reBlog from Max Carl Kirk: collection-links and notes

I found this fascinating quote today:

In order to illustrate this, first imagine someone who is introduced to a new subject in a course that they are taking in a university class.  Then imagine someone who finds themselves in a completely new environment, say in a country that they have never been in before.  In the first situation it is easy to imagine someone evaluating the relevancy of the new subject to the last subject or the last lesson, or to the overall knowledge that they had already acquired in the class.  In the Image via Wikipediasecond situation the same kind of knowledge base does not exist for the individual.  It is easy, therefore, to imagine the person thinking in associative terms, comparing and contrasting completely new experiences of things with previous experiences of more familiar places.  It is also easy to imagine the person stopping and trying to step outside the frame of the new environment somehow to reflect on it and to go to special vantage points to get a better perspective.Max Carl Kirk, collection-links and notes, Mar 2010

You should read the whole article.