Spiritual concepts
Learning

It will be helpful here if you have The Model of the Mind open in order that you can refer to it as you go along.
The learning function creates amends and deletes Memory. We take the Perceptions we have received, and condense them and extract and classify them into a structure. It is essentially a process of:
- Recognition and understanding
- Synthesis. [classification] If we are good at it, we also go through a process of
The verification process may then cause us to go round the cycle again correcting and in effect relearning. Relearning is thus exactly the same set of activities, but it involves a form of removal of the incorrect parts of Memory and replacement with an amended set of facts and functions.
We learn, as do all creatures, both facts and function. But it is only at the final analysis and synthesis stage that we in a sense ‘separate them’ into their two parts – the Learnt function and the Database of facts.
Learning is based on our Perceptions. The more Perceptions we accumulate of different sorts and the more we use them in improving our Memory the better will be our models of the outside world.
The more we experience, the more we are capable of learning. Learnt function and the facts that go with it – our model and its database – is able to become more and more sophisticated and closer to perceived reality the larger it gets. As long as it is based on solid foundations, this 'house of knowledge' can expand and expand and expand with new rooms new wings being added all the time.
However, if the person ignores what is happening round him – head down, mind tuned out and despite all the input ignores it and also ignores the changes taking place, nothing new is ever learnt and the old structure is never taken down and rebuilt when a set of modelled functions prove to be false or inadequate. The Memory of each one of us, containing the model of the systems of the universe as we perceive it, can be wholly wrong.
Notes
1. For a little background on how the Greeks personified learning - see Learning - the Greek system.
2. For some extra thought on the important role that language plays in learning see Learning and Language.
3. For some background on how deficient the current approach to learning taught in our education establishments is see Learning and the Database of facts.
4. Learning is greatly improved and helped if we improve the Perceptions on which learning takes place, as such there is a connection here with the activity of Improving Perception.
Observations
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- Abu Menba Carawash, Sultan of Mousel – To Adversity
- Alain Danielou - While the Gods Play - 01 The Experimental Method (Vaisheshika)
- Alastair I. McIntosh - Enhancing perception
- Arnold-Forster, Mary - Where do dreams come from?
- Asvaghosha - The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana - Spiritual interactions
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - Memory and Perception
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - Perception extraction
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - Relearning from perceptions
- Bergson, Henri - Matter and Memory - The cyclical nature of Perceptions
- Cicero - Pro Archia Poeta - Natural gifts without education
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - Qaue nocent docent
- Comenius - Didactica Magna - Improve people's observational powers
- Comenius - Didactica Magna - Teach the value of meticulous observation
- Dalton, John – Philosophical Experiments – The advantages of experiment and observation over book learning
- Damasio, Professor Antonio - David and learning
- Damasio, Professor Antonio - Systems of communication and Inner speech
- Damasio, Professor Antonio - The lying memory
- Daniel Webster
- Darwin, Charles - Dr W.Y. Evans-Wentz on Darwin's evolutionary theory
- Dawkins, Professor Richard - Home schooling
- De Morgan, Augustus - The Budget of Paradoxes – There’s a paradox to blame
- Descartes, Rene - The unreliability of memory
- Dr Seuss - To think that I saw it on Mulberry Street
- Edouard Claparède
- Edwin Percy Whipple - On education
- Efficacy of cognitive behavioural therapy for sleep improvement in patients with persistent delusions and hallucinations (BEST): a prospective, assessor-blind, randomised controlled pilot trial
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Intellect - On inspiration and wisdom
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Intellect - On intellect
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Intellect - On learning
- Evolutionary Rationalism In Dr. V.L. Raikov’s Mosaic Model Of Consciousness - The task to create the man who is the creator
- Fenelon, Francois - On adversity and humiliation
- Goethe - Faust Part 1
- Goethe - Selected poems - Whom shall you trust, honest friend
- Grof, Dr Stanislav - Core experiences and reinforcement
- Grof, Dr Stanislav - On core experiences
- Hume, David - Animals have similar functions to humans
- Kant, Immanuel - Critique of Pure Reason - Synthesis
- Keats, John - Letter March 1819
- Koestler, Arthur - Janus - Creative thought
- Koestler, Arthur - Janus - The unreliability of memory
- Krishnamurti - Miscellaneous quotes - On education
- Krishnamurti - The Network of Thought - Now, is there another form of learning
- Krishnamurti - The Network of Thought - You, the ego… the me is just memory
- Levitin, Professor Daniel - On our lack of observational ability
- Lilly, John - Perception versus Memory
- Lowell, James Russell - Through suffering and sorrow I have passed
- Madame D's dreams
- Mesopotamia - Its technology and culture 02 Divination
- Monroe, Robert - Nature as teacher
- Montessori, Dr Maria - The Absorbent Mind - Learning
- Neumann, John von - Instant recall
- Nietzsche - On the Genealogy of Morals - If a temple is to be erected, a temple must be destroyed
- North Whitehead, Alfred – 19 Perceptions are not the same as memory
- North Whitehead, Alfred – The nature of discovery and learning
- O'Reilly, John Boyle - In this brief life despair should never reach us
- Oliver Sacks - Victor the Wild Boy and what he learnt
- Plato - Meno - On reincarnation and past lives
- Plotinus - The Enneads - As for violent personal sufferings
- Plotinus - The Enneads - On learning how to learn
- Prokosch, Dr Frederic - Chosen Poems – from The Perfectionists
- Ramachandran, Dr V S - The distortion of perceptions to fit belief systems
- Ramacharaka on Louis Agassiz - On learning to observe
- Research paper - Visual Awareness and the Detection of Fearful Faces
- Richter
- Romano, Jacques - On education
- Rumi - The Book of Love - The way the soul is with the senses
- Samuel Johnson - On adversity
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - Reducing desires
- Shaivism - Concepts and symbols - Reincarnation and Destiny
- Slow oscillations orchestrating fast oscillations and memory consolidation
- Steiner, Rudolf - Nature spirits - Thoughts
- Steven Pinker - Learning and language
- Tagore, Rabindranath - On how to learn
- TED talk - Daniel Tammet - Different ways of knowing
- Tennyson, Alfred Lord - In Memoriam A H H - The baby new to earth and sky
- The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War - The Great Learning
- The Sutra of Hui-Neng - Essential nature
- Wallace, Alfred Russell - The use of observations as evidence
- Watson, Lyall - On dreams and learning
- Wilde, Oscar - Education
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book I - Sutras 01 to 51