A musing Beam

When I was in college I spent two sleepless nights worrying over the existence of free will (thanks to John Milton and how man was "sufficient to have stood, but free to fall").  I sent a frantic email to an old mentor, hoping he could talk me back into believing that there was some way that I could believe in a morally culpable form of identity.  He failed.  (Not his fault, of course.... :-P) That, though, has nothing to do with what MOST people mean by free will, and importantly, it has little to do with what I mean in this post.  (It's just a funny story ... that I couldn't help sharing ... ahem.)  My point here is that free will is bound up with doing things that you don't feel like doing.  Except under exceptional circumstances (a la David Koresh), you don't have to worry about your will being free from other people.  Even in assessing what other people think, that assessment is YOU, so ... you just can't blame others.  Sorry, kids...

My wife (she's a Gifted and Talented teacher, for those that don't know) and I sometimes chat about important concepts in teaching, but I think this concept is an important life one:  Bloom's Taxonomy (specifically, of the cognitive domain).  Here's a random link: http://www.officeport.com/edu/blooms.htm Why is this so important?  Because having a meaningful conversation without following this pyramid is virtually impossible.  People try it all the time, though.  See, the bottom of the pyramid is knowledge, and the top is evaluation, but a lot of folks get those mixed up.  I'll give a few examples. 1)  Talking heads.  See your average interview on CNN/Fox/etc.  Someone will be asked a question and that person will try to give you a value judgment.  "This was the wrong course to take in healthcare," "We should have left Iraq earlier," etc.  Did he have the facts?  Has she been to Iraq?  If you can't handle even the...