Walks like a Duck
In a sequel to Dances with Wolves, an oral culture member observes a tiny connectivist, ambling through the dunes, and comments:
”Walks like a Duck”.
The following is my first paper for the course, ‘My Position on Connectivism’.
I am a simple man, with simple tastes, simple needs, simple roots, and fond of translating language from academic or other complex sources into words that have more meaning to me. I cringe at the over-reliance on jargon, and find the attitude of those who would look down on me as an intellectual inferior, as, well,
pedantic, in the worst possible sense of the word.
My position on connectivism resides in the equation:
C = BR Connectivism = Behaviourism redux
I claim no great scholarly effort in coming to this conclusion, rather, I have used the Method of Connectivism to arrive at my conclusion. This method is quite simple. To gain knowledge, one merely looks at the behaviours/connections of nodes in a network.
For example:
Connectivism is a theory of computation.
A theory of computation is a branch of computer science.
Patricia Churchland offers a connectionist theory of mind.
It is arguable that there is little difference between connectionism and computationalism.
The Churchlands are eliminative materialists.
Eliminative behaviourism is a forerunner of eliminative materialism
A quote:
>Bill continues, “Stephen, your position on intentional stance sounds similar to Churchland’s position on eliminative materialism.”
Quite right, and I have referred to him in some of my other work.
More on intentionalism, and another quote:
>A lot of what I’ve tried to argue in this (admittedly long) post is that Connectivism is a non-intentional theory of learning and knowledge.
(Meaning non-representational, i.e. eliminative, anti folk-psychology)
See also:
I am a simple man, with simple thoughts, and I see a simple pattern and many connections.
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