ComestibleVenom
August 26, 2003, 03:20 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/health/psychology/26EXEC.html
"You can be truly smart and still struggle in life if you lack the ability to plan, organize time and space, initiate projects and see them through to completion, and you cannot resist immediate temptations in favor of later better rewards.
When those capacities are damaged or underdeveloped, even people with intelligence and talent may flounder. They are often misunderstood as being willfully disorganized or lazy, possessing a bad attitude or, from a parental viewpoint, "doing this on purpose to drive me crazy."
More and more, however, neuroscientists are saying such puzzling underachievers may suffer from neurological abnormalities affecting "the brain's C.E.O." This control center, really an array of "executive functions," orchestrates resources like memory, language and attention to achieve a goal, be it a fraction of a second or five years from now."
This is a fascinating article, and I myself will pursue it.
I 'should' be entering my third year of university. Due to a lack of concerted direction, my mind - one I hold to be an able one - has not carried me to academic success.
Tomorrow, I will attend a meeting with the dean of a college to "explain my past underperformance" in order to continue the post-secondary education I so unfocusedly began. I will hand him a letter that is suitably conventional. I will admit, however, that this article in the NYTimes has thrown the explanation within the letter into doubt.
I will admit to him that I require further research into that question, years more. To do so will require additional education of course.
There is, as some perceptive person might note, some danger in doing so. One may very rationally fear that the Dean will take this to be an instance of the creeping excapulation. An appeal to mere neurochemistry to absolve myself, my central cartesian agent, of responsibility for what I have done - or perhaps merely to disguise mere incompetence.
It's not that simple of course. Despite the game-theoretic importance of the agent qua an individual agent linked with an individual human body and history, there are neurochemical considerations to be noted and compensated for in personal behavior. I seek not to deny the importance of systematicity in lifestyle, but point out our perception of just what effort is involved may be skewed by background assumption not corresponding to natural constants.
"You can be truly smart and still struggle in life if you lack the ability to plan, organize time and space, initiate projects and see them through to completion, and you cannot resist immediate temptations in favor of later better rewards.
When those capacities are damaged or underdeveloped, even people with intelligence and talent may flounder. They are often misunderstood as being willfully disorganized or lazy, possessing a bad attitude or, from a parental viewpoint, "doing this on purpose to drive me crazy."
More and more, however, neuroscientists are saying such puzzling underachievers may suffer from neurological abnormalities affecting "the brain's C.E.O." This control center, really an array of "executive functions," orchestrates resources like memory, language and attention to achieve a goal, be it a fraction of a second or five years from now."
This is a fascinating article, and I myself will pursue it.
I 'should' be entering my third year of university. Due to a lack of concerted direction, my mind - one I hold to be an able one - has not carried me to academic success.
Tomorrow, I will attend a meeting with the dean of a college to "explain my past underperformance" in order to continue the post-secondary education I so unfocusedly began. I will hand him a letter that is suitably conventional. I will admit, however, that this article in the NYTimes has thrown the explanation within the letter into doubt.
I will admit to him that I require further research into that question, years more. To do so will require additional education of course.
There is, as some perceptive person might note, some danger in doing so. One may very rationally fear that the Dean will take this to be an instance of the creeping excapulation. An appeal to mere neurochemistry to absolve myself, my central cartesian agent, of responsibility for what I have done - or perhaps merely to disguise mere incompetence.
It's not that simple of course. Despite the game-theoretic importance of the agent qua an individual agent linked with an individual human body and history, there are neurochemical considerations to be noted and compensated for in personal behavior. I seek not to deny the importance of systematicity in lifestyle, but point out our perception of just what effort is involved may be skewed by background assumption not corresponding to natural constants.