In my first work, I proposed some very tentative limitations to conceptualizing learning simply in terms of behavior or cognitive processes. I tried, in a cursory way, to argue that past approaches to educational theory were reductionistic and only part of a larger picture. I was attracted to social cognitivism because it seemed to suggest that—at the very least—learning occurs in a nexus of interrelated processes that act upon and interact with one another. Environmental factors, such as one’s upbringing or cultural and religious factors, influence individual thoughts and actions, which in turn motivate and discourage different sets of behavior and conduct. Likewise, one’s behavior influences social dynamics external to the self and so the process also operates in reverse. Unlike previous models, learning isn’t a matter of strict linearity, resembling a Fordist production line in an mechanical analogy suitable to early mass industrialism (my thanks to Davidson’s historical thinking here). You don’t simply pull the lever of an operant conditioner to decide behavior.

While the definition of consciousness is a notoriously elusive thing to capture—akin to nailing Jell-O to a wall—I am intrigued by recent explorations into the subject from the standpoint of neuroscience and quantum physics (in which, admittedly, I have virtually no previous background). Historically, scientists have tried to define the mind as an emergent property of brain activity. The brain is the physical substance (in essence, a “meat computer”), and the mind is the conscious result of firing neurons (the intangible “software”). However, recent studies have began to challenge what can, again, be seen as a throwback to an earlier paradigm of mechanistic reductionism.

According to Dan Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine and the author of a recently published book, Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, the abstraction that we call “the mind,” while in some sense dependent on the brain’s physical properties, nevertheless resides outside of the body somehow. After working with a number of neuroscientists, anthropologists, sociologists and others, he determined that the mind was a “self-organizing process…that is both embodied and relational.” In other words, it has some sort of affinity with Salomon’s notion of “distributed cognition,” in that there’s no clean differentiation between individual minds and the thoughts they produce. To me, this assertion immediately brings up metaphysical or philosophical notions of “transcendence,” “the soul” or other such speculation that can’t be directly subjected to scientific observation and analysis. (We can also immediately think of Buddhist concepts surrounding the “illusion of the fixed ego” (Sanskrit, maya; anatman) or Christianity’s ideas of corporate interconnectedness, using the concepts of corpus Christi or panentheism.) Some physicists, like Meijer and Hammeroff, conjecture that consciousness may be rooted in quantum physics, tethering mental events to a fourth dimension that cannot be apprehended from our vantage point in our (empirical) 3D universe. They propose an almost monist solution to the Cartesian problem of mind-body dualism, answering the question of how immaterial-like subjective experiences and self-consciousness arise from a physical brain. An interesting hypothesis, and tangentially related to our discussion of educational theory. I know that neurobiology and quantum biology are emerging fields, so it’s difficult to test the veracity of some of the scientific claims.

Western philosophy has long deemed learning as best done in “community,” and the notion that isolated individuals could rightly determine the nature of reality was the locus of schism between Roman Catholicism and the followers of Protestantism’s founder, Martin Luther (at that time, theology reigned supreme as the “queen of sciences”). It seems like modern science is affirming that meaningful learning cannot truly occur in isolation and that mind itself occurs within the context of community. When we encounter something new, we have to reconcile it with our previous ideas and experience along an epistemic spiral of engagement/disengagement that moves between the individual and the group. When learners continually engage with and reflect on their experiences through perspectival filters provided by a wide array of others, their ideas acquire nuance, power and sophistication. Neuroscience, with novel theories like quantum disentanglement, seem to be pushing through the limitations of conventional, deterministic models.

References:

Siegel, D. (2016). Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) New York: W&W Norton.

Meijer DKF, Raggett S. Quantum Physics in Consciousness Studies. The Quantum Mind Extended, Quantum Mind 2014;http://quantum-mind.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Quantum-Ph-rev-def-2.pdf.

Meijer DKF. The Extended Brain. Cyclic information flow in a quantum physical realm. NeuroQuantology 2014; 12-2: 180-200.

Hameroff, S and Penrose R. (2014). Consciousness in the Universe: A Review of the ‘Orch OR’ Theory. Phys Life Rev. 2014 Mar;11(1):39-78.

https://qz.com/866352/scientists-say-your-mind-isnt-confined-to-your-brain-or-even-your-body/

https://www.theepochtimes.com/uplift/a-new-theory-of-consciousness-the-mind-exists-as-a-field-connected-to-the-brain_2325840.html

https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/does-the-human-brain-operate-outside-of-the-laws-of-physics