ART & ORGANISM
A SEMINAR
Spring 2025 to be published
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links below represent examples of topics that may be covered as we proceed based on our course objectives: an integration of ways of knowing the world at multiple levels of organization. They are determined by emerging research and scholarship in constituent fields in conjunction with the specific interests of seminar participants. |
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| January 23, 2024 | A&O (1) | CONNECTIONS! Within and Between us and how MEANING depends on connectedness. | ● Check-in (who we are and our interests; 2-3 minutes at most) ● the IDEA of CONNECTIONS ● the PROBLEM with WORDS ● PSYCHO-SEMANTIC WORD MAPS ● Check-out (what ideas stood out for you?) |
| January 30, 2024 | A&O (2) | CRITICAL ideas moving forward emphasize behavioral biology with concepts derived from DEEP ETHOLOGY, where we deal with real animals (not ideals) in the real world and EXISTENTIAL PHENOMENOLOGY real people in the real world | ● Check-in (who we are and our interests; 2-3 minutes at most; comment on what stood out from last week) ● Continue with DEEP ETHOLOGY and the aspects of ART. Check-out (things that stood out this week, by e-mail from your diary notes, taken during class). |
| February 6, 2024 | A&O (3) | ● a way of thinking: Bayesian Reasoning will help you navigate A&O – read A&O notes (including excerpts from Michael Titelbaum’s (2024) essay from PSYCHE on “How to Think like a Bayesian” )
But then, How do we know what to believe: COHERENCE and CORRESPONDENCE. IDEA: Patterns of influence between traits described involve PLEIOTROPY and POLYGENIC traits. | traits influence–and are influenced by–other traits (including between llevels of organization) –how does that work? Human development, cultural transmission, “learning to learn” … Bias, congenital and acquired |
| February 13, 2024 | A&O (4) | ● discussion about behavior of your choice followed by comments on its DEEP ethology.
DEVELOPMENT, BIAS, and learning, ● congenital and acquired bias: how WEIRD we are; The “body bias”–Meaning and the Body | LEVELS of ORGANIZATION are becoming more prominant as a scaffold for new ideas, particularly with respect to EMERGENCE of unexpected traits |
| February 20, 2024 | A&O (5) | EVOLUTION how can we infer the evolution of MIND? that is, COGNITIVE COMPETENCIES [read about the evolution of consciousness from neurology perspective]
We survive and thrive when our BIOLOGICAL NEEDS are more-or-less met: READ A&O page on NEEDS | Fitness; Adaptation; Ritualization of traits (e.g., from autonomic reflexes to courtship) |
| February 27, 2024 | A&O (6) | COMMUNICATIONS ; TRANSLATION How can I get away with saying “all life is translation”?
| Looking more closely at RESONANCE; look back on EVOLUTION at HOMOLOGY & ANALOGY |
| March 5, 2024 | A&O (7) | PHYSIOLOGY: open with Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight | Begin thinking discursively but surrounding the implicit core theme: galaxy that was thouht to be a star … tight-rope between levels of orgnization, between past & future, real & ideal, memory & imaginagtion (filling in related to prediction?) ECOTONES? for A&O tonight, include what is UNDER the bell curve. Meaning in Life? SONDER |
| March 12, 2024
spring break | |||
| March 19, 2024 | A&O (8) | Check in: compare frisson to sanglot. : ADAPTEDNESS represents the ability to cope with stressors – circumstances that challenge an organism’s ability to meet its needs. BUT COPING WITH STRESSORS is also the disposition that advances us. Take a long, thoughtful look at the STRESS RESPONSE CURVE: https://neilgreenberg.com/ao-figure-stress-response-curve/ and see where you are on that curve at this moment. How does cognitive dissonance fit in to help explain state of mind? | |
| March 26, 2024 | A&O (9) | ||
| April2, 2024 | A&O (10) | ||
| April 9, 2024 | A&O (11) | ||
| April16, 2024 | A&O (12) | ||
| April 23, 2024 | A&O (13) | ||
| April 30, 2024 | A&O (14) | ||
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May 7, 2024
| A&O (15)
Final Exam and au revoir! off campus pot-luck social adieu, adios, arrivederci, sayonara |
“FINAL EXAM” “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch” | be prepared to create a mind-map.
DEADLINE for Semester Report: (paper or Artwork+artist’s statement) is May 15 (registrar’s scheduled final exam time) |