Ignatian Examen

logically!

i shall enumerate a few key reasons why everyone should study logic.

first, and most importantly, why we should all study logic because it is good to study logic.

secondly, back in high school, i had an art teacher who said that logic is the best way to develop one's mind.

also, she knew a guy who studied logic in college who went to make millions of dollars, so clearly, the surest way to success in life is to study logic.

on the flip side, there was a guy who didn't take logic in school, given the opportunity, and he wound up being killed by a gang two years later.

in conclusion, you should study logic. or else...!

a ponder to question

concerning gregorian chanters--what did greg do that drove so many people to cast spells on him?

thought for food

E.V.O.O.

(untitled)

why give a damn

i read mortimer adler's ten philosophical mistakes. it's a great book by a great mind. basically he outlines what he sees as ten major areas in which modern and contemporary philosophy 'get it wrong' and readjusts them with a more or less aristotlean perspective.

anyway, one of the chapters regards the idea of a human nature, specifically that most modern philosophy would say that there is no such thing as human nature. if you look at any species there are certain characteristics, instincts, and predispositions in its behavior. all dogs act like dogs, all bees do generally the same thing. humans, however, have no common behavior practices, i.e., from one culture to another, from one era to another, there are vast differences between, v.g., social hierarchy and political organization, manners and etiquette, language structure (even sounds), 'common sense', taste preferences, means of offense and the list goes on.

since there's no discernible (diZZZZernible, for you certain friend) common trait it is supposed that there is no human nature (a quick side note, which bears repeating, is that most proponents of the 'no human nature' idea are also ones who would say that humans aren't a different kind of animal, rather we are only different in degree [i.e., in the evolutionary process], but, since all other animals do have discernible common traits, and, in their understanding, we don't, wouldn't that make us of a different kind?).

adler goes on to say that we do have a human nature, and our common human behavioral trait is one of potentiality. his meaning is that, while europeans and africans and malaysians may all have different behavioral traits, none of the people started off with them, and if a malaysian baby happened to grow up in africa, with african parents, it would have adopted all of the behaviors, thinking, and preferences (even language and tones) of the specific african people with which it grew up.

personally, i think america is itself the prime proof of this--multifarious ethnic traditions have given way to the western tradition in this, the great melting pot (even proponents of 'the great tossed salad' label couldn't argue that, while many people may have maintained much of their traditional heritage, the western mindset and ways have, by default of association and immersion, been picked up and worked into whatever culture was preserved in the immigration).

there's much more to this chapter and the implications of having a human nature, and it's definitely worth the read, but there's a specific tangent i ran with, with the help of my brilliant and insightful wife.

you know those people who take a good idea, however worthy the intentions, too far, specifically, those who can't handle someone having an issue with any facet of a different culture? here's what i mean--someone says 'i don't like thai people; their food is weird, the inflection in their language is like nails on a chalkboard, and what is with their need to serve?!' at which point someone else (rightly) interjects, 'hey, you're missing all of the beauty of those things--their food is a savory amalgam of spice and flavor, they practically sing while they talk, and a culture of service is what this world needs!'

well played. but here's where it goes too far: 'the general acceptance of prostitution, specifically the abduction and slavery of young village girls, and the prolific homosexual appetite are just parts of their culture. they aren't bad, they just are, and you have no right to have a problem with them. who is to say that they are right or wrong?'

the good idea of general culture-appreciation taken too far gives license for all sorts of human rights violations. a few others off the cuff would be the caste system's utter neglect of the poorest of the poor, abortion, euthanasia, forced female circumcision and credit cards.

first of all, there's a disconnect in this thinking, in the form of a double standard. people who tell domineering westerners not to domineer (bash and purge) other cultures because of the inherent neutrality of cultural practices and behaviors isn't allowing domineering westerners to do what comes culturally natural to them. they recognize that there's something that needs to change in their own western culture, but will accept willy-nilly, in the delusion of cultural celebration and freedom (read as 'license' [the difference between the two terms is left for another exposition]), the rancor practices of other ethnic traditions.

so it is recognized, then, that, while every culture has good and beautiful things about them (which should be appreciated, if not necessarily understood), there are also some things that need to change, for the basic human rights of all people.

the main issue i want to pose, though, the one that connects to adler's point of having a human nature of potentiality, concerns the idea of celebration of cultures at all. we don't praise dogs for sniffing each other's butts. we don't appreciate the self-expression of the cheetah for chasing down and pouncing on a gazelle (do they even hunt gazelle?). why not? because it's in their nature to do these things. a dog instinctually gathers information about other dogs it comes in contact with through its olfactory sense, and a cheetah doesn't rigorously train in order to achieve its remarkable hunting speed. they just do it naturally.

and with the law of extremes (exemplified in 'both extreme darkness and extreme brightness cause blindness'), if humans have no nature, then the behavioral manifestations of each culture have simply just happened and are no cause for celebration. 'hey, you happened to do that thing that way. good... for... you.'

but, if the nature of humans is potentiality, and cultures could have wound up looking any sort of an infinite variety of ways, and this culture developed this way, and that one that way, then there's cause to celebrate! then a culture becomes a living, organic work of art, with each person of each generation contributing and detracting, molding and changing that culture into what it is from what was handed down. now language tones become special, now cultural preferences have significance, now social and political structure have inherent beauty along with utility.

now each culture really is something special, something that couldn't have just been without the actualization of a general, human potentiality.

taking the idea of aristotle that 'at his best, man is the noblest of animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst' (nicomachean ethics, i believe) and running with it, we now have the true freedom not only to celebrate diverse cultures for all that they have that's worth celebrating (even if, again, it isn't all understood or relatable), but we also have the freedom to criticize a culture for its truly horrific social issues, those things which destroy the opportunity for not only basic human survival and hygiene and the owning of property, but also the pursuit of happiness in the form of right moral living, creative expression, and the attainment of excellence in whatever area of work, leisure and play.

we can say something is wrong and help that culture change it, or at least (in an effort not to be a domineering westerner), help them see what is wrong so they can change it from the inside.

now we can give a damn (or in other words, 'social justice, go!').

our generational advantage

in this, our generation of microwaves, video games and the ubiquitous party, we are at a slight loss when it comes to buckling down and getting things done. we dont know what it is to work (not really), and responsibility is an archaic term for something our parents used to own. we are free to not have to really learn to develop skills, but if there's some talent we desire, say in basketball or martial arts, or if there's some fantastical place we want to go, instead of doing the work to actively participate in a book, why we just turn on our xbox and ps3. if and the levels are too hard, we use a cheat!

ah, the age of no demands.

but there's a gift in all of this, at least for those of us who have been able to step outside the delusion of laid back, digital escapism. think of it like this--a lot of conservative, evangelical christians claim that our founding fathers were sincere christians with the same viewpoints and theological understandings as the large, mostly white churches of our day. many historians have a different understanding of our founding fathers viewpoints.

the prevailing secular view, from what i understand, is that our founding fathers were deists, that is, they believed in an infinite God, they even may have assented to Jesus Christ, but their God wasn't a God that was interested and involved. Theirs was a God that set things in motion, then stepped back, leaving this world entirely in our hands, without the slightest finger-lifting of assistance or guidance.

another understanding, or at least, assumption, of the people who lived back in those days, is that everyone worked, or at least, everyone knew what living required. save for the few drunkards and bums, the vast majority of people worked either the agricultural or mercantile end of things. everyone took care of their own house, hand washed everything from their clothes to their floors, took the time to draw a bath, grew and prepared all of their own food, even made their own clothes, for crying out loud. to survive was to have been raised doing all of these things. the idea of not doing them wasn't even within the realm of possibility of their thinking, in the same way, i imagine, as video games weren't ('there will one day be little light boxes in nearly every home [if not room!] of every household all over the this great land, where people can sit back and manipulate little buttons to control the actions of "light-drawings", characters and worlds painted into little not-wood, not-cloth, not-metal discs that can be interchanged to introduce different characters in different worlds doing different things').

if the physical world is a shadow of the spiritual, and the physical world requires so much darn work just for basic, hygienic survival, but those in that day didn't know what it was to not live a life of constant upkeep, then of course it was easy for them to think that God could step back from this world once he set it in motion. but for those of us who have to relearn what was common experience, who have to actually discipline ourselves to take care of our own little worlds in the most basic ways, even with our technological advances, well, we have a gift in our hands. we can rest assured, knowing how much work goes into taking care of our own in this, the shadow of the spiritual, how much work God must be putting into our world, and our lives, working in love (i.e., for the highest good of the beloved) to make this the best of all possible worlds.

so let's run with that.

trust me on this...

speed reading isn't as corny as it sounds, nor is it far-fetched, impractical or mythical (in the negative connotation of 'myth').

ok, here's the basic idea--your mind is capable of thinking at an average of 100,000 words per minute (wpm), but the average reader reads at around 250 wpm. that's why the mind wanders so easily--it's bored! it's capable of so much more. so if you start to read faster, your brain automatically gets more involved, and is thus able to better comprehend the material.

so how do you actually read faster, and take advantage of the mind's thinking capability? here's a little experiment to demonstrate an important mechanical aspect of reading. you'll need a partner and it will take about 1 minute total (that is, giving both of you a chance to see what's going on).

stand face to face with your partner (4 feet ought to do it) and have your partner trace a circle around your head using just their eyes (that is, simply, look around your head). as they do this, watch what their eyes do. notice the staggered, herky-jerky jumping around the eyes do as they trace an irregular circle. now do this--have your partner draw a circle around your head with their finger as their eyes follow it. observe how fluidly their eyes move (no herky-jerky) and how much more symmetrical the shape is.

what this has to do with reading is simple--as we read, we tend to regress to the start of the sentence we are reading, or the beginning of the paragraph or even the page, sometimes just to reassure ourselves that we read what we read, or sometimes because we have actually completely forgotten what we read.

the other thing we do is fixate on words, again to make sure we are seeing what we are reading. and every pause is time wasted. another issue that comes into play with these fixations is the mind sees in wholes (for example, we don't see the constituent legs, then the seat, then the back, then the arms, and build those together into 'chair,' but we see the chair, then can focus on the individual components of it [we can thank philosopher/psychologist William James for this understanding]). when we fixate we are interrupting the 100,000 wpm stream of thought as a whole, and our brains have to somehow connect THIS... INDIVIDUAL... IDEA (word)... TO... THIS... ONE... AND... SOMEHOW... MAKE... SENSE... OF... EACH... SEPARATE... COMPONENT... HAPHAZARDLY... COMBINED. if we can eliminate fixations, we can use our minds in the way they naturally work, viz., understanding wholes.

the way we combine these two concepts (fluid eye movement and whole-picture understanding) together is remarkably simple. it's called full underlining and it is exactly how it sounds--with your hand flat but relaxed (which one is a matter of preference), run your middle finger directly under the line of text you are reading. when you get near the end of the line, simply raise your hand off the page as much as necessary to bring your hand (and eyes) to the beginning of the next line. the other hand should have the next page-turn prepared before you even get to the last paragraph on the open page (if you're underlining with your right hand, the left hand sits above and around the book, turning the page from the top corner).

when i first started doing this, i would have my finger follow my eyes, which didn't change anything about how i was reading except i now had my hand involved, but i realized the key is to push your eyes slightly faster than they would normally read on their own, i.e., instead of your finger following your eyes, your eyes follow your finger.

after a little bit of practice, i was able to get my reading speed from 279 wpm to around 500, essentially over night (testing your initial speed is vital if you plan on pursuing speed reading at all, so as to be able to track your progress, and it is highly recommended even if you don't pursue it beyond this one technique, just so you can see the difference. the means to test your speed is described at the end of this discourse, and there are plenty of websites that will test you free, as well).

not only does taking advantage of the mechanical aspect of the-eyes-following-the-finger allow for the mind to automatically become more engaged because you're now that much closer to your thinking speed, but the underlining is a constant way to bring your mind back to the task at hand (pun totally intended). we are both physical and mental creatures, so doing something with both aspects of our humanity involved automatically engages us more, i.e., no one is going to sit with their hand swiping down a page for very long not reading. the mind will be drawn back to the text for as long as the hand keeps moving.

another thing to be mindful of is, since you've never read at this increased speed before, and you've spent your whole life regressing and fixating, you'll have to learn to trust yourself. you'll find yourself wanting to regress, 'just to make sure you read what you read.' i'll already tell you--you did. just keep going. also, once you get the basic idea down, spend some time on a book that you don't have to understand right away (in other words, a practice book) alternating between reading this way at a speed that you are comfortable with (and faster than you read with just your eyes alone) and between pushing your hand/eyes so fast that the words are unintelligible, but not blurred out (obviously you're not reading when the words are unintelligible--this is just an exercise to help your eyes get unstuck from the tendency to fixate).

good books to practice on are non-technical, non-fiction books in a subject in which you have an interest but don't have a requirement to fully understand right now. once you get comfortable with it, graduate to both fiction and more technical works.

speaking of fiction, my friend chris had the same reservations about speed reading a fictional work that i did, namely, the fear that you wouldn't be able to really enter into the story, savoring and enjoying it. in fact, it enhances the experience. think of it like this--imagine having the vividness and 'real-time' aspect of a movie, with all of the details and inner-workings (read as, 'beauty') of a book. ah yeah!

one last thought--after you've read through the text once (recommended in one sitting [wholes to parts, remember!]), you're in a better position (due to saved time and having a better general understanding) to go back through and dig into the parts that you had trouble with, or that you know just deserve more attention. i'll give some more thorough explanations on how to work on comprehension some time in the future.

[[the vast majority of this information was obtained freely from www.productivelearn.com (including, copy/pasted, the 'how to compute reading rates' at the bottom), a great website that even includes a 'word per minute'/comprehension test and a demonstration of the full underlining technique. and while this information is practical and powerful (i have personally used it to great effect this last semester, including in my modern philosophy class, and two friends have both used the phrase 'changed my life'), it is just the tip of the iceberg as far as speed reading/comprehension techniques go. just food for thought.]]

How To Compute Reading Rates

When you want to compute your reading rates, it is best to practice in books because it will allow more consistency of words per page. First, look through the book to find what looks like an average or typical page. Then:

1. Count every word on six lines.

2. Divide by six - this gives you the average words per line (wpl).

3. Count the number of lines on the page.

4. Multiple the words per line times the number of lines. Round off the number to the nearest ten. This will give you average words per page (wpp). Remember to adjust your calculations for pages with pictures, diagrams, charts etc.

Then, when you are timing yourself:

Multiply the words per page times number of pages read divided by time (minutes) = wpm (words per minute).

Example: 350 (wpp) X 5 pages = 750 WPM

2 Minutes