Freedom from Knowing
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Freedom from Knowing

21 Nov Freedom from Knowing

Posted at 22:44h in Creativity, Culture, Psychology of Becoming by

November 21, 2013

Dear Readers,

I’ll be transferring this site to its newly designed, easier to navigate, and more intereactive format over this weekend. It’s been nearly two months in the making and, while I’m pretty happy with it, what matters is if you are!

The impetus for the redesign was my decision to write a popular book and get immediate feedback on it. So, beginning next week, loisholzman.org will include chapters of The Overweight Brain: How Our Obession with Knowing Keeps Us from Getting Smart Enough to Make a Better World—as they’re being written.

The site will also include ways for you to give your reactions and suggestions to what I’ve written. I’m very excited to be creating “text” in this new way— socializing the writing process and shortening the publication time and distance between writer and reader. I invite you join in whenever you can.

My blogs posts will continue to appear here as well.

Here’s a little teaser from the Introduction to The Overweight Brain…

It’s a new day for the human brain. Every hour, it seems, cognitive and neuro-scientists are making new discoveries about the three-pound human organ that makes nearly everything about our lives possible. And in these very same hours, infants are being born into a world in which computers, the Internet and smart phones have transformed the kind of “brainwork” our daily lives require. Facts are now at our fingertips, literally.

We’re free. Free from equating being smart with having a head full of facts. Free from being obsessed with knowledge and acquiring it. Free from a childhood, or a lifetime, of tests of how much we know. Free from having to know things. Or, we should be.

 

 

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13 Comments
  • loisholzman
    Posted at 22:07h, 02 December

    Thanks, Helen and Murray. It’s already fun!

  • Helen Abel
    Posted at 00:45h, 26 November

    I loved your teaser. Exciting to be a part of this. And a hopeful pursuit. Like Murray I also look forward to the end of knowing for everybody!

  • Murray Dabby
    Posted at 15:14h, 22 November

    So timely to be writing about this. The end of knowing for everybody! I look forward.

  • loisholzman
    Posted at 13:43h, 22 November

    And I look forward to your input, Marian.

  • loisholzman
    Posted at 13:43h, 22 November

    Thanks, Warren. I’m already having fun with it.

  • warren liebesman
    Posted at 13:39h, 22 November

    Best of luck (and fun!) in your new venture. I think you have an enormous amount to contribute about this. Not to mention a passion to make the world more sane and equitable — and smart!

  • loisholzman
    Posted at 13:30h, 22 November

    I agree, Andrew. Our brains are not only “in” our bodies, they are “in” the world, they are “in” human history—something a “science” of the psyche does not appreciate.

  • loisholzman
    Posted at 13:28h, 22 November

    Perhaps. But people together might not be powerless.

  • Marian
    Posted at 13:00h, 22 November

    Looking forward to your redesigned site and the opportunity to read your new book as you are writing it. Thank you for such a gift!

  • W.Schlamilch
    Posted at 08:35h, 22 November

    Clearly, the omnipotent brain is not able to create a better world. But neither the
    oldfashioned psychological human being is able to do that ( if you agree it is a
    miserable world ). And also brain and person together are powerless. And when the answer of the brainfanatics is : we must use our brain better , who is the WE ?
    So, we must conclude there is no hope , there will never be a better world without
    poverty, war and killing.

  • Andrew Tyson
    Posted at 03:18h, 22 November

    We may be free from having to know enormous amounts of information/knowledge, but I don’t think this has resulted in humanity becoming wiser.

    Andrew.

    P.S. The brain is a fantastic tool that we are born with and can train. However, as much as it is often described as the computer (fully loaded with software in how to learn, retain, etc.) that drives the machine of the body; but I have never seen reliable demonstrations or theories as to how it ‘thinks’; or what exactly a ‘thought’ is. As for the computer analogy , there is the concept of the user (see movie ‘Tron’) – the individual identity that uses the brain and its software to achieve their goals. Where does that identity reside? In the brain itself (the computer not only working to instructions, but instructing itself); or the body (which begs the question of ‘where’ again); or is science simply inadequate to deal with such a question? Particularly a ‘science’ of the psyche!

  • loisholzman
    Posted at 02:33h, 22 November

    Thanks so much, Jen!

  • Jennifer Bullock
    Posted at 02:31h, 22 November

    Love the title! Very exciting project looking forward to reading more!

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