Module 5 - Introduction

By Stephen Downes
Nov 08, 2021
Transcript of Module 5 - Introduction

So I'm not sure if we'll get anyone else Mondays or a tougher day and just for fun, we have a time change or time zone change. So we are now in eastern standard time here. Anyways, if you got where you are mark, where are you your California, aren't you?

Yeah, yeah. So it's only nine where you are. You still changed time as well, didn't you? Yes, and I've been in Ireland for hours, Ireland, for hours. Okay, yeah, I started it 2 am like that. I didn't join them at 2 am my time. Yeah, I did. Get in before 6 am giants.

I've had that experience. I was participating in a fair sphere books print over a couple of weeks and it was all on European times. So I just became European ton for two weeks. It was actually kind of an interesting experience. What's up? Super rarely every morning and going to sleep well before sunset.

Yeah. Sound of a hard time going to sleep better than. So, yeah, well, when you convert over completely, it's no longer early. Yeah, this will be dark. So I, I've been doing this, you know, off and on the last two years. Lot of stuff in Europe, right? A lot of conferences.

Yeah. But now it's gonna get dark by yeah, local time for 5:15 local time. So maybe I'll be able to sleep at 7 o'clock, Friday of conferences in Europe. There's one on AI and education from UNESCO, I'm trying to find the link for it. I don't know if I have it on this computer that sign up for that, you know.

Okay, good. That's December 7 and 8 as I recall oh it sounds. I'll put the link actually in the newsletter because I think it's worth signing up before even though again the hours are ridiculous. But it's a fairly high level conference. It's actually interestingly organized by the people's public of China.

Even though the times on is Europe. So but of course, there'll be speakers from all over. When I find that interesting. It's, I think it's good, but there is participation from China in the whole topic of AI AI ethics, and and learning analytics ethics. And there was a diagram.

I wish I could remember where it was. I was the title was something like landmarks of ethics and AI from China. And I pointed to a number of, really key documents, and it's similar to the sort of document that I sent out in last week's newsletter the field report with again, the list of important papers, but they're all different papers.

So I want to find that because, of course, it logs as part of our inquiry. Yes. And looking to UNESCO now, they have this major initiative. You know. I keep on kind of but I think now would be more active dates. Yeah, it's here in the US. I can't get any fractions with further education, as the Scotts College here are good, education.

That's considered remedial or they consider you the just like the other 18 year old students. Yeah. They're just no recognition of yeah, adults, informal learning lifetime learning on the job training. They're just no recognition. Any of that entire, which is funny because it's such a large part of the European approach.

Well, and because it's selected part of the student body. Yeah. And it is here that you know years of thrown around numbers you know meetings inside a situation. It's like half of us, have jobs, we're at all, you know? And you know, like I mentioned the last before, you know pedagogy is perfectly added, you know, perfectly good thing for developmental people, half of us are, you know, beyond development but patient.

We're looking for something else. Yeah, other good here. How to go figure whatever whatever you have. But yeah, but the the system here, this won't let go of where here to help 18 year old developing to be cogs in the empires machine. The basically know it's a very good business model for them, you know, all there's the, the overall ethos that in, you know, is especially in the Western world that people who are 18 to 22 will take four years and go to a residential university and pay a lot of tuition for this experience.

And, you know, and there are some institutions by no means well, but some who have over the years made billions of dollars doing this. And I know that because that's the size of their endowments. Yeah. And those few are fine. Yeah. But as you know Brian Alexander is tracking the decline of the internet.

Visual institutions. Yeah. Particularly the character, but I think he's my own whole world and their model is family and on many levels of the United States. First of all, two thirds of this, don't have a degree and that feeds into this press of the educated. Yeah. Which we're seeing they out in politics and, you know, so actually the model is classic, you know, it was good for a long time, you know, when it was specifically, targeted at training immigrants to work in factories and and their managers at the same time, yeah, it worked.

But that's not the problem we live in. So there's you know, this satisfaction is rising and something's been after here I would prefer to get patients. Give and open it up to the working class and under class and whatever you want to call it, the vast majority of Americans and try to help them out somehow.

As you know that's that's my perspective as well. And it's interesting because you know when you take that sort of perspective with respect to ethics, you know, I mean you ask what are the ethics for these institutions? You know, I mean you're you're talking about a practical consideration. I agree with that.

You know? I mean if they don't adopt a more open policy, they're gonna collapse. But I think also the reason that ethical ethical dimension to what they're doing is that ethically appropriate for universities to preserve existing power structures. And and no and feel to support, you know the legitimate aspirations of the majority of the population.

I would argue that it's not but you know, how do you approach such an argument? Well, I often I was very unpopular in my institution and say I was student leader and shift discernment and we got some things done. But and then when we left, they undoed the most.

But anyway, as I like to point out, it was meeting, I'm not just a student, I'm a lifetime taxpayer. Yeah and they they really do not like that being brought up in their you know I've been paying your salaries for decades and then I come to you to help get reached frame and you can't do your institution if not first as well.

And personally that made you know they're all people would have transitioned from immigrant and working last status to bourgeois law status. They have a you know, managing and that their son you know is sometime like that. I don't know, but they they don't want to recognize the working class and the taxpayers, you know, people would, you know, they put them in those chairs and then a class of agricultural communication.

And we had an assignment to, to find your reviews with paper on an other different culture. So, I won't looking for a paper on American working class culture, right? Which is a bit surprising. Actually because I mean it certainly a large culture, okay? Yeah, it's successful. When you look at you know what it builds, you know, it's had better days, you know?

But I mean and you know, between the two of us, we could probably sit down and list. Some of the attributes of that culture, you know, we we can think about, for example, their attitudes toward work, it's good, you know, there are attitudes ward helping your neighbor, you should, you know, and even things like community service, you should be part of the fire department.

If you have a volunteer fire department, which many of these communities do, you know, you should maybe belong to one of the service clubs, perhaps are minimally certainly support what the service clubs are doing because they're building parks and helping people in hospitals and things like that, you know, news, arrange of these things.

Pardon you, you should be honest, should be honest right man. You know, right? Being a humble is a big part of it. Yeah, yeah, equality. So yeah, I mean and I cannot find that list. I've been looking for you. Yeah. Yes, waiting before this class assignment that realized that there is nothing.

Yeah, about the American working being published by the academic class and taking a look at British you know their class and then let me just check that now. And now my curiosity is a little is more peaks than it was Google search. Okay. Classifix. All right. Yes, you might find one or two there.

I was specifically, I'm a working class culture as a culture and ethics, you'll find wonderful thing. So let's try culture. Yeah, I've got a shot. Yeah, just don't recognition of being separate. All right. There's a weaky pedia article. Oh yeah, I'll just plenty of that. Oh, sure. Yeah, long post.

You know I was talking here reviews so here we go. It's and see also blue collar. Labor history, paralleloion novel sure we'd be thinking people like Faulkner perhaps definitely not people like Jack Kerouac or who wrote Catcher in the Rye if you forget. Yeah. Like senators holding call field is a, you know, and to me he's the opposite of working class culture, he's an entitled complaining.

Anyhow but okay. So, we're looking for, Charlton post office. Okay? You know it's upward working tomorrow, America working class culture, okay? Google father, there you go, you know. Oh gee yeah goodbye boys. Hi a true American. That's a quote from the terrific film gangs of New York but that's America working class culture in the mid-1800s.

That's not contemporary. Is that? Yeah, I never books. There were books written about working last culture. You know what? They were all from the 30s, 40s and 50s, you know, there's just not been going on. Yeah, this is 1979. Let's, let's look for say since 2017 archaeology, this is interesting.

The pedagogy of class teaching working class life and culture in the economy or in the, in the academy. Of course it's a book so we can't read it on line, just came out in 2020.

So, which is too bad wonder if there's any reviews or anything.

Okay, here we go. J-store again which won't help us. But we give us a little bit, okay? Yeah, stories like mine. Provided a picture of working class students, having quote, made it yet, still feeling like outsideers continually immersed within the discursive and ideological conflicts, they depict between working class and academic cultures.

I feel a lot. Yeah. Yeah, everybody that comes or in class does. Yeah. You know I spy from myself I don't think I've ever directly addressed the professor or somebody with a PhD as a class trader but you know it's not has crossed my mind. Yeah. In this in this scenario we read working class and academic discourses exist in a dichotomous relationship where one discourse is depicted, as in almost complete opposition to the others working class students succeed.

Only if they're class, identity is stripped away. So I'm right just applicator. Yeah, it's like it's the deficit model right here. This is a culture. You need to transform yourself into the culture, you know, and it's like, no, we're an awarding class, you know, has a long tradition predating America saying no, I'm not stripping myself with my culture group.

It's not an apple, no. This this what I just quoted was by Donna LeCourt in her article, from 2006 performing working class identity in composition, toward a pedagogy of textual practice. It's a college English. That's the general. It's in. Yeah so yeah it's you know the performance of being working last.

Yeah so the cutlery where you got, that's what I was looking for. I really nice. Spent a lot of hours on. Oh, I believe you, but if you come up with something, let me know. That's, I could. Yeah, I'm not seeing as you say a whole lot here, a working class academic pedagogy.

That's not really working class culture. Yeah. See, that's the thing. I was specifically looking for, as an example of intercultural communications, I wanted to be about the culture and and hopefully the way that he usually but just something about the working class culture in the, you know, published the last six or seven years, you know?

I like this. It's this one's called the invention of working last culture.

It's neoliberalism and working class lives. No, I really studies. Yeah, yeah. Here's something from 2020 called the is a genuine working class culture. So again it's a book. So we can't read it. Yeah, in fact, Jack Metzger is one of the founders of the working class studies association. So there's now one group in America that's just starting to publish, and that's right for its work right there.

So, let's find Jack Metzger. Does he have a homepage? Maybe he does working class. That's 40. Less studies association baby. Right, and have a conference. I just discovered him a couple years ago, I was all signed up by an Airbnb, and I paid my feeds on. It's already building their conference and Youngstown, Ohio last year.

Yeah. Okay. So do you think, you know I mean this is interesting and is not really what I intended to talk about, but who cares. Yeah, sorry, no, no it's fine. I would do you think working class culture transcends other cultural boundaries and here I'm thinking of race and gender and religion.

And language, if you think it's a common culture across these, I think it's complicated. I know it is. Mmm, so I see this another intersectional standpoint, right? Is the way I right? You know, and there's a critique that white people reach the glass to avoid them identity. I get that.

But on the other hand, when you can't finish things without your class and you can find, you know, black studies partners like, you know, studies partners, agent studies departments and there's no working last night. You're like okay, I gifted criticism but I don't one of my own. So another thing so that what I need to think?

Okay, let's let's go for nothing identity. There are zero, Scottish studies programs in the United States of America. All right. Yeah, that seems very interesting. That's have any influence on the creation of the American culture, all I'd say. So you think yeah. I mean this Scottish and lightenment is huge.

Adam Smith David Hume continuing through to John Stewart while Josh Strick knows more English than Scottish. But still. Oh yeah, huge thing, yeah. So they're you know there's help things right but I think they can do more dancing than class anals. Yeah. And you know and Scottish isn't strictly celtic anyways, I mean the modern Scottish states.

I mean, you go to Scotland now and you know, there is a very clear modern Scottish identity which isn't just the, you know, which isn't the traditional. I mean, it includes all the traditional Scottish elements, but there it accounts are one. Oh, yeah, and there are many in the culture, one element, but the modern Scottish state as I see.

It is, is open. It's diverse, it's progressive, you know, these are, you know. And so it's a very, it's it's a very distinct identity for sure. And back I found a YouTube named Bruce Fum. F u double m e, y, who is half the name and half, Scottish and I found them because he did eat, so he does a whole series videos.

He's a former teacher and now he doesn't travel long across the can travel logs and statistics. So it goes to places and tells the story and so I thought because one of his is called and black people, he started oh yeah because he responded to a comment he made, you know so somebody watched one of his videos and made this comment how I wanted and I hope for a fact that there were black people who are Scottish.

Yeah. And so he was so he made this whole video any that he has like Ford doesn't videos and a excellent graphic scratches. You know, I'd spend certain on the time like one day grandfathers came from internet style. So I've spent a bunch of time trying to learn about stuff, never been there, but and as far as I watched, you know, at least it doesn't roost farming videos.

And there's spot on military, and he that's all serious. The pits with scout counts, the angles, the Saxons enormous, each one. An individual these to these doing an excellent job. I used to see through next week doing this and apparently runs towards on the side or so. So very what's what's interesting about this discussion?

And there'll probably be people watching this one around, why is there any of this relevant at all? But, but I think it's, it's actually pretty much on topic even for this module because this module is approaches to ethics. And you know in in Canada we had a book written by a guy called John Ralston Saul.

Who's interestingly the husband of a former Canadian governor? General didn't know that. Yeah, well shouldn't say husband. I think partner might be more accurate. I'm not sure. Exactly. And who was it? Yeah. A big fan of his lectures that became a book. Yeah, I have to look it up because I've forgotten who the governor general which is really bad because that's you know, the Canadian head of state and you know it's like forgetting a president right?

I can't I have like Adrian Clarkson or something like that in my head, but I'm not really sure that. That's right. Adrian Clarkson. Is that right? Yeah. Supporting the Google. Okay, very good. So I did remember it, after all, I feel much better because I couldn't find it. So and they were man in 1999, so it was.

Okay. They were, I might have been after. Well, I'm not sure. Anyhow doesn't matter doesn't matter to me whether they were married or not, but but I guess it does. Marry two other people. It does matter to other people at any help and she's the idea of volunteers bastards.

That's it is, is essentially, you know, I'm glossing over a lot of this, but essentially it's a critique of rationalism. I mean, even more to the point, a critique of the idea of that of the idea of using reason, properly soul called to reach for things like moral truths, or how we structure society, etc.

It's it's the you know it's the the dictatorship of the reasonable over everyone else. I guess may I'm putting words in his mouth here I'm sure you never said that. A lot's a great phrase isn't it? The dictatorship of the reasonable but I think that is at least a part of this distinction that can be drawn here between working class culture on academic culture, in the sense that whatever the working class person says, the academic is going to have an answer based in reason or perhaps rationalization and then reach for authority in the fact doesn't work.

There is for authority. Yeah. Although the working class might also reach for authority of a different sort so, you know, you know, work settings in my experience. Yeah, I just worker. Yeah. Well, you know, workers unite, you know the power of labor unions is very much, a worker working class kind of cultural value of a, that is waned in recent years, but I would argue not really because workers didn't want it again.

There were complex ways. Yeah. So you know again I had college everything people. This is where you can. You know, slippery part of there. Yeah, it was college educated who waged the war, it wasn't there idea, but they run the institution that have carried a company, which was possible in a older single, and our understanding of ethics and especially ethics in an academic.

Discipline comes from this rationalist perspective to large degree. I've got slides which I don't know if I'll present to one person here but I'll do them later anyways in in a video that yeah, I know but I think it's better to have a conversation here and then I'll just present them later and you can watch the video because that's seems a bit nicer.

You know, if there are two of you that would be an audience and then I'd want to present one is not an audience. What is obvious? Yeah. But, you know, I mean, we, we think of ethics of whatever. And we think of, you know, reasons and principles and arguments, maybe explanations codes of ethics, like, we've just done ethics as something that you have to be educated in order to understand to quite a degree, you know?

And, you know, there's a certain sense of. I mean, the reason why this course exists is because there's a whole lot of people, not just working class people, but academics too, who make pronouncements on the ethics of this, and that without actually understanding ethics at all. And that bothers me, and actually, it bothered me because they didn't understand ethics at all, they didn't understand AI analytics at all and they didn't understand learning at all.

And and it made for a bad combination and you get these horribly naive statements. Now that sounds like a classic. Oh, you know, here's a academic talking about somebody. You doesn't know anything. And, you know, and I know that that's believe me because, you know, if somebody comes to me and says, well, you can't talk about an opinion on this because you're coming from a naive perspective.

I know how it would respond to that and it's not. Well, I'm in fact, I have responded to it in the past and it hasn't been well. So, I get that. So, but even the people who present themselves as knowing all of this stuff don't and and that's when it begins to bother me, right?

And, and that's when we see something, like, ethics used, not as a domain of inquiry, but as a club and that doesn't strike me is the purpose of ethics at all. And so, you know, I mean if you're gonna use it as a weapon which you shouldn't but if you gonna it really should be like a fine tune sword, not a club.

Yeah, that's just my prejudice speaking there. But, you know, at the very least but but it bothers me. And and so and that's why I actually that is why I took the approach to this course that I did most approaches to an ethics in anything kind, of course, will map out all the ethical theories first.

And the idea is that you has a student is supposed to look at all these ethical theories and pick one. And you will be arguing from that perspective for the rest of the course. And if you think about it that's kind of how research and education especially research and ed tech has done generally, isn't it?

You're given all these frameworks like instructive ism constructivism. Behaviorism cognitive isums connectivism a neural laid out in front of you. And you pick one, he said, that is the lens through, which I will see the world and ethics is presented in the same way and that doesn't feel right to me because that's rounded theory and say the situation documented and see what emerging is that needed more.

Imagine more the approach that I've taken right in painstakingly outlining, all of the different applications and painstakingly outline, all the issues that have come up that I have found, I'm still adding applications and issues. I can't believe I missed in the list of applications content summarization and I'm sort of going to, oh yeah.

So I've added that and therefore made obscene I avoid those. Well, it depends, you know, I mean, I see what it's a big time save, right? Yeah, if you know, if I was being paid to do research, you know, I would have to but I'm not and I don't.

Yeah, exactly. But there's there's a whole, this is a bit of a side, but it's worth mentioning. There's all there's a whole school of doing a research and I see it a lot of in our sea, where the model is, you do a literature search. And so, you'll go into your, your publication repository, or your publication library, or your index system, like scopus or whatever and you'll put in your keywords, and you'll get a search.

And that reveals, you know, 714 documents or whatever. And then you apply search terms to that or filtering criteria, and bring it down to a certain amount. And then that's your basis for your literature review, which of course he will do every time you do a new study and that scientific method.

I've lost track of why I was not that tangent. But oh yeah. So methodology. Yeah, very and how you are preaching, this course. Yeah. So, these literature searches will be guided by that methodology and they'll look for all of the, you know, all the constructivist literature on the use of the letter, a in our, whatever yawn caricaturing, obviously, and that again still feels wrong.

And it especially fuels wrong in a domain. Like, ethics, you know, if we think about ethics, can we, you know, have we advanced certain knowledge of ethics if we do a literature search in that way. I mean doing any reading. Sure is and would answer knowledge, but do you actually know more about ethics after such a search than you did before?

And it's not clear to me that that's the case. I'm certainly, you know, I'm struggling through fog here to ask the being working acid and sort of pragmatic you my nature. Are you then more at you act more ethically after that, arguably, I was more ethical before. But yeah.

So, I mean the step. Now, the flip side of that is something called fault theory. And in a philosophy of mind, we see this and I'm using the philosophy of mind here because it's a really good example. And so, it's in the philosophy of mind, we have something called forks psychology.

And folks, psychology is the idea that of common ordinary everyday psychological states that we have beliefs knowledge. Truth, fears hopes desires, etc. And maybe a bit of a story about how they have a cultural impact. For example, if you want something, you will go get that something. Or if you know if you have a desire for something, you're more likely to work for you know, there's a whole range of common efforts that come for that and come out of that.

And and you can construct the fully blown psychological theory based on folk psychology and people of done that. In fact, it's, you know, it's probably the dominant theory in philosophy of mind. But what if it's wrong and there's another perspective, which I actually think is closer to being correct to the effects that there aren't really any such thing as beliefs, or desires or hopes, maybe we could say the right emotions, but we really have to revisit how we describe that.

And so on, is so forth, right? And folks, psychology is just based on a misinterpretation of our own mental states. I mean, we think we understand our own mental state, but really, we're in the worst position in the world to be observing them, which is probably true. And so slowly the near there are new views.

Now of psychology, one of them, for example is called eliminativeism which is a $10 word which means we eliminate these folk psychological categories and see what's left. And that's where you get a lot of these philosophies of psychology based on neuroscience and things like that. And so a word like belief is just a cat's phrase.

We use to refer to a wide variety of narrow states that don't really have anything in common and certainly can't be thought of as a cause of anything as a class. But it's just it's just it's a handy way of talking and this is it damn it talks about taking the intentional stance where we'll keep talking now way but but really what we're talking about is these neural states and it I think it's dinner, I know it's not done it.

So Davidson must be done, is the, you know, and I'll give her that scientific oriented and that. Yeah, I'm old. My brain is going. I lose names, I'm just kidding. Yes, please. At her party CRS. I often say I have CRS. I can't remember stuff. Yeah, can't remember study.

You know, it's yeah, me for me. My bug bear has always been names. Just means are so arbitrary and one other thing. Thanks my brain does not do is take this arbitrary thing and join it with that arbitrary thing and naming proper names are just that. And I know there's secrets as to, you know, how you can create these associations, but I've never spent the time doing that.

So, um sales. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. That's right, so if we come back to ethics, same thing might be true. So before we start with that, hold that, you know what? Yeah, so I have the out of order coincidence, I guess, right? They said the bumping into Timothy Larry in the 70s and actually looking a little further than his pop image.

Yeah. And if you ever run across is work, they got into Harvard their interpersonal theory of personality. No, interesting. No, I didn't know that. It's ridiculous 50s based on work at the Kaiser hospital and Oakland California. This like the Afric and and his theory is really don't have personalities.

I think you like this, that we don't have well personality. Right. That we operate in relation to the so it's kind of a connectivist theory of personnel and then at the same time Alan Watson's been alive and had a local radio program. So I got into students and so that's there's lifelong history there.

Yeah. And the more you spend with this on the more you look into there's not been there. Yeah. It's it's all made up, you know, but the harder you look. Yeah. Before you find nothing it's all just the story as a, my favorite thing. It's also a cortana as well.

Yeah, the categories that we impose on the world are in fact categories that we've imposed on the world, that so gets you right back to the language, these language all that. Yeah, that's one of the reasons I began to practice because I could spend most of my day being productive, you know, and there was no lying or misunderstanding going on.

There was this thing work at the end of the day. Well it works. Let's sell it. See tomorrow, kind of like why I like computers and it's an interesting thing, right? I mean with computers, it either works for it doesn't well, that's not strictly true because it could work but produce random results which is that's probably parts the working month.

Yeah. So and and you know, and you know, there's even there's even a school of thought that depicts ethics as a technical problem. I don't think I'd go that far. But yeah, I mean, and I certainly agree with this perspective of that, you know, a lot of this, most of this, probably all of this is artificial.

But these are things that we've created and impose on the state of, you know. Well impose on the world which people use the words artificial, I mean they're human. Yeah. It's like to share your city. I wouldn't know what artificial. It's a chair it is what it is. It does.

What it does. Yeah, but I'm not a good point constructiveism is essentially the idea that we deliberately construct these things right making meaning. But I don't think that that's the case at all. Because as you say it's just a chair. I mean this is something we're going to do call it a chair whether or not we're a constructiveist doesn't mean that the world is not naturally or really who want to put it that way divided into things that are chairs and things that are not shares.

You know, we haven't said anything profound about the state of the world by saying this is a chair. In fact, we haven't really said anything about anything at all, except maybe ourselves. But if we as a self-built exist, when we have more personality, we are a piece of protoplasm and, you know, walkers around, you know.

And that gets, I mean, that points to the discussion, you know, is bridge and innate feature of this particular animal species well or not, you know, and there's no answer but there's a whole idea of the language, you know, being constructed and culturally instructed all that, that's all fine.

But maybe it's just, you know, and we like to make noise well, but not yet. We make noises. And that's, you know, and I want to be careful here, right? Because I don't want to say, well yeah or humans. So naturally we make noises because now that's an appeal to some kind of real state of affairs.

Describing, what is natural? And what is it? And, and that's no better either, right? We're just back where we started saying weapons, 200,000 years. Well, that's the scientific explanation of what is happening and it's the best explanation we have to this point and you know, pretty much all of science.

Depends on that particular principle certainly all of biological science. So if we reject that we reject all of biological science which isn't practical and and we're not likely to do it and even even if we had evidence and and this is an important realization just in the last 30 or 40 years, maybe 50 years of the philosophy of science.

Even if we had evidence to show us that evolution is false, we still wouldn't abandon it. Abandon it. We would question the evidence because far more of what we do and what we know, depends on evolution, then could ever depend on that particular evidence. And so, you know this, this idea that there's this critical experiment that proves evolution is true or proves that it's false.

Just isn't the case. There's this entire assemblage of theory, and practical implementation, and diagnosis and vaccine research, and the whole works right through in vaccine just to be tropical. But but you know what I mean? Right, there's this now it doesn't mean you have to accept it all or accept none of it.

You'll plenty of room around the edges for disagreements but evolutions. One of these things where if you disagree with evolution pretty much committed to disagreeing with the entire lot and that's what makes it hard. I wonder now. People sort of assumed there are central principles like that in ethics, too.

And what would be the theory of evolution for example, in ethics or what would be the law of gravity mean ethics? But yeah you guys see your shaking your head and I'm inclined to agree. That's a lot harder to come by. Because if we look well as we have at the different principles and the different issues that come up, Just doesn't seem to be a center to all of this.

There's one one discussion. What was his name or their names? Lost it did here somewhere. Here we go. Massive met calf saying that ethics may be as too big a word for what we're after. Because well, in in the sense that the word ethics seems to include corporate values, moral justice compliance with ethical codes as the law of these range of things.

I am not sure. I agree with that either. I think I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea of ethics. Well, I was surprised that you limited it to institutional ethical codes. I hadn't thought of it that way before and I see the practicality of but I came in with that larger idea evidence, you know, beliefs more eggs, you know, ethical code, you know, as a larger set.

Yeah, but I see, but doing it this way, I see that that's on Google and religions and, you know, and then therefore ways and, you know, that's impossible pass. So, you know, I looked at the ethical codes to because, again, they're part of this, whole ethics as a club thing.

And it's interesting because we have ethics as a club in the sense of weapon and ethics as a club as, in the sense of the people who are together, who are in one, no. But if you look at, there's I'm putting a link into today's course, newsletter referencing a UNESCO report on the ethics of artificial intelligence in education.

And if you and the way I say the end of the street that I remember sorry. But they I think I dropped that in the machine. Yeah, I added that they may well have, I think I did one ones and it wouldn't be surprised because the reason why it's in there is because it was sitting on my desktop and I couldn't let go of it.

I can't go on back to it looking at it all I'm going back to it and looking at it a little more and if I well can't like do this. So I guess I gotta deal. But the whale was thinking of it is, well, now that we've done this scope of applications in ethical issues, and ethical codes.

Now, we're in a position to properly, appreciate that particular document. And if you look at the references and the examples, they are virtually all of the sorts of things that we've been talking about so far. And, especially the the ethical codes aspect of it. That is the standard of evidence that they're using, but I agree that that's too small to standard.

It's too narrow with scope. But back before I did that inquiry, I would talk about ethics men and I'm thinking back in particular, in particular to remarks made by Jenny McNas back at the time.

Hmm, it's basically said I shouldn't talk. Well, while I'm talking about ethics, really, I should be looking at these ethical codes. The, the ethics of the profession, that that my discussion wasn't addressing the current reality of ethics. And well, I kind of bothered me because I had posted and I'll give, I'll provide the link again.

In this week's newsletter, right posted. But basically an overall guide to ethics as it applies to education. And that's when the criticism came out. I said to her back then, this is years ago. Well, yeah, I guess I'll have to address all of that. In a part two. She said, well, I'm looking forward to part two then so this is part two.

Yeah, this was whole big mess spelling your last name and may CK and ESS there's my Scottish bias. I always okay? Yeah, it's all lower case. Letters of. Yeah, that was amazing. But I just let that, yeah, well, I mean, he hasn't he didn't stop work with the stuff that he didn't needy.

So, yeah, no, we had your decision so if he's still alive and still got that version. Yeah. So. Oh, okay. No not Julian. James. Who's the one who came up with it but someone else someone else. It's a mix something. It's another one. Yeah. Another one and I can't find it origin of consciousness, breakdown of the vibe camera minds, 76, for instance, psychologists joining games.

Yeah, but that's the person who she studying it's something like or something. Oh, Ian Gilchrist, I think Gilchrist. There we go. That's who she's been studying.

So, and and I haven't been following that protect, but I've been following it but not nearly as closely as I would need to in order to be able to comment reasonably on what she's been learning about that. So I will, but I that's where her study is done since then.

But I still follow what she's doing. So one of the top searches here is a wiki we want, but it calls it by camera. Then powerful this hates it beyond the yeah and the psychology. It looks so it all. Look at that. But again, you know, it's in there minds me.

That the alphabet versus the goddess another like camel. Mine. Mmm. Very remember that? That was from the 70s. No. But I can, I can probably construct it from that title. Yeah. You know. So, you know, I was an interesting victory, but then he kind of lost his way. And so, I was frustrated, a lot of this stuff goes back to some of the early psychological experiments that involved severing the corpus colossal, which is the bundle of nerves that joined the two hemisphere of the brain, to hemispheres the brain.

And those resulted in almost like split personalities in the, in the sense that it was like, we now had two different people in there and so you think, well, we'll head to different people and then and then we get, you know, all the characterizations. A little different character of these two different people and drawing on the right side of the brain and all of that.

I'm not really a fan of right brain left brain theory. And the reason for that is that it just describes way to much to innateness and to, you know, the actual construction of the human brain and I think is appropriate. I don't think you can make brains either left or right hemisphere that focus on art or focus on reasoning.

You know, even if that's how they come out target, it's not a biology or neurology, it's a mentality. Okay, that, you know, and a research, the recent research on plasticity and you know, well, you know, now we have all these veterans and United States. They evolve these veterans bring infants.

Yes study. And so there are watching the brain recover functions, plans, moving from the damage area. So the plasticity argument, you know, more against that. Yeah. But yet there is a certain light camel mentality you know. And then handedness comes in and I delivered it became a And again, as of my tray and an accident, my right hand that was already interested in work on that sterity and my left hand.

Then I had a accident and cut some embers and a nerve in my right hand. And so for a couple of years I worked left handed. Yeah. And after that, the work online is here, and you can do most of the things, your hands know what they're doing, and then you think about that is like, so you know, and then they're supposedly the cross, you know, units of Americans system.

And you know what's my brain doing? It's like fire, my answer in two different things, at the same time that, you know, that's, that's a juggling. So I mean it's all well connected. It's all interesting. And again, we don't it's and I think all about a place to ethics all of it.

And that I think is the distinction between the approach, I'm taking here and the approach that you find in the UN document, and the codes of ethics approach, and for that matter, even the approach that ethics is something that, you know, we go through, you know, formal or semi-formal reasoning about the ethics, is something that we discover is that what we're mathematics or invent is though, it were a categorization system for the world.

I I'm looking for another, I think have a sense of something that is more basic than that. Something that is like learning to become left handed or something. That is like the plasticity of mind. As you know, the basis for our story of ethics, whatever, that's going to be.

So, since we're doing this informally, as you're not going to post, this is today's thing that we look like Joe or not. What are you gonna do? Anyway. Oh, I'm gonna post this discussion, unless you have some objection to it. I don't see that at all. It's just so I have this overwriting question that I didn't want to start up your presentations with, but here's the program opportunity because also, you know, then here almost an hour.

And so, why people with the most elaborate codes of ethics? Why is it that those preceptions do the most unethical? Things the catholic church. American lawyers and I required it. You know, why is it the ones with most of the labricodes that are the people that are, you know, my view, destroying the building?

And there's, I think there's two answers to that one part of the answer is found in vultures bastards and the other part of the answer is found in the short simple expression they can. And and I know that sounds terrible, but, you know, I don't think it's about power of the plant, you know, those classes.

They have those codes. Also have the power. Yeah. And that goes back to last week. It's people will act on ethically, no matter what you do. Yeah. So, so, it's the, it's the confluence of power and obedience, and I'm associated with. So it's power immediately together but here's and this this this looks forward a bit to where we're going to go at the end of the course.

There's probably a good way of finishing off for today.

We see all of this. And you know, we see the activities that that you've just described the things that lawyers do that. The church does etc. And we say that it's unethical. Who are we to say this provide their own standards? That's the thing by their own. Yeah, my yeah.

Okay. But sure they may be hypocrites or they they may be saying one thing and doing another which I guess is sort of the same thing. But you know, we have to also take into account the fact that we just might not understand what ethics really are and that all we might go along or you know, maybe even be convinced by this charade.

That says, for example, killing is wrong. If we really understood ethics, maybe we'd see that now. On fact killing is right. And it's we who are mistaken or let's take even a worse approach. Maybe worse is the wrong word. A more this impairment or more empirical approach, right? Oh, okay.

What? If ethics actually is what we all believe? And what we all do, ethically? What if you know meaning is use is the concern would say, then it turns out that the actual ethics, that humanity has a whole believes in allows that killing is good. And and why do we say that?

Look what we do. Look at the evidence, look at the evidence, right? So if you got a problem with that, maybe the problem is with your understanding of ethics, no, not really something like want to support particularly but I think of that, something that we need to take seriously and yes, you know I mean we talk about, you know, taking a gap based approach, right?

What if cynically ethics just is a tool that say, the powerful used to control the less powerful, you know, you know there's it's not actually in the outline or in any of my work at all. But there's just the whole philosophy of Nietzsche fits in nicely here. You know, with his his, you know, what would Superman's ethics?

Be, you know, or there's the philosophy of the transvaluation of value. What if we took all of our values and flipped them upside down so right as wrong. Good is bad etc or what? We consider bad is actually good. What would our objections to that be and and we find that they're really aren't any none that don't sound like rationalizations.

So that I think is something that we need to take seriously as well. So and that's that's pretty much the focus of the second part of the course. But in there is this considerable speed bump which is the duty of care and that's what makes things really interesting to me.

Anyway. Yes. Yes, because then you then you have a different set of evidence. You have a different set of a that, you know, it's explains the story of it. Yeah. It's just power. Okay. You know, kind of believe that I kind of believe it. The world is outside down and say one thing growing up America brings you to have that point of view.

Yeah. But yeah, but then you really problematize it. There's one of my big words. I learned in college problematize that approach by adding the care for the imaginary principles or not malfeasance. It's now evidencing. Okay. Now that's studying. It's smell something, right? Yeah, when you add that then you can analyze.

Yeah, the acts, you know, the vehicle every reality and then try to keep that out from the ethical code. Yes. Okay. I think that's a good note to finish on. I'm gonna do this presentation, this afternoon, it'll show up in the newsletter as well as the presentation from last week.

That'll finish off last week plus the link. And I've got some fun toys planned for this week as well. I just have to code them but yeah I need to catch up with that anyway. I haven't done my lights yet. I've done some tweets and you know what's inside the document?

Yeah, but yeah, that would work through the night. So yeah, busy busy. All right. All right, see you later. Talk to you later.

Force:yes