1-17-08 - Thursday

The biological layer of a theory of social action for lawyers Lawyer’s MIND should have rich associative memory regarding the matters for which they’re being paid. The right brag for a litigator is “able to learn a new subject quickly.” →you want to become able to hear enough to make an association that makes a bell ring. →Because an argument/essay is a constructed entity, you should be able to find a quotation with reference to the structure in your mind. →Litigation support technology—full-text search—is still way inferior to a well-stocked lawyer’s mind.

What impedes good memory? 1. sleep deprivation and 2. stress. But you must learn to form good memories under sleep deprivation, because you’re going to law firms. What you do affects your body, and your brain is no exception. 3. “Vegging out” = “time spent forgetting what you read 45 minutes ago—–the neurological process antecedent to losing memories.” Could the professor please define the boundary line between vegging out, and not vegging out that's also not working? Prof: The overstimulated mind needs rest and relaxation. But COMMERCIAL TV is a social [something]: it induces a state of mind that facilitates selling to you, which is "vegging out." That a by-product of vegging out is poorer memory is not their problem. Moglen suggests transcendental meditation.

Holmes - The Path of the Law

• Intro to 19th C. legal realism
• knowledge of the law requires looking at it as a bad man would
• focus on the practical consequences (what the law does, not what it says)
• the limiting principle of legal realism (how much extra-textual knowledge one should have) is where the public force will be applied

2 fallacies:

1) confounding of morality & law

• contract law - formalism (offer & acceptance) v. realism (damages)
• separate moral stock from legal talk
• isolate the language of the law

2) the notion that the only force at work in the development of law is logic

• Logic results from the human need to comprehend our environment
• we impose logic on the structure of the universe
• logic is a human frailty
• The language of judicial decisions is that of logic
• Holmes uses it as term of derogation in his opinions
• Any proposition can have a logical form
• To say that legal consequences occur as deduction from axioms is wrong

• The sound of the new century: "But certainty is generally illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man."
• Creativity emerges from focus

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How do I edit without overwriting FeliciaGilbert? 's credit at the bottom? And how do I make a single line break? -andrew

• found one answer – when editing, mark "new revision." I think it ought to be marked by default. -- AndrewGradman - 18 Jan 2008

This is a test of using
to create a SINGLE line break. (the default is a double space and I do not like.)

-- AndrewGradman - 17 Jan 2008

I'm not sure if this is a good place for it, but I think it would be good if we had a space to talk about the different topics brought up in class and post links to other info, etc. Perhaps we need just one running page of comments instead of attaching them to class notes?

In any case, here's a question: Does watching TLC and the Discovery channel count as vegging out?

-- KateVershov - 18 Jan 2008

As a side bar - it would be awesome if we could have a discussion board that was anonymous. I think people are afraid of saying something that the professor will not like. Otherwise, the responses elicited are likely to be urbane expositions for the professor's eye, rather than genuine engagement.

-- KateVershov - 18 Jan 2008

With regards to vegging out, I was wondering what Eben thought about film studies/active viewing. As a film studies major in college, I spent most of my time trying to "actively" watch films in order to unpack how they were constructed and how they were designed to affect the viewer. Is the memory-harming "vegging out" we discussed a necessary effect of the medium, or is it possible to engage with television and film in such a way as to make it an intellectually stimulating experience?

-- DanielButrymowicz - 18 Jan 2008

Andrew, I am not sure about the credit issue. To add a line break you can try using

 <BR> 

if you find you cannot just hit enter.

Kate, unless you create a new account and use another IP for it (or use another site to host the board), what you post could likely still be tied back to you. In a class of opinionated law students, I'm willing to bet that we can manage plenty of engagement and even some controversy with our names showing. That said, it is hardly my decision to make.

-- DanBryan - 18 Jan 2008

I can't speak for Eben but to me engaging with film (or with TV, though I've not watched much in a while) wouldn't seem to be a problem as much as sitting back completely mindlessly and letting TV flow over one. I think it would be hard for most of us to get to that point, but maybe it's a little harmful even when engaging with some programming. Does it harm memory to "take up space" with remembering the characters and storylines from a TV drama, and does it harm it any more than remembering the equivalents from [example of the day] Shakespeare's works? Is either or both a "waste?"

-- DanielHarris - 18 Jan 2008

The TV discussion reminded me of this great Simpsons line:

Lisa: It's not out fault our generation has short attention spans, Dad. We watch an appalling amount of TV.

Homer: Don't you ever, EVER talk that way about television.

Here's a video of another funny Simpsons moment that is somewhat on-point: http://video.aol.com/video-detail/simpsons-halloween-shining-episode/1093522388

-- TedKreit - 18 Jan 2008

Actually what I found most interesting about the vegging out discussion was the preface. I feel somewhat totally ignorrant but I have always thought of memory as something more innate or biological. As a kid, I often remarked on how unfair k-12 education was because it was all about memory. I was wondering if anyone who did psych undergrad took any classes on it. I have heard of speed reading classes, but is it just common knowledge that memory is something we all can master? Does everyone agree with the proposition? In tutoring many kids over time and just growing up it would seem that this has not been my experience. In addition, I have never tried to work at my memory. So after a brief wikipedia check I figured I would just ask the class for your thoughts.

-- MichaelBrown - 18 Jan 2008

Kate suggests an anonymous discussion board because "people are afraid of saying something that the professor will not like ... the responses elicited are likely to be urbane expositions for the professor's eye, rather than genuine engagement."

The professor believes in open information, and he's reading my response, so I can't take Kate's side. Rather, "in my opinion," (i.e. in his likely opinion), we should write what we think, not what he'd like us to think!

This class is, after all, about challenging authority. I grant that Eben presents a difficult classroom environment for that. But I theorize that he asserts his opinions so strongly in class to force us to absorb them ("listen"), so that we can only critique them later -- i.e., after thinking -- i.e., intelligently. He reserved the TWiki as our forum for that critique.

My model predicts that the prof will be more tolerant of dissent on the TWiki. I'm gambling that this sort of disrespectful post, while inappropriate to say to Eben's face, won't even get me a slap on the wrist.

-- AndrewGradman - 18 Jan 2008

On the Topic of “Vegging Out”: Does the Medium Matter?

Many people of a certain social class or educational background loudly proclaim that one must read Shakespeare and see it preformed on stage. I sincerely doubt that that anyone would try to argue that Shakespeare necessarily loses its artistic or intellectual value when produced for the small screen. If a television production of a Shakespeare play can have value, why can’t other productions designed for the small screen?

Television is a medium for the masses and bashing television is an easy way for an individual to declare that he or she is better than the masses. Staring at a painting on a wall or listening to Beethoven can be a way of “vegging out” or a way of stimulating one’s mind.

MOMA is designed to make you buy postcards and memberships. Operas are preformed to induce you to buy tickets. Saying that television is a commercialized medium of expression designed to make you buy things does nothing more than force us to ask what medium of expression has not been commercialized.

Every medium for expression is what the artist and the consumer make of it.

-- StephenClarke - 19 Jan 2008