I prefer 'snippets' to long endless quotes.

[In answer to Bravus' question,] I cannot speak for another. Learning, however, is volitional. For the seeing eye, I think that debate was quite instructive. IN addition, reaffirmation is also an important kind of learning, even if it is not 'new.'

Good luck making the distinction stick...

The point is that disallowing repetition and quotation -- even if possible, which I doubt -- will not produce the desired results.


Do you see a lot of learning going on anywhere here?

From my perspective (I'll let Brvaus let you know what he sees)... Some have chosen of their own volition to learn and participate in a new and different approach. As it is quite early in the process, how much learning has taken place remains to be seen. But the immediate evidence suggests to me that learning one simple rule may be difficult for some to grasp. Or is it unlearning old bad habits?

But I suspect there may be a misunderstanding (or limited understanding) of the desired results. Maybe learning isn't so much the objective, but an effort to get people to start thinking for themselves rather than simply parroting other people's thoughts. And even faciliating everyone in a process of taking what other participants post and briefly summarizing it or saying it in other words does force one to actually think about what that person actually said. It also slows down the dilaog a bit which may help minimize the knee-jerk reactions that don't involve higher cognitive function.

I am bumping this old thread to the top as a short refresher course to maybe help a few folk remember how this whole idea of the Original Thoughts forum got started. This was the very first thread. It was the first toe in these deep waters of trying to encourage thinking for ourselves and expressing our ideas in our own words and not being just parrots endless repeating others and ourselves.

My hope is that everyone will take the time to simply read through and see what our thinking was from the very beginning of this experiment.

I would also encourage everyone to also read the locked and sticky topic at the top of the topic index for this forum as it is the conversation in Townhall that preceded this forum that spawned this experiment.

Tom