How it begins...(4)

Author: Auknife

It is nice that before everything start we already have some meaningful discussion about the reading group itself. It comes from the different view on the reading group between sun0 and I.

(I hope I do not have any misunderstanding or miss out anything important) To sun0, the reading group is a platform of knowledge exchange. The motivation of knowledge exchange comes from one's will to share his view on some particular topics, especially those seldom appear in formal academic environment. Equally important is the need to be taught by others, who may have thought of something one has no idea on, or may have special insight on problems everyone concerns. To maximize the effect of this platform, we should try our best to have more participants to join us.

I understand the rules I suggested are highly demanding. The requirement of at least one speech per person will definitely stop many potential participants from joining. On the other hand the upper limit of two speeches per person will discourage those who want to talk a lot, where I am one of them. But I insist this rule, with all other changes negotiable. Why?

Allowing someone not to speak is to limit the scope of knowledge I can receive.

Allowing someone speaking too much is to let myself submerged by a particular set of bias.

Allowing myself not to speak means complete give up.

Allowing myself speaking too much is an indulgence of satisfying on current state of mind.

All these conditions are unacceptable.

According to my experience, many people, including several people in the mailing list and I myself have very limited curiosity. Sometimes we find something highly interesting and would like to be taught on that subject. But we are quickly satisfied after getting some very basic/superficial idea on that subject. Similarly we like free discussion because we know nothing about what we say, which means we bear no responsibility on it; and it seems that we know a lot after talking. All these are valuable, but we are able to gain much more with reasonable effort.

Another serious problem is most of us lack motivation to learn. I never boast too much, but I would like to point out that I called more than 90% of MRC meetings and took at least 30% of speaking time in it. Though I am someone who have a lot to say, enjoy speaking and being listened, I hate this condition very much, not only because making and receiving phone calls are annoying. The lack of motivation in using reason on our own, combining with the habitual reliance on external guidance forms the greatest enermy on the road towards knowledge and democracy. Such consequence was recognized for a long time, say for example mentioned in Kant's 'What is Enlightenment' which I am going to introduce in one of our reading sessions.

But laziness sounds invincible. Therefore I have no choice but appeal to rules to minimize its effect. It is contradictory to the democratic ideal, again mentioned in Kant's 'What is Enlightenment'. It simply aims as a little push for those who actually have something to say, but lack self confidence or simply regard what they think as trivial or unimportant. In some other cases people may not be able to think of anything to talk about. Therefore preparing for a speech becomes a good chance for them to organize what they know and what they find important.

The last piece of advice to speech preparation is, you can talk about something even if you do not know it very well. You can learn something completely new just for the speech. For example I read Kant's 'What is Enlightenment' and its related articles just five days ago. I decided to talk about it in my first presentation just because I find this series nicely written and we can have a lot of discussion on it.

Up to now I saw more than 10 proposed topic and it is completely out of my expectation. Some of them are creative while the others are old fashioned. But they all set good examples on what a person think in response to the external world.

sun0

• 從槍、病、鋼細訴人類文明演化
• 從《反斗奇兵》看故事創作
• BANG the 3 Kingdom Kill  從BANG及《三國殺》分析到遊戲設計探討
• Are your IQ good? 由邏輯IQ題看計算科學 
• 從量子世界到宇宙穹蒼

adam

• 為什麼我這樣孤寒
• <心靈雞湯>帶來什麼感動？
• 甚麼是教育（一）教育本質的探討（二）香港教育出了什麼問題（三）我為什麼要成為中學教師
• The joy of making music  
• My Mphil project made easy --- perspectives from biostatistics

auknife

• Enlightenment -- forever 50% completion
• 三島由紀夫短篇傑作

Some of you may find my suggestions similar to the way tutorials in Department of Philosophy are carried out. Yes, it is. Tutorials in Department of Philosophy made me understand the importance of speaking and deep thinking. Without those tutorials, I may never realize how limited a single person's thought is, and how to make it possible to expand my capacity on thinking. Preparation can help oneself to acquuire better understanding and mermory on the matter of discussion; while on the other hand everyone can learn much more if others have knowledge on the topic you are talking about in comparable level. To achieve this goal, some courses even require every student hand in his own summary on the article of discussion before class. We need not be so harsh. But we should no longer rely on improvisation, since the sudden flashes of thoughts are temporary and unreliable, though appealing.

The process of speaking is also highly different from pure thinking in the sense that what you find appealing in thinking may not sound so good when speaking it out. For similar reason, those who have the ability would never be satisfied by making music in the brain. They will surely play it and quickly discover how far away from ideal their imagination is. One can get too much more if he participate in the discussion instead of just passively listening. This is the reason why I insist everyone speaking, for his own sake.

The word 'preparation expected' is much stronger than 'it is better to prepare' or 'we recommend preparation'. Using the later ones simple means saying 'you need not do it'. Everyone should be able to understand it clearly, after being a student for more than 16 years.

So I have presented what sun0 and I hope the reading group to achieve. Those careful readers will have already noticed that it is a dilemma of quantity and quality. We should try our best to achieve both. But I would choose the later one if we really have to choose. It is because I find the former one still stick onto conventional way of education, which separate teaching and learning. Though learning in higher quality is difficult, it provides a sustainable way of studying, which should be adopted long before entering university.