Truth
There always seems to be this ignored, small, trivial problem, that later brings down the whole system (of belief, knowledge). Whether on a personal level or on the level of society.
The Fun of Lawmaking
A nations laws and rules seem to accumulate like stuff in an old attic. Some unnecessary, stupid. The more dust they gather, the more unlikely someone will polish them, or at least get rid of them. They hinder the life of people, but nobody knows who set them in the first place (thus keep voting the same to no effect), and since they are a pain to get rid of, politicians tend to leave them, and with time just add new ones until no one really knows all the rules anymore.
I think every law should have a name of a physical person written next to it. This should be the one who put it in place, and has decided to be responsible for it. When this person dies, the law should be gone, unless a new person should choose to take up the responsibility of it. If the holder of the responsibility doesn’t want to keep it, it is gone. It could be automated, and a whole list of people associated with it. However, if the original keeper is gone, down the list it goes – and if nobody “catches” it falling down the list, it is gone for good.
This would make lawmakers think about what they do. There would be no diffusion of responsibility. Destructive laws would no longer be tolerated; and as they could be a threat to life, no longer upheld. As soon as a group does something, no one is responsible; and bad habits and actions linger forever to be corrected.
Images of a Presentation
The age of irrelevant clip-art and silly music in slide shows seems to be gone for good. Still quite common today are images that are semi-relevant to what is being presented. Pictures that represent the message of the title are easily visualized (and as of today, stolen of the internet from someone).
I wonder though, if this practice is any better from the clip-art practice of the past. That which the title is about is often easily imagined by the audience. Quality presentations, no matter how complex, are on the other hand by nature minimalistic. That is, adding the unnecessary distracts from the important.
A stolen image that is too general may fit into the presentation and the message you are trying to convey. It hides in it, and if someone quickly glances over the presentation, it may seem better. But for the sake of the transmission of the information, it is destructive. A picture is rarely inert, and if it is for you, it is probably not for someone else.
We understand our world in the way of understanding concepts. For example, we may imagine a “plant” as a rose, with a cut off stem, having a nice fragrance etc. This is different for everybody – every person has their own visualizations and thoughts that code for this concept. A “plant” means something different to everybody, since our bodies and experience differ. Still, we communicate by means of the idea that a “plant” means the same thing to me as it does to you. This assumption is necessary for our communication to be considered meaningful in the first place.
Now with pictures, the thing is that they tend to have more emotional content then do words. You may add a picture of a rose when talking about plants – and it is likely that people will feel a sense of love, content, happiness as an association and means of understanding of what they see. Now note, what if the message you were trying to convey was how plants get periodically eaten up by pests? The positive association of the rose will be in direct contradiction with the negative association of the pest. Already has your message become less effective, and as such more easily forgotten.
Pictures also tend to be laden with hidden information. Proof of this is that no matter how long you look at a picture, it is likely you will not know all that was represented, when later asked about it. This information, that you may not even notice, is an invitation for your audience to start daydreaming. Picture filled magazines are often used by artists to improve their creativity, since they are a source of emotion and association. When you are trying to explain a complex physics concepts to your audience however, fostering the creativity of your audience about what they may do with their friend when they leave, is not your intention. Nowadays, creativity is praised as once knowledge was, it is the best thing “education can offer”.
Isn’t it a good thing if i am making people more creative, some would say? You should understand that creativity and trying to concentrate on something are often in conflict. You should also know that boredom has actually been said by some to be similar in its nature as creativity – that is, boredom is in a way creativity gone wrong. You don’t feel bored if you don’t mind not doing anything. It is when you “want to do something (fun)” – do you see how the positive feeling conveying this is “feeling creative” and the negative, which is about the same expression, is “feeling bored”?
Not understanding what pictures do is the source of confusion for many a teacher. Didn’t i tell them twice? An audience that is daydreaming seems alert – which may be worse than some other unwanted behaviour. If they chatted, you would have done something about it. But now you are thinking your presentation was good, even though people may not have heard a word of it. Even worse, they may have liked it, since it did invoke in them positive associations. This way, one may forever think their presentations are ok, when in actuality they are worse than if your audience were screaming about it in horror. They tend not to be corrected.
Thus, give your audience a visualization of what you know is hard to imagine. And keep to what is necessary.
zacione 