Pax / Astra series

I am reading Andre Norton's Pax / Astra series.  This series contains 2 novels, written in the 1950's.  The first is The Stars Are Ours and the second one is Star Born.  Descriptions and links are below.  One thing which came to mind is how events in the Star Born novel compares to our involvement with questionable leaders and factions in other countries.  Afghanistan in particular comes to mind.  The novel involves Earth people who go to a planet which is inhabited by multiple intelligent species.  The Earth people initially side with one group who turn out to be bad people.

The Stars Are Ours
Earth in 2500AD is no place for a young man with a dream of freedom. And Dard Nordisis worse off than most. His brother was killed for covert activities as a Free Scientist in a world where science is outlawed and blamed for all evils. Now Dard and his niece are hunted and trying to find his brother's friends before their enemies find them and execute them as well. The stakes are high-- he can be shot down and killed like his brother or escape to the stars in a spaceship that the Free Scientists have built in secret!
Audiobook link

Star Born
When Raf Kurbi's spaceship from Earth burst into unexplored skies of the far planet Astra, it was made welcome by the natives of a once-mighty metropolis. But Kurbi was unaware of three vital things: (1) that Astra already harbored an Earth colony - descended from refugees from the world of the previous century; (2) that these men and women were facing the greatest danger of their existence from a new outburst of the inhuman fiends who had once tyrannized Astra; and (3) that the natives who were buying Kurbi's science know-how were those very fiends - and their intentions were implacably deadly for all humans, whether Earth born or star born! Much of the planet's hopes lie with young Dalgard Nordis and his companion, Sssuri, a telepathic native of this alien world. If they fail, their planet will be subjugated and enslaved by that inhuman race.
Audiobook link

Here is a link to a combined ebook at Amazon.

Humans as unfinished products

I recently read Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works.  I found it to be informative and thought provoking.  One of the thoughts which came to me is that humans are unfinished products.  Our brains are a mix of new and old.  I know that this is not entirely accurate since the old parts have evolved along with the new parts.  But the older parts of the brain have functions and neurochemistry which are still similar to what other animals have.  These brain elements influence and are influenced by the parts which are exclusively human.  As advanced as humans have become, the ways which our brains work are still developing.  The cognitive abilities mix and are sometimes overwritten by the more animalistic neurochemical responses.

I think that a danger with modern humans is that there is too little understanding of how our fairly new brain has some problems with the interactions of the parts.

Don't stop learning or thinking

I saw a talk by a person who was saying to stop learning and start thinking.  The talk was problematic.  Learning and thinking are intricately involved.  My experience and reading indicates to me that excluding either leads people into false perspectives.  Just knowing things without adequate cognitive skills seems to stifle progress.  I have the opinion that some of the industrial and commercial abuses come from not taking cognition far enough.  in those cases, I refer to the cognitive ability to work out enough of the consequences of things.  But emphasizing thinking or rationalizing (not always the same thing) without adequate knowledge is foolish.  There is certainly bad "learning" where people are given false information.  But not looking at what is physically known and actually proven leads to pseudo knowledge.

I have doubts that there really is a true separation between learning and thinking.  But it is clear to me that there are bad learning and bad thinking.  But I think that the quality of both learning and thinking are tied together.

Speaking of bad learning and thinking, Some media are seriously foul.  We have commercials which tout things as fact which were basically made up.  We have "journalists", bloggers and vloggers stating things as fact which have either not been proven or have been proven wrong.  The 10% brain usage is an example  Even a casual study of actual neuroscience or biopsychology shows that the idea that we only use 10% of our brains is a myth.  Yet this is touted as fact  by many sources.