Students' Ideas about Brain Gymnasiums
Students' gyms: "After breakfast we take them to the brain gymnasium,
where we focus on stimulating the brain by giving shock treatments. Another
method that we use is to have them watch television with hidden messages...
The last method that we use on our patients is the miracle brain pill or the
miracle brain cream."
"...a return on your investment in time and money."
"A brain gymnasium should teach stress-management, health maintenance,
mastering change, and low fat diet advice."
"A brain gymnasium is being in the field you like most so that you accomplish
your dream."
"...not brilliance, or material success, but a sense of satisfaction,
peaceful and joyful, an appreciation for the magnitudes of the Heavens and
the earth."
"...a virtual reality that unites patients, doctors, therapists, the
inner and outer environments."
"...where creativity, formal training and business could coexist."
"...a tropical island where Shakespeare, Hitler, Woody Allen, Leonard
Bernstein, Plato, Dorothy Parker, Nietzsche, Freud and Jung come
to participate in formal seminars, impromptu discussion round-the-campfire,
or on long walks."
"...a computer playground where students compete with games that test
and score their knowledge."
"...a space training program."
Julia Melancon writes about the ideal human attributes:
According to Plato, the four characteristics that make a "good man" are wisdom, courage, discipline and justice. For Jesus, all you need are humility and faith (and preferably, few cognitive abilities.) The Baby Boomer's ideal human qualities are egotism, selfishness, materialism and ruthlessness (and imperturbable nasal passages.) Sartre says one must have nerves of steel to face the ugly truths about the world and yourself. As if that weren't bad enough, he demands that we do more than just take up space on the planet--- we must design our lives and actually make a contribution.
If I could create the perfect human being or superhuman, she (would of course be female) would have integrity and decency. She would revere wisdom and passionately pursue knowledge. She would honor human life by seeking to improve the conditions of those people currently living on the planet, not worrying about those who are either dead or who have not yet gotten themselves born.