Remedial Day – D53

As we have committed ourselves, the one that are behind with their work (all of us) would be attending Fridays to catch up. One problem we’ve been having is that many don’t come on time (at 7 a.m.) or don’t come at all (I didn’t come last week). Today only Chacho, Kata, Isa, Pablito, and I were on time. The ones who were late were JavierP, Grace, Majo, Lucía, Lorena, and Carmen.

On the morning we saw a TEDTalk called, How to Solve Traffic Jams by Jonas Eliasson. Then, we had some individual work and some Euclid, and at 10:30 a.m. we were supposed to have a workshop on how to succeed with our portfolios, but since not everyone was here we couldn’t do it. The rest of the day was for more individual work. I left at 4:30 p.m.

On Time People

Don Quijote Dialogue 1 – with two great Quijotes, Amable and Giancarlo – D52

The countdown to our first Don Quijote dialogue finally came to an end, and to open these series of dialogues we had two great and true Quijotes! Amable facilitated the dialogue, although it was more of a lecture, and Giancarlo joined us for most of it. We also had Karen, Carla, and Susette España as guests. At first we shared our impressions of the book and feelings toward it. Then, Amable explained to us in a very detailed way the first three sentences of the first chapter of Don Quijote. It was a great dialogue. It’s just a pleasure to hear someone so educated and a great example like Don Amable.

*Here’s the link to the audio of the dialogue!

Thinking, F & S Dialogue (Ch 9-10) – with Dylan, Zach, and Lisa Hazlitt – D52

This was our last dialogue in this year with Dylan since he is going back to the U.S. I think, but he is coming back on February. Also, today Zachary Caceres and Lisa Hazlitt joined us for this dialogue. I must admit that I didn’t take full advantage of the dialogue, because I was not well prepared. Nevertheless, I think I learned some important things. 

Here are my notes of the dialogue:

• How fast do these systems react?
• System 1 – One tenth of a second
• System 2 – Longer, seconds, the longest, a few minutes.
• 
  
• There is luck, not patterns.
• The mind as a pattern-seeking device.
• Skinner: The superstition and the pigeon.
• False positive, we can see a pattern where there isn’t.
•  How does this affect in politics?
• There is also a causal pattern.
• Luck is pure randomness.

• Hot Hand
•  Is it statistical independent?
• Fooled by Randomness by Nicholas Taleb

• Negative capability: the ability to remain in doubts and uncertainties, and to resist the irritable need for answers (the need for closure).

•  Target vs. Heuristic Question

• Being attracted to someone is a basic assessment?
• It’s not according to Kahneman.
• For men is more probable to be a basic assessment than on women. Men tend to search attractiveness, while women search other qualities.

• Who is Daniel Kahneman?
• 1979, Prospect Theory
• Nobel Prize in economics

Lucía’s Morning Meeting and Sharing Linkage P3 – D52

Lucía facilitated today’s morning meeting. She did two activities, both in pairs and to make us more aware of our senses and emotions. The first one was to guess an emotion the other person was supposed to show only with his or her eyes. Isa’s emotion was excitement, which I thought but I guessed it was more happiness than that. My emotion was surprise, and Isa guessed it very fast. The second activity was that one of us (me) would be blindfolded and I had to guess what I was tasting. The first one was an Oreo (I guessed it was a cookie, but not an Oreo), the second was “leche condensada” (I guessed correctly), the third one was a fruit called “granada” (I guessed), and the last one was linseed oil with lime, which was disgusting (I guessed it was oil). It’s fun to realize how much we use our senses to associate things like food, and when we loose one sense, in this case sight, we have a hard time finding out what are we eating and that makes us find other characteristics we take for granted like texture.

The second part of the morning was about sharing linkage. This was the third time we did this, and today Ingrid, Isa, and Carmen shared it with us.

Isa's face of excitement

Reading Don Quijote @ Jardín Ayau – D51

Because we left early today, along with Isa, Pablito, and Grace, we decided to read Don Quijote out loud. We went to the Jardín Ayau and had a pleasant evening, enjoying the wonders of Miguel de Cervantes’ masterwork. We started reading from the beginning that was the prologue, then some sonnets, and finally the first four chapters. Don Quijote is something really enjoyable that leaves you a lot of teachings and anecdotes. It’s the story of human nature so every reader would have his or her own Quijote.

After the reading, we went to the MPC and encountered with Chacho, and with Isa had a very nice dialogue about many topics, including the culture building of the MPC and some fun stories about each of us. It was a very nice time for sharing and knowing a little more of each other. We left at around 8 p.m.

*This is my entry #100!

Emerson’s Comeback and Debriefing – D51

Today’s programming class was cancelled because Kyle is being very busy since he is about to launch his new project. Instead of having a programming class, we read Emerson’s Self-Reliance, which was very fitted to the moment we are living at the MPC. Nice comeback, Emerson! We only read like one page and a half, but had a great dialogue, inquiring into a deeper sense his ideas. One of the most important things we talked was about the importance to judge the past in order to improve our present. If we change the meaning of our past experiences by learning through those past experiences, we will be more prepared and succeed in the present and future. We related to the gratitude of the past Bert mentioned during our Thanksgiving dialogue.

The debriefing went pretty good. It feels good to have a peaceful debriefing and focus on the positive things we have been doing and did during the day. Definitely the most touched person today was Gabbi, because she had a rough start on the morning by confronting Bert and almost leaves the MPC for the day, but she came back, fixed things with Bert, and had an active participation during the Consilience dialogue, although she was on the outer circle. It’s very interesting how people can discover their potential through many ways and some are not pretty, but when you know you can positively contribute to others’ learning process of life and knowledge, and you commit yourself to become better and better, you can do wonderful things. If everyone could realize this, at least on the MPC, our culture would change dramatically. 

Consilience (Ch 7-8) Dialogue – D51

Pretty good dialogue, very interesting, and insightful. Dialogues like this make you think we are improving our dialogue skills, respecting our rubrics, and in general terms, progressing as a group. Nice comeback MPCers! Karen stayed for the dialogue, although in the outer circle since she was late.

Here are my notes on the dialogue:

• What are epigenetic rules?
• “They are the algorithms of growth and differentiation that create a fully functioning organism.” p.163
• The role of culture in evolution. Can culture change more rapidly evolution than genes, and how?
• Behaviors predisposed to humans. Color vision, language.
• Is culture the result of these epigenetic traits?
• “Epigenetic rules are prescribed by genes” . p.138 (very important page)
• “Epigenetic rules leave open the potential generation of an immense array of cultural variations and combinations.” P.210 (vip)
• Epigenetic rules as the reptilian brain that along with the mammal brain form the limbic system. This system is what “instinctively” makes us react somehow to different situations. These predisposed behaviors are the epigenetic rules. The main functions of the reptilian brain are survival and reproduction. Usually it tends to do three things to different situations: freeze, defend, or attack. 

• What are the inherited traits?
• Traits for survival and reproduction mainly, the epigenetic rules.
• 
  
• What is human nature?
• The relation between genes, epigenetic rules, and institutions.
• 
  
•  Are ethics an example of epigenetic rules? How about Rubrics?

• Culture transcends to the mind? Institutions can guide the mind?
• Bert: As long as we take these institutions into our mind, we will remove or modify our primary epigenetic rules.
• Hyperactive kids as obeying their natural epigenetic rules, and institutions can change them (they become more obedient and tame).
• Institutions mutate our epigenetic rules?

Marce’s Morning Meeting and Sharing – D51

Marce facilitated today’s morning meeting. She showed us a video called, People and the Choices They Make, by Jim Rohn, a motivational speaker. The video is about the importance of documentation, accountability, and being the best one can be. Only humans have the capacity to decide how much to grow (not physically but mentally) and that’s what makes us different from all other beings. Trees grow to their full capacity, it’s their nature, but our nature could be to conform and if we don’t decide to be the best we can be, to give everything we can, we will tend to conform. Another thought on this is the will power, the energy that keep us moving forward. How big is the difference between waking up tired and not wanting to wake up, and waking up with more energy to keep moving forward, success after success. In the latter, we can expand our energy storage, fueling it with our actions and successes.

After that, we share our linkage. Today, only Kira, Tony, Karen, and Marce, shared their linkage. The first three were visiting us for the day.

Debriefing – D50

We started today’s debriefing by sharing our perspectives of the Euclid class, and most of them or all, were very positive. We are all happy with this new method of going with a group that you can follow according to your standards and capacity of learning. The other thing we discussed was about commitment. It started with Isa’s interjection of stating her frustration and unhappiness with some MPCers, since they are not showing commitment at all. The discussion was long and exhausting because some, especially Lucía, when pointed out of their flaws reacted in a negative way, not accepting the feedback and making up excuses. I must congratulate Chacho and Alejo, because the three of us were, I think, the most sincere people when talking to another MPCer. It surprised me a little when Chacho said that Lucía was sinking our boat with her lack of commitment and respect, and that she should reconsider staying on the MPC. Alejo’s intervention was mostly the same when he said that if she was not willing to give her best, then it would be better for her to leave to a cruise she was planning on applying. My intervention was mainly because of her lack of respect during most of the dialogues she is in the outer circle and some even when she is in. Also, when doing other activities. But I mainly focused on her actions during today’s dialogue of Words and Rules, because she was not being real by being on her phone and constantly leaving the room and getting back in, showing her disinterest and disrespect on the dialogue. She tried to counter argue by saying we (Chacho, Isa, Alejo, and I) were not perfect and she mentioned some actions we did that were not correct. That really bothered me so I told her that those comparisons were not near correct, because of the difference in the times we committed them (almost never) and her constant failures. This is how it ended, pretty rough but feeling very good that we said it and that some us are thinking alike for improving our culture.

By the way, I thought I was going to rest some today since we were leaving early (at 3:20 p.m.) but I found out I had this Logo called Domando al Cocodrilo. It’s about psychology and how can we control our brain. I think it would relate a lot with Thinking, Fast and Slow, and Consilience. I leave at 8:30 p.m. nice, ha?

Words and Rules Dialogue 1 – D50

For this first true dialogue on Words and Rules, only ten of us were there on time. The ones on the outer circle were Isa, Marce, Alejo, JavierT, Lucía, and Gaby. Only Isa and most of the time Marce and Alejo, were doing a good role being on the outer circle. The other ones were on their phones and not paying attention at all.

The dialogue was good, very organized, and following the rubric. We talked about the main topic of the book, its meta-question you may say. We concluded that by viewing on the preface, “This book tries to illuminate the nature of language and mind by choosing a single phenomenon and examining it from every angle imaginable. That phenomenon is regular and irregular verbs, the bane of every language student.” I see this as the main topic is the nature of language, which can be transmitted through words and rules, and exemplified with regular and irregular verbs. As we talked more about the book, we discussed a mixture of the first three chapters although our focus was on chapter one. These questions popped during the dialogue, What is language? Is language inherent to humans or is it something we learn or imitate? Is language an spontaneous order? Well, my thoughts are that language is inherent to humans, because we will always find a way to communicate, whether spoken or written, but we will. Now, spoken language, grammar, words, and rules are products of an evolutionary process of spontaneous order. Babies do not imitate older people, well not in the long term, since they find the rules that govern their particular language. So, yes language is getting more interesting, who would’ve said?

Euclid’s Advanced Class – D50

For Euclid’s class, Ingrid had the idea of separating the group into two. The ones that think they are not prepared to made the last propositions (11-17), and the ones that think they are prepared and have understood the previous propositions. The latter was better. In this group, we were Isa, Chacho, Kata, Carmen, Alejo, Mabe, and I. I must tell that this group worked way better than the ones before and we learned at a much faster way, since we were more prepared and the demonstrations have improved a lot. We made propositions 11 to 16.

Gaby’s Morning Meeting? And Sharing – D50

Gaby was supposed to have facilitated today’s morning meeting, but she has been absent so far. Instead we decided to make the roster rubric so we are on the same page when a group is in charge of the chores of the week. What we came up with was the following,

Every assigned group must:

• Bring goodies, snacks, 2 pounds of coffee, 1 pound of sugar, 1 box of tea. All due on Monday.
• Clean all the common spaces.
• Open and close the windows.
• Have coffee ready at 7:45 a.m. 
• Take out the trashcan and empty it. 
• Pick up the water (garrafones) at Atención al Estudiante. 
• Check that the projector and lights are shut down before leaving.
• Charge the iPad. 

For the Agora time, we followed the sharing activities by telling everyone our linkage. Yesterday, or should I say today, at 12:00 a.m. made a Prezi presentation of my genealogical tree. It took me about an hour and a half, but I was very pleased with the result. I found a lot of fun facts, and the most interesting one for the MPC is that somehow somewhere, I’m related to Amable Sánchez, although not by blood you may say. He was married with a sister of the wife of the brother of my grandfather (of my father’s family). Cool, ha?!

“Hello World!” and Debriefing – D49

In today’s programming class, we finished our web app on Heroku! It’s very simple and only says “Hello World!”, but it’s a start in order to build more interesting apps like Euclid’s Sorting Hat.

Today’s debriefing was a little different than it’s used to, because Bert showed us a video called, Stuck on an Escalator, about how people think they are stuck in something when they are really not stuck at all. The other thing Bert shared with us was a couple of quotes regarding education and personal commitment. The main reason Bert shared these with us was to reflect on how we are feeling at the MPC, and how that is a natural thing to feel that we can overcome if we work together.

This is the quote he showed to us:
"Socrates was one of the first to recognize the intimate and necessary relationship between education and personal commitment. His pedagogy was skillfully shaped to penetrate the protective armor of custom and opinion to release in the suddenly exposed and vulnerable individual a sense of shocked engagement. The aim of the elenchus—the name given to his teaching method—was to give birth to a desire for authentic learning. Intellectually, the elenchus, as it worked on the student, moved from strongly held opinion, to floundering uncertainty, to loss, to not-knowing, that engendered the authentic quest for meaning, the desire for finding out. Emotionally, the elenchus began with smug ease (‘I know what I think’) that dissolved into unease, then into anguish, then into concern and, finally, into collaborative and reflective curiosity." (Peter Abbs, The Educational Imperative: Socratic and Aesthetic Learning, p. 17)

Some Macbeth film and some review of Greek lessons – D49

After lunch, we were supposed to audition for a character in Macbeth’s play, but most of us haven’t practiced, so we decided to watch the Polanski’s film first. We only saw half an hour, but it was very good since the film was very understandable. Later, Chacho had the initiative to review the first ten lessons of Greek, and so he did. I have to say that he was not well prepared, but I’m thankful to him for having the time to prepare something and for having the initiative to do so. Then, we had some individual work before Kyle arrived for our programming class. By the way, Zach recommended an app called, SelfControl, which blocks a list of web pages or any mails you edit for the time you want. I’m trying it right now and it feels good to take of the temptation to surf Facebook, 9gag, or AS (Spanish sports newspaper). 

Majo’s Morning Meeting and Plato’s Apology Dialogue – D49

Today’s morning meeting was facilitated by Majo. She showed us three videos of Michael Stevens’ Youtube channel Vsauce. The first one was, What Color is a Mirror?, the second, YouDon’t Type Alone, and the third one, Whatis Déja Vu?. All of them are excellent; they are entertaining and educational, with many fun facts. Nice done Majo!

Later we clean up our spaces and have some individual work. Then, we had some kind-of Greek memory activity and then Plato’s Apology dialogue. The dialogue was very interesting and insightful, although I don’t think we have achieved a good level of inspection and deepness on the text during our dialogues. Mabe also pointed this out, and we decided to come more prepared to our dialogues, well read and with questions. Oh, and we had Karen Mayeens, Gabriel Calzada’s wife, as a guest. Although she didn’t say anything, her presence was nice.

Thanksgiving Lunch and Debriefing – D48

After a tough week, we got a little relief by having a Thanksgiving lunch. We invited the people who are supporting us and have been close to us, those are, Giancarlo Ibargüen, Helmuth Chávez, Carla Hess, Kassandra Rugg, Kyle Passarelli, Dylan Evans, Gabriel Calzada, Juanma Bonifasi, Daniel Herbruger, Adrián Ravier, Tony Ung, Kira Martins, and Ana Isa Gadala. We also invited Amable Sánchez, Sam Bonis, Moris Polanco, and Zach Caceres, but they couldn’t join us for lunch. Of course, all MPC’ers were there as well as Bert and Ingrid. We had a great time eating a lot of food and having great conversations. I sat with Giancarlo, Juanma, Mabe, and Alejo, and we had a nice conversation about knowledge, the mind, psychology, the MPC, ants, economics, freedom, and the history of Thanksgiving (it started as a celebration of private property and freedom!). Everything went great and as planned, and everybody loved the sweet potatoes with marshmallows and nuts I brought!

For the debriefing, we read what everybody wrote on our Thanksgiving tree (I’m thankful for…), had some laughs, and talked about the good things of this day. Nice way to end the week…

I’m thankful for… – D48

As I already told you, we decided to move the Thanksgiving activity for until everybody was at the MPC. We gathered and circled up at around 10:30 and started to say what we were thankful for. It was a great activity, very emotional, and there was a lot of crying (only the ladies). I liked it a lot, and it made me reflect of what I’m truly thankful for. It was kind of difficult to put it into words, but when I finally said it, it was great. Just seeing everybody share what they are thankful made the environment a very trustful one.

What I said was this, “Well, I’m thankful for being me, for having the capacity to actually think for myself, the capacity to make decisions, and with what Javier just mentioned, I mean I was trying to put this into words and I think you explained it very very well. I mean this series, I don’t know if I can call them coincidences, but as Alejo was saying, I mean we were studying economics and we were only three semesters from graduating and while as different from Alejo I did started the semester, but then we encountered in the faculty and we started talking about the assignations and all that stuff and he mentioned the MPC, and then while, I mean, the whole Deirdre McCloskey dialogue was like a huge coincidence for me, because I then realized that when I saw you guys and the group, I knew it would be a great group, so it encouraged me to actually make that move from what I was studying and get to the MPC. Well, actually it was the whole day. At first I attended the conference of Deirdre McCloskey and then went to the dialogue, and after it… I mean, I was working with this idea of education the whole year and when we had the dialogue (although it was not the best one (laughs)), but after I was talking with Bert, I mean it was just a, I don’t know if a coincidence of events that led me to actually make the decision that I was going to get to the MPC. And of course, for my family for supporting me. I’m thankful for that. And yeah, I’m thankful for being here, for having the capacity to reason, and to I mean, practically live with you guys and learn from you and from the people around me.”

I say a lot “I mean” haha. 

Morning Meeting and Dialogue with Dylan (Thinking… Ch 7 & 8) – D48

After a debriefing like the one on yesterday, you may think that everyone reflected about their behavior and realized they were not doing a good job at the MPC, but apparently no. Only ten of us arrived on time. For the morning meeting we had planned an activity in which we would tell what we were thankful for, since it’s Thanksgiving, but because of Bert’s petition and common agreement, we moved it until everybody were here.

Later, at 9:30, Dylan arrived for our dialogue on Thinking, Fast and Slow, chapters 7 and 8. Some of the topics we discussed (although some in a very superficial way) were finding someone attractive is not a “basic assessment”, automatic processing in visual system/internal chatterbox, halo effect (Is there a way to control our subconscious halo effect?) (Our mind is a network of associations that activate other areas.), are there objective judgments?, WYSIATI (what you see is all there is). It was an interesting dialogue, but I have to admit that I didn’t take full advantage of it since I was not well prepared for it.

A book Dylan recommended us: “A Journey Around My Room” by Xavier Maistre.

The most real debriefing so far – D47

As I mentioned before, one of the reasons of this hot debriefing was the disrespect towards Kata on the earlier tour. She told us she felt really bad and that we have been the worst group she has ever guided. Isa, Mabe, and Kata wrote a letter that they read and this led to further discussion of many topics. I will not detail them since it would be too long, but the main topics we discussed were the influence of Bert in the group (some are still seeing him as an authority), the lack of commitment, the lack of a common ground of things to do and principles and values, the lack of trust we have in the group (although we like to think of us as a family, clearly we are not there yet), the lack of standards and the confusion some have regarding this, the lack of good communication and the nonconformity with “the rules of the game” that Bert omitted to tell us when we entered the MPC, and the lack of bonding we have as a group. We discussed many things in a deep sense, so the debriefing lasted for more than 1.5 hours, all leaving around 8 p.m. Long and productive day. I think almost everyone and I can surely talk about myself, that we left the MPC with more energy and without a weight in our chests because we liberated things that needed to talk. I’m not saying its perfect now, it’s far from that, but it improved our process of culture building.

Programming class (Sinatra) – D47

For the programming class, Kyle showed us how to build a web app using a program called Sinatra. We didn’t finish building it because there were some details Kyle didn’t know, but it was a good start. I have to say that the class was a little disappointing because of the disrespect of almost all of us to Kyle. At first I have to admit that I was distracted viewing dog photos with Isa, but then I engaged in the class while others were very distracted and kept holding back our progress in the class. They were doing something else and not paying attention to Kyle, so they got frustrated because they didn’t understand and basically they were kind-of whining. The MPC’ers were Marce, Gaby, Chacho, Lucía, Lore, Mabe, Isa, and I. I felt a little embarrassed with Kyle because of our behavior so I apologized with him at the end of the class. By the way, at the middle of the class Dylan interrupted and started to talk with Mabe, and Kyle, well, he basically told Dylan to go.

Visit to the Popol Vuh Museum – D47

Today I had physiotherapy so I lost the performing arts and arrived at 2 p.m. just before Kata’s tour to the Popol Vuh Museum. Everybody seemed excited about it, but within the first 5 or 10 minutes some lost interest and went on their own way, disrespecting Kata’s effort of giving a good tour. I tried to stay with the Kata and most of the time I achieved that, although I must admit that at some times I got distracted, mainly because I didn't like the rhythm of the tour since it was a little slow. Nevertheless, only like 5 or 6 people stayed with Kata, an action that was going to be discussed later at the debriefing.

Are machines going to control us? (Consilience) – Dialogue with Chris Lingle – D47

For our third dialogue of Consilience, Christopher Lingle visited us. There were many neuroscientific topics, and one of the most important was the materialistic implications and possibilities of eventually creating artificial intelligence (AI) and emotions (AE). I mean, if emotions are just chemical reactions in our brain, can’t we create an artificial organ that simulates this? You may say that emotions are connected with memories, so how about creating a machine with enough capacity to gather databases and based on these knowledge, form opinions, criteria, and emotions. By doing this, you would be able to talk with a computer and not find a difference with a human interaction, making an exception to the Turing test. So, can we achieve a state in which we can control our minds? Read thoughts? Control them? Change our perspective of time and space, being able to control it? Are these AI and AE machines have the instinct of survival and therefore capable of rebelling themselves against humans? Is this process of controlling us, humans, inevitable and only a matter of time? Maybe, I don’t know yet…