Below is the start of the introduction to my book, Memories, Beliefs, and Learning. To read more of the introduction, send a request to steve.wyre@gmail.com.
Beliefs are circumstantial.While it is nice to suppose humans have the capacity to deliberately change or modify personal beliefs, the process may be less intentional than imagined.The reason, though, is not a matter of free will but of the way in which the brain functions.In brief, sensory experiences lead to memories and memories accumulate to form beliefs.One cannot believe something of which one has no memories.Moreover, one does not always deliberately choose what beliefs grow out of one’s accumulated memories. How, then, do the specific beliefs form in the brain? What memories clump together to make a belief and how do beliefs change?
These accumulated memories support an individual’s belief system or personal paradigm.If a person switches political affiliation from Republican to Democrat, or vice versa, it is because there has been a shift in the individual’s personal paradigm.New sensory experiences, including what is heard or read, have led to forming new memories that facilitate the shift in beliefs.The same shift happens when a person moves from having beliefs consistent with being a Christian to having those of an Atheist or from being math-phobic to confident when tackling Algebra.When moving from any one set of beliefs to another, it is a matter of having experiences that lead to forming new memories or new connections between old memories to the point where the set of memories supports a different belief than it once did.Oh, and often some memories are erased or amended to mesh with the new ones.
A personal paradigm is the set of all a person’s beliefs.They are not all things of which the person is aware.Many, if not most beliefs are not something a person normally thinks about.The paradigm is just the way the person is. It is important to note that beliefs, qua beliefs, are not only those relegated to religion and politics. Beliefs also include those held about one’s ability to understand mathematics, whether eating Vegan is better than having steak or chicken, even about whether a certain wall in one’s house or apartment would look better beige or red.Beliefs are what we have that guide our actions and thoughts about any subject we may encounter.On the more sensitive subjects of religion and politics, one is not born a Southern Baptist or Buddhist, Republican or Libertarian.Interestingly enough, it is only through experiences and interactions with others that we even see these subjects as emotionally charged.
The paradigm is also present when seeing a certain object brings about nausea or feelings of happiness and wellbeing.The paradigm is present when we think about our own strengths and weaknesses.There is a nascent field of study called personal epistemology and that will be discussed in chapter six.In essence, a person’s beliefs about what can be known and how that knowledge might be derived will actually hinder or help that person’s ability to be successful in school.This paradigm is established early on, but will change over time as one adds, subtracts, and amends memories.
Every normal human being has genetic predispositions toward certain personality traits. Just ask anyone who has raised children. Babies seem to come into the world with a personality already intact and they do have genetic predisposition to act and react in certain ways.However, all children are born belief-neutral.From the womb, one starts accumulating experiences in language, emotions, and in learning the beliefs of others, all the while building sufficient memories to support one belief system over another. Teaching and learning, on most levels, is about changing beliefs.
The philosophical foundation for this book is a theory of learning built from concepts consistent with what is known about how the brain works.If one peruses a textbook on learning, one will encounter theories labeled Functionalist, Rationalist, Cognitivist, or Neuroscientific[1].While there is value in each of these theories, the reality of learning may be a mix of these and others as well. My theory of learning is expressed as a formula, an algorithm of what is actually occurring during the learning process. The theory is presented in chapter three.The theory is well grounded in current understandings of how the brain works and, if applied properly, it can have a great impact on education, particularly adult education.