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To maintain circularity: Biological roots of education

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Abstract

“Truisms have the disadvantage that by dulling the senses they obscure the truth. Almost nobody will become alarmed when told that in times of continuity the future equals the past. Only a few will become aware that from this follows that in times of socio-cultural change the future will not be like the past... At any moment we are free to act toward the future we desire. In other words, the future will be as we wish and perceive it to be. This may come as a shock only to those who let their thinking be governed by the principle that demands that only the rules observed in the past shall apply to the future. For those the concept of ‘change’ is inconceivable, for change is the process that obliterates the rules of the past” (Von Foerster, 1972).

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Martin, R.J. To maintain circularity: Biological roots of education. Instr Sci 3, 299–306 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00150477

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