking more than one and a half languages, and it sums up to childhood experience and what you were raised to believe. That's very difficult to uproot. I dunno if that has to do with centrosomes or what. But it's very difficult to uproot stuff established at that age. Lookit Earl for Chris'sake.

I also think that by "learning" some people here selectively are referring to philosophy, political leanings, religious beliefs, and educational knowledge. That's incorrect to do because all these kinds of knowledge are various arms protruding from the same beast. Focusing on one arm is ignoring the main body, which doesn't make sense if you want to really think about this.

Learning, i.e. the ability to acquire new knowledge and LEARN it (as in LEARN not just vaguely recall and have to constantly look in a book to remember something- I technically learned Spanish and German if that was the case -) is completely dependent on your mental/brain faculties and/or abilities. Going in the soulful direction, which I generally and vaguely believe in, knowledge is also dependent on what your heart is willing to accept. Going back to cold science however, the heart is dependent on the brain to tell it what to do. But I digress.

That's why a change of heart gets more and more difficult the older you are. There also is a trend towards conservatism for most people as they get older- Samuel Taylor Coleridge spent his Ancient Mariner days smoking opium and being very liberal but later in his life he became a marked (and kinda vitriolic) conservative. Interpret that pattern how you will.

Age can and definitely does hamper the mind's progress, since all of our cells are pre-programmed genetically to expire after a certain date, including our brain cells. (Another example: the protein that carries glucose out of your blood stream is in finite supply in the body and eventually runs out no matter what if given enough time- thus why things like diabetes is common in older people)

Anyhoo...

I'd go on but I already bored you all to death and probably killed this thread.

[jonyrotn]

I'd like to post on this thread but it's just to deep for me..I'm going to watch cartoons.

[Don Stugots]

Learn to unlearn, my friends.

Give up all preconceived notions and indoctrinations.

Live your life, not someone else's.

So, motha fuckin true


(< drunk)

[grlNIN]

Originally Posted by Gvac

Live your life, not someone else's.


Live your quotes, not American Eagles.