Tonight, I will moderate a humanist meeting on “Self-directed Learning with Fiction”. Here’s the blurb:

Fiction can shape us. However, such shaping can be slow and unreliable; so we might be wasting opportunities. Experiencing fiction can also have insidious, harmful effects. In passively processing fiction, we may be forfeiting control over who we become. In this meeting, you are invited to share stories of (a) how story has transformed you, and (b) how story has failed to transform you. We will explore active ways in which (a) we can avoid being transformed for the worse through fiction, (b) we can better improve ourselves through fiction.

NB:

• The topic is processing fiction of others, rather than creating our own public fiction.
• This being a humanist group, please refrain from drawing on biblical or other religious examples at the meeting. Plenty of great literature, plays, songs films to choose from.

Context

I’m writing a couple of books, one of which is related to this topic: Discontinuities: Love, Art, Mind.. These books are two one of many projects, so they’ve been dragging out much longer than my first first books. I now expect to publish them in Q1 and Q2 of 2017.

Recommended Readings

My three previous blog posts are germane to this topic:

• Fiction About Fiction: Dangers and Missed Opportunities in Processing Stories
• What Can You Learn from the Knowledge of Others?
• What Can Be Learned from a Few Good Men that Trump Did Not?.

• Beaudoin, L. A CogZest project on Developing oneself with Fiction and Other Forms of Art (Meta-effectiveness via Art).

• Beaudoin, L CogZest blog posts that respond to art.
• Beaudoin, L. Cognitive Productivity: Using Knowledge to Become Profoundly Effective.
• Gottschall, J. (2012). The Story Telling Animal. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Hogan, P. (2003). Cognitive Science, Literature, and the Arts.
• Oatley, K. (1982). Best Laid Schemes: The Psychology of the Emotions.

Evolution Misbehaving, Maybe!

Dr. Al Sather was scheduled to present at the Humanist meeting this evening. His presentation on “Evolution Misbehaving, Maybe!” will be postponed.