Academic-Capital

The book How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil is a great addition to your academic library. It discusses the nature of human thought and how this thought has developed overtime. This information can help academics understand how to teach courses, relay information, and better put forward the building blocks necessary for higher thought. Even though the book is not focused specifically on students it is easy to draw this parallel for teaching improvements.  The work begins by discussing the old brain and the new brain. Like Descartes concepts of “I think therefore I am” it is this higher form of cognitive thought that separates humans from the animal kingdom. The old brain is reflexivity designed to warn us of immediate environmental threats. However, the new brain can project outward to predict outcomes such as how seeing traces of fur on a branch, paw prints, and other signs of predatory behavior can lead to the logical conclusion that walking along the same path requires ca