Paradigms+and+You

= **Knowledge is to a great degree shaped by paradigms and culture; while we cannot escape this, awareness of the fact should serve to mitigate some of the intellectual and moral** **dangers that result**=



= A paradigm is a mental construction (based on a set of assumptions and beliefs) by which we organise our reasoning and classify our knowledge. =

=== **During the period of steamboat travel in the United States, the Mississippi River was wild, everchanging and dangerous without the kind of river management we find today. Mark Twain’s memoir Life on the Mississippi describes his experiences as a steamboat pilot. Read his account below. Note that Twain suggests that different people can perceive and even understand the same thing differently.** ===

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The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. In truth, the passenger who could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading-matter. =====

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Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring. =====

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I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark. =====

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No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a 'break' that ripples above some deadly disease. Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade? =====

** Discussion Questions **

 * ** How are the two people in the passage above “seeing” the same scene? **
 * ** Which paradigm above leads to a better understanding of the river? Which is more realistic? Which is more true? **
 * ** Which way of perceiving the river is preferable? **


 * The 9/11 Paradigm:** What is the significance of September 11?

= = Three of the Big Paradigms of Western Civilization media type="custom" key="20837084" align="center"

Paradigms allow us to organize our beliefs into a meaningful whole. We can get a sense of the what and the how of the world through our paradigms but the problem with paradigms is that they can sometimes filter out knowledge because that knowledge doesn’t or can’t fit into our paradigm. Then what?
 * Summary**

Paradigms are influenced by our experiences and our perspective. Our perspective is influenced by a complex interaction of many factors that includes age, gender, ethnicity, location, era, religious beliefs, culture, socio-economic-status, personality, health, education, specialized knowledge (i.e. doctors, engineers, artists, carpenters, riverboat captains), etc.

Errors in understanding can arise due to:


 * use of unsupported assumptions
 * a need for coherence (building stories and myths to the deficit of accuracy and truth)
 * expectations from prior experience
 * failure to question premises

Questions about the certainty of the **Knowledge Claims** based on the errors above lead to **Knowledge Issues** or questions/issues about knowledge.

==** Task: Create a poster that details the paradigms and related factors that determine your view on the world. **== Optional Reading: Van de Lagemaat text 180-184