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Origin of Hindi and Urdu
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01-23-2007, 10:57 AM
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9mm_fan
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Cognitive Development
is the end result and
Cognitive Process
, which is partly
innate/inherited
and partly
acquired
through formal or informal education, study and personal experiences, is what goes into achieving that end result. And those abilities, which are innate or inherited are too, in a way, acquired. Usually, only a small fractional part of
innate/inherited
abilities are decided by the
biological factors
of individuals.
For example:
1) Without the avilibility of previous works in Atomic theory and the knowledge of the existence of electrons discovered by J.J. Thomson, and the existence of Atomic Nucleus, discovered by Ernest Rutherford, Neils Bohar would not have succeeded in developing his Atomic Model and won the Nobel Prize; and the successive scientists would not have succeeded in refining that model to its current form and also won the Nobel Prizes.
2) Without the previous published and recorded works of previous generations of scientists in physics, atomic theory and particle theory, the solid-state physics would not have reached the maturity that it has and no electronics and digital revolutions would have taken place as we all are witnessing, giving routine examples of the role computers play in our daily lives.
3) Without the availibity of published results of Michelson Morley's experiment, Einstein would not have succeeded in developing his theory of Special Relativity and subsequently the General Theory of Relativity.
4) Without the recorded information and knowledge of previous works on blackbody radiation, Plank would not have succeeded in developing the foundation of Quantum Theory, which won him the Nobel Prize.
5) Without the knowledge of Plank's Quantum Theory, Einstein would not have succeeded in explaining Photoelectric Effect, which won him the Nobel Prize.
These are just an infinitesimally small number of examples in a small number of fields, signifying the importance of succession of cognition transfers in those fields, which require a well-developed language that undeniably plays a decisive role in the cognitive development of a society.
That is why the term
Cognitive Development
encompasses the human developmental process in its
broadest
sense, with language playing a significantly important role in that process.
Culture broadly encompasses
"The way of thinking"
and
"The way of doing things"
of a society, which says it all about the overall developmemtal phase of a society, its language or languages and the state they achieve as the result of it.
A priory knowledge of 5 + 7 = 12 of a human being is identical to the instinctive knowledge of a female animal knowing how many eggs she had laid; and that is why it is termed as 'a priory knowledge'.
Therefore, it is not necessary that the identifier and solver of a problem need be the same person. A problem may have been identified, known or existed for a long time, even as long as a few generations, without a solution due to lack of necessary theoretical and/or technological advances in the field and/or due to lack of insight altogether. However, when someone finds the solution to the same old problem, long time after it was first identified, it may well appear so easy and simple. And there are plenty of such examples in mathematics, science and engineering in general and in many other fields having anthropological significance. Some examples of this are listed above. Here, the crucial and deciding factor is simply the contingency of solution on time dependent evolution of cognition.
Yes, the brain is not wired for all types of abstract thinking, but it acquires such ability through education, experience and study. However, there are elements of
cerebral endowments
, which are
innate
and responsible for some becoming inborn
genius
at very young ages. Nonetheless, the overall
Cognitive Process
becomes more efficient under right environmental conditions. That is why, both
'nature'
and
'nurture'
play equally important roles in one's cognitive development; and the richness of language used to transfer those information and knowledge plays a major role in deciding the final outcome of one's cognitive development.
Therefore, given the two identical brains, the one, which is trained through education and study in a richer language, would far outperform the one that is neither trained through education and study nor has access to information and knowledge that the former has, which, as the cosequence, would predominantly decide the quality of experiences the individuals would go through. History provides undeniable evidences and records of this undeniable fact.
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