DISCUSSION 
certain coding capacities: for example a cell in the brain will 
recognize vertical shapes, shall we say. It has certain outputs 
going to two possible pathways, such as “take” or “‘with- 
draw’’, to give a very simple example. What is learned is 
whether vertical is to be associated with “‘take”’ or “‘withdraw’’. 
It is possible that a cell may be switched to do one thing by 
inhibiting its capacity to do the other. If so, what is learnt is 
what not to do. A very simple example is the Pavlovian con- 
ditioned reflex which is so often taken as a paradigm. The 
sounding of the bell could make the dog salivate either more or 
less. We tend to think of the experiment as facilitating the 
pathway to salivate more. The formulation I am suggesting is 
that the dog is learning not to salivate less. It is switching off 
the “‘don’t salivate” connexion with that particular stimulus. 
If some such methods are to work, we might begin quite soon 
to learn something of the complexities of the whole coding 
system and learning system in the brain. Then we would be in 
a better position to learn how to teach, which is surely the thing 
we must talk about more than anything. ‘Tochange the attitudes 
which Dr. Chisholm has pilloried so justifiably requires some 
knowledge of how to introduce alternative methods of teaching. 
As long as we know so little about the coding system and how it 
is changed we don’t really know how to instruct the wise adult 
instructor we hope to put in the driving seat. The poverty of 
educational theory seems to me to be one of our great weak- 
nesses. I think it is likely to change to an extent which may even 
seem frightening. 
We come next to the question of the individual and his group. 
Dr. Hoagland referred several times to the fact that we are 
inevitably highly conditioned, and we must learn to accept 
this. We still insist on regarding ourselves, each little “gene- 
learning unit”’, as something complete and independent. Some 
people will still even emphasize that any “individual” could 
survive and live alone, say on a desert island. This is dangerous 
nonsense, because it obscures the fact that in practice each of 
us is utterly dependent on the information and the language 
that he receives from others. We have been endowed with these 
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