Episodic Memory (refabricated/confabulated) & Mnemonics

A Dialogue

Smith (nephew): I have to remember something in order to remember what I have to remember.

Uncle Tom: First of all, will you remember what I would like you to remember?

Smith: That is exactly what I am trying to say!

Uncle Tom: Listen! Remember the last time we went fishing? (Smith nods his head in agreement) Ah! You must remember that at least…

Smith: Do you mean the day we came back empty-handed? The day we were so embarrassed in front of Aunt Suzan?

Uncle Tom: That’s not important. I am trying to make a point here. Do you remember the day I shared my last wishes with you?

Smith: Ah! Yes! I remember the thundering storm because of which we caught nothing that day. Oh! Now, this reminds me how we talked about life and how it could be stormy and dark… How our bones will one day become too brittle and muscles too rigid to follow what we want. We also collected pebbles which looked just like ladybugs! Oh! Those pebbles…

Uncle Tom: Smith, that’s not the day we talked about my last wishes! True, the thundering storm had given us an empty catch. But it was the dry river bed and not the dark clouds which made us talk about death and dying.

Smith: Do you mean I can’t exactly remember the day we collected those pebbles stored in my cardboard? But those pebbles remind me of us talking about your last wishes!

Uncle Tom: All I am trying to say is, yes, we had come home empty-handed due to the storm. But that’s not the day we had collected those pebbles.

Smith: But Aunt Suzan was so annoyed with us for coming home with a bucketful of pebbles instead of fish! We were equally embarrassed too!

Uncle Tom: Oh! Surely she was annoyed with us, but not for the pebbles but for my childish behaviour!

Smith: (Nods his head in slight confusion)

Uncle Tom: The day we collected those ladybug-like pebbles was hot and sunny. Most of the good fishing areas were almost dry. That is the day we talked about my last wishes…

Smith: Oh! Now I remember! The stormy day, empty catch, and annoyed Aunt Suzan happened just before summers! The dried up river beds, the conversation about your last wishes, and the collection of pebbles happened in late winter! That day, Aunt Suzan was off visiting her ailing elder sister! She wasn’t even home! Hahahaha…!

Uncle Tom: Thank god you could pull apart those two distinct memories! I thought I was the one going crazy!

Smith: Don’t worry Uncle! I have preserved the pebbles carefully. In fact, the hymn ‘Rock of Ages’ which we sing regularly in our Sunday service also keeps reminding me of your last wishes…

Uncle Tom: (Humming) Rock of ages, cleft for me.... Let me hide myself in thee…

The Theoretical Plot in Brief:

            In the above dialogue, Uncle Tom tries to reflect what unique situation triggered him to talk about his last wishes with Smith, his nephew. However, Smith starts constructing the memory by associating it with similar memories. This leads him to construct false memories (also called confabulated or refabricated memory). He tries to recombine bits and pieces of different (perhaps similar) memories into a single, cohesive memory. That is how he tries to fit his annoying Aunt Suzan in both the cases even though she was only present in one, because she always got annoyed when they returned empty-handed. Smith has the whole scheme of what his Uncle is trying to say but in a confabulated manner, where some details are vague or misplaced. Since it has been encrypted in his memory like reality, Uncle Tom has to make extra efforts to separate the two episodic memories. Throughout the dialogue, Smith uses mnemonics to remember one incident in relation to another. He has the inclination to connect a memory, an object (the ladybug-like pebbles), and hymns to construct the entire episode and also keeps his Uncle’s last wishes in his long-term memory.

Fiction Today and Forever

Fiction has thrilled humanity inspiring us in to improbable adventures. Every ethnic group has fictional tales and stories that captivate the imagination of their past, present and future. The cultural fabric of our tribe is also interwoven with tales filled with mystical characters plotted by our ancestors. They are equally unique, intriguing and thrilling. Today, our generation is mystified by characters such as the wizards of Harry Potter; Andrew of Bicentennial Man (1999), a sentient and emotional robot educating and upgrading himself and finally convincing the World Congress to recognize him as human; and Dr. Will Caster of Transcendental (2014) who uploads his consciousness into the quantum computer where he goes on to disobey death. All these characters are potent of future realities.

When neuroscience and artificial intelligence advance, transhumanism could become a reality. When we could experience more than three dimensions, a round square or virtual reality swaps our very reality. When all A Priori conditions are turned upside down. When education, cultivation, driving, and all sorts of activities would be sourced to sentient machines. Will our tales and narratives stand the test of such a possible future or will these factors be a detrimental force? Will it even matter at all, I wonder?

Yesterday’s fiction is today’s reality and today’s fiction would be our reality tomorrow. There is nothing fictional but fictional realities, and the immortal human seems to be in the making however nascent it may appear now. The future could be weird and strange too. So, it concerns the very indemnity of our existence and survival of our unique culture, the inevitable adaptation we cannot escape. The role of this generation is to create a confluence of our ancestral tales with our present fictional schemes. We should fortify a carrier which would revive our fictions from generation to generation. We would have to recreate our ancestral fiction’s keeping the spirit of the tale intake. Hope our grandfather Madungkashii and grandmother Samutingdangpui are talked about by immortal beings.

Who will take a higher moral ground?

Probably you are from a broken family or have a kin or a neighbour who endure the same trouble times. Probably you have overcome a grudge or a guilt feeling in recent past or perhaps going through the burden right now or at least anticipating in the near future. Looking around there simply no perfect family or a perfect and pristine person. To be human is to come along with imperfection as a priori attributes whether we like it or not. The genesis or the origins of this gosh is simply a rhetoric because hardly any tangible progress had been made since Plato’s era. Human error like any other concept is also a relative term which means any specific behaviour or action might be wrong in one social culture milieu but an excellent performance in other society. Civilization that have flourish in might and power have never fail to detect and impose the wrongness of anything that is right among the so called primitive or barbarians.

Human and Gods are the only sentient being which accounts free will. The free will of the former is too illusive and the latter is just too delusive. We have not yet defy dead and intrinsic desire to live nor yet seduce in to suicide. Immortal man is the species in waiting to be a mortal God. Natural evolution has brought us to where we are today and artificial intelligence is taking as ahead where our heart lies. In this count and current advancement in computer technology, neuro science and bioengineering we are exponentially improving our artificial intelligence. Transhumanism has capture the imagination of higher form of super human being. The interim is that our machine are becoming smarter almost in to perfection.

Today, gadgets and machines are very reliable and the same expectation from human being on specific areas such as accurate calculation or recording are just too futile. We would rather bank on alarm clock than your most trusted lover to remind us of unimportant events or even taking life warranting medicine. Learning is getting more electronic and down the path where one day we would have a very compassionate robotic teacher with the right trait of ideal teacher. When google drive us to office with higher safety assurance and a robotic lawyer defending our case in the court we would have so much time to worry about trivial things. But, at the backdoor our machine or technology will get smarter and smarter.

However progressive or advance we can’t imagine a sentient computer or technology in the near future. Even then hypothetically that’s the era where the machine can take a higher moral ground against human species and over our Gods. They would make our behaviour or capacities worthless and obsolete. Any external agents (may be other species form other universe) who happen to observe the realities would surely find the reference of moral judgement in artificial entity. Few technical nerds would continue to design smarter machine. This only implies that their reliability would simply increase and so their moral standard. Yesterday fiction is today reality and who dare bat that our fictions and imagination would not be tomorrow reality? The moral standard or moral ground as we understand today would be tomorrow occupy by our gadgets. We might have to evolved for ourselves a different form of morality, a more abstract or ironic concept of morality. It is still for us to wait and watch and not judge. 

Know thy wolf among the sheep

There are war mongers and blood thirsty vampires sneaking around in human forms and having a gala time discussing and instigating violence. Vehement conflict is the only state that makes them feel aroused and alive. They are nothing but neurotic and sick monsters on all counts whose lives' miseries do not end in this life. Any dispute is just a pretext; they can manufacture any idiotic case just to keep their venom active.

These parasites survive in the silence of some perfect hypocrisies who sometime camouflage under the title of the educated, teachers, priests, leaders or well-meaning persons who supply abundant fuel of hatred. The hard reality is that some of them are dear fathers or bothers or sisters to us.

Sense, reason, and logic are their greatest enemies. They constantly confront and try to overcome these attributes with bitter pills of hatred and lies. They can convince themselves of any height of craziness and notoriety. They would die trembling and fettering if they are to be deprived of violence and hatred. They spend long nights and feast on bitter fruits as the blood boils high within them with all the enzymes produced in abnormal disproportion. They prowl like the hungry predator ready to pounce with the friction of commotion or disagreement. They crawl like zombies and penetrate through the thoughts of others and create exasperation and despair.

These zombies think they have the sole rights to threaten or troll others. They think there is no one righteous to counter them. Their truth is a delusion and they profess all lies in a convoluted manner. Seeing fear in others makes their eyes gleam. They think they can have their impunity and satisfy their impulses.

They are slaves to their emotions and undesirable desires. Rape, murder, and other atrocities are more than justifiable for them. They think they have their narratives right but that is another lie that can be easily punctured with a few pinches of facts and truth. It is just a matter of time before these hate mongers and bigotries would devour themselves. There is no ending to their thirst until they vanished off like a fart in the air.

Silence and disinterest in them is their greatest weapon. We should take great interest in them and tried to decode their vicious schemes. They should be identified and described exactly the way they are. A befitting respond should be given. Exposing them and knocking some sense in their heads ought to be romantic. The need of an alternative voice of upright men and women is the need of the hour. The enemy is from within and so we need an alternative voice from within us.

Today, these predators might be your friends but tomorrow you will be their prey. We need to reason with them and for that we need to understand their USP and their very character. They come in all forms of ideas and intentions and sometime they could be our very own so-called guardians. But their only motive is to cause our destruction. Let us lash out our belt of scrutiny to high and low lands. Ignoring the rise of bigotries and hate mongers in our midst would mean condemning ourselves to generations of insecurity and conflicts.

Preserving Nature Is Preserving Ourselves

How many guns and bullets will it take to extinguish the wild animals in our forest?
How many more axes and contractors would it take to sweep away our green trees?
How many more dynamites and batteries would it take to fish out all the tiny fish in our river?
How many more picnics would we organise to degrade our environment?
How many more leaders would we elect to ensure that our land turns into desert?
How many more prayers and poems will it take for us to realise the destruction we are doing?
How many more questions will it take to change our mindset?
How many more educated people will we need to say "enough is enough"?
What is our joy when forests are deprived of rain and left thirsty?
Will we mourn when sweet and natural water tastes like poison?
Will we regret when our forest blooms no more orchids and flowers?
Will we rather take pride when we walk around with oxygen bottles?
Are we prepare for life when we enjoy no more spring nor autumn?
What will you tell your children when they ask why there are no more melodious songs of birds in our forest?
What will you tell your children about the droughts they are about to face?
What will you tell your children about our age-old traditional songs and tales dedicated to hills and mountains?
What shall we take of all those locations named after nature’s wonders and beauty by our ancestors?
What will you do when the wind blows like the hot wind from the furnace? More destruction obviously…
How many tears should one shed and how many broken hearts will it take for us to listen to our provider?
When will we open our eyes and see that our ecosystem is depleting slowly and steadily, dying a slow and depressing death?
All nature wants is for us to leave it alone. It would shower you abundantly with beauty, fresh air, water, seasons and much more…
When will we make "sustainable living" our holy grail?
Above all, tell me, how many dollars’ bribe will you take to be even a little sensitive to our mother nature?

Is the hole in the polo part of it? if yes why? if not why? 

A refection of experience on attributes (critical thinking) of teachers and challenges as a teacher’s educator.

Education is a normative pursuit. Its understanding needs serious philosophical examination and discourse. Aims of education; meaning and concept of education; being educated; educating; relationship between teacher and pupil; teaching-learning relationship; attributes of teacher etc., all need clear philosophical analyses. Thinkers like RS Peters define education as the achievement of something worthwhile and desirable (valuable). Various documents like the National Curriculum Framework, 2005 state that education should aim to bring about commitment to democracy and its values of equality, justice, freedom, concern for others’ well-being, secularism, respect for human dignity and rights. It is said that education should aim to build a commitment to these values, which are based on reason and understanding. However, the notorious regime of the Nazis shook humanity when their education, in the words of Wiesel, ‘…emphasized theories instead of values, concepts rather than human beings, abstraction rather than consciousness, answers instead of questions, ideology and efficiency rather than conscience’. The above two views indicate the possibilities of education becoming a means to either virtuous or vicious ends, despite the claim that education is a normative pursuit. Determining factors in stopping education used as instrument for creating a chauvinist and undemocratic society is to promote all qualities antagonistic to irrationalism, bigotry, injustice, ignorance and atrocities. How is this possible? The deciding factors of this possibilities heavily shoulder on many attributes of teacher in general and in particular the attribute of being a critical individual. However this attribute does not thrive in isolation but depend on many other factors. How is it possible to realize aims of education without these attributes imbedded in teacher and then cultivated by student? How is it possible to bring about critical and autonomous individuals through education when the teacher is himself not a critical individual? Can we teach or train someone to be critical?
A visionary document like the National Curriculum Framework for Teachers Education (NCFTE), 2010 regards teachers as individuals who critically examine curriculum and textbooks, do not treat knowledge as a ‘given’, are embedded in the curriculum and accept it without questioning, a reflective practitioner who questions one’s own practice and thoughts, who view learning as a search for meaning out of personal experiences and knowledge generation as a continuously evolving process of reflective learning. According to this document, all these attributes can be realized if both students and teachers get the opportunity to inculcate understanding the self and others, one’s beliefs, assumptions, emotions and aspirations. Develop habits and the capacity for self-directed learning, have time to think, reflect, assimilate and articulate new ideas. But, this vision is far from being realized. The realities in the school are steeply different from the vision. It is a matter of grave concern. Various researches and publications regarding the learning level of students and the quality of B.Ed. institutes confirms these concerns.
The characteristics that aggravate these concerns are played out in rhetoric manner as well as in subtle ways. Both rhetoric and subtle spectacle are shared and understand as a majority views in teacher’s community. Many of the teachers’ views about students, education, learning, and teachers are very much
the same. The similarity is not just limited to conceptual understanding but the exactness of language used by the teacher community as well. For example –
Regarding students – Bacche teen prakar ke hote hain – hoshiyar , saamanya aur bhondu; Sab bacche alag-alag hote hain/paachon ungliyan barabar nahin hoti hain; Humare paas jo bacche aate hain, unka base kharab hai…
Regarding education – Pehle toh sab kuch bahut accha tha/hum toh aise hi padhe hain; Acchi shiksha ka matlab hai – pratiyogi-pariksha pass karna aur naukri lagna; Sarkari school mein wo bacche aate hain jinme shiksha ki bhuk nahin hoti/MDM ke liye aate hain…
Regarding learning – Bacche tabhi seekhenge jab hum unhe sikhaenge; Jab tak maa-baap padhe-likhe nahin hote, bacche nahin seekh sakte; Jab tak bacchon par pareeksha/fail/dandit hone ka darr nahin hoga, tab tak wo nahin seekhenge; Seekhna hamesha anushaasan ke maahaul mein hota hai; Baar-baar dohraane se aatmsaad ho jaata hai…
Regarding teacher – Humko toh madari/bawarchi bana diya hai, Shikshak ke haath bandhe hue hote hain, Non-academic work hata dijiye toh gunvatta apne aap aa jayegi, Bacche tabhi seekhenge jab hum unhe sikhaenge.
The claim that most of the teachers share the same view might be an exaggeration but, the weightage lays in the fact that these are the views shared clearly and loudly in any teachers’ platform, be it teachers training, voluntary forums or one-to-one interaction. Counter-views hardly find space for deliberation. The manner in which the above views are shared is also quite inert. Teachers with years of experience and even newly appointed share the same views and same language.
Lack of coherence in the argument of the views is another intriguing character. For example, the same group of teachers which shares the view that ‘Bacche tabhi seekhenge jab hum unhe sikhaaenge’ also share the view that ‘Jab tak maa-baap padhe-likhe nahin hote, bacche nahin seekh sakte’. The former statement is spoken to convey the message that children cannot learn themselves and they would only learn when teachers taught them. There are two more underlying assumptions in this statement – that is child is not a natural learner and the teacher is the giver of knowledge, while the student the receiver. On the other hand, the latter statement stands by the opinion that the efforts by the teacher to make students learn do not matter unless the parents are not educated. Both the statements directly defeat one other. Why are so many teachers asking the wrong questions? Why are they not asking the necessary questions? For example, teachers who say ‘Abhi sab kharaab hai aur pehle toh sab kuch bahut accha tha’ would never care to ask and inquire which time period they mean as ‘the past’ and what is their definition of ‘accha’. If these notions are probed even a little, their vagueness is revealed. The ‘past’ and ‘accha’ traces back to mythology or a time period when education was not available for all it was merely an imperial objective.
However, disquieting the situation reveals that there are teachers who have unique and personalized, well-articulated views about children, education, learning and teachers. The vocabulary used by them reflects their emphatic view about children and a critical view about themselves. Their inquiries have a logical flow and are not arbitrary in nature. A dialectic conversation could be done with
them. The differences between these two groups of teachers can be identified from the way they frame their questions even though they work in the same system and face the same challenges and limitations. To be emphatic, their existential challenges are huge and so possibilities of clouding the concern of what ought to be, a perspective and abstract thought. The former group often ignores the right questions. A second order of questions is never asked. There is no difference seen in doing the right things right and doing the right things wrong. No difference is seen between education and indoctrination, schooling and educating, teaching and learning, instrumental and intrinsic value of education etc. The difficulty with encouraging critical thinking among teachers is succinctly pointed out by John Passmore. First, teachers have many beliefs which he is not prepared to submit to criticism. Second, even if the teacher is herself critical, there may be social pressure upon him not to admit that certain beliefs, practices and authorities can probably be examine in a critical spirit. The third arises from the problem that teacher training is very often not the kind which encourages in him the willingness to participate in critical discussion. But, to think critically is not possible unless we have sufficient knowledge and understanding about the content of the issue. Thus, these add another point to what Passmore has pointed out. The teacher’s lack of criticality could be due to lack of understanding about the aims of education, meaning and concept of education, children, teaching, learning and nature of knowledge.
Cognitivists understand critical thinking as a subset of three types of thinking: reasoning, making judgments and decisions, and problem solving. The faculty of reasoning, making judgments and problem solving are inherent human potentials that most teachers can nourish profoundly. These faculties are at odds with the factors that make it difficult for teachers to think critically (as mentioned above). These conflicts have however shaped some teachers’ perceptions in very precarious ways. Their opinions or arguments are far from being logical and their reasoning often falls prey to fallacies. There are cases where the relationship between premises and conclusions are hard to even draw up. Personal experiences are often generalized and further premises are built on this generalization. For example, teachers who are of the opinion that punishment is necessary say that they were punished in their school days and that is the reason they are where they are today. To this statement I would simple implore what A.S. Neil mentions in his book ‘Summerhill’ to respond to one of his audience – “My father used his slipper on me, and I don’t regret it, sir! I would not have been what I am today if I had not been beaten.” I never have the temerity to ask, “By the way, what exactly are you today.”
To qualify as a teacher is to possess respectable knowledge and understanding about subject content and pedagogy. Does having good understanding in pedagogy and subject content guarantee an individual to be a rational or logical thinker? The design and intervention of teacher education needs a new outlook. Significant understanding about andragogy is another area teacher educators should well-versed with. Logic, research and experience which are often considered as the tools for critical thinking should be an integral part of teacher professional development intervention plan. Also important are develop certain core understandings – Understanding if critical thinking can actually be taught; if critical thinking is a set of skills, imparting of facts, or cultivation of habits; how every domain be it Science, Language, History or Mathematic by nature is strongly imbedded and thrives in the landscape of argument and reason. Teacher educators should also know the importance of critical-thinking in improving the pedagogy of teachers – Understanding the vital role of being critical as a persona of an educated person; how aims of education is not attainable until this faculty is not an intrinsic quality of teacher; student and at large a means of discourse in the society. Need analysis or research to find the reasons why teachers are incapable of critical thinking is the right string to begin with. One has to break-down and understand the meaning of critical thinking because critical is often misrepresented as merely questioning everything.
Pre-service institutes have to take a transitional shift in educating student-teachers. Progress on teacher development in critical-thinking could be built as conscientization among teachers regarding the odds between the obstacle and the importance of critical thinking is done. Creating an environment where one is heard and transition from non-dialectic to dialectic conversation. The stakes are high and the teaching community cannot effort to dwell in this dilemma but have to implement an effective professional development plan for teachers to overcome the sorry state that we see today in our public education.