Learning Paradox

["Michael Glassman" <MGlassman@hec.ohio-state.edu>]

I have a question about the learning paradox to people who may
understand it better than I do.  What I have read suggests that
individuals cannot develop novel structures of thought because you
cannot think of things that you have not already thought of.  In other
words, it the idea that you cannot make a new dish without the addition
of new ingredients - so there must be a way for humans to create these
new ingredients in their head.

But doesn't this work from a number of already in place suppositions.

1.	Doesn't this suggest that human thinking is based in
self-action?  That it is humans themselves that generate new thinking,
and then use that new thinking upon the world, rather than for instance
saying humans come across novel situations and either deal with those
novel situations in their experience or move (at least a step closer) to
extinction.

2.	Doesn't the learning paradox also assume a certain level of
dualism - that there is somehow a separation between those things you
can on in the world and the thought that you have in acting on them?

If you take out both self-action and dualism (which some argue most
other "scientific" fields did long ago), is there even any possible
argument that can be made for a learning paradox?

Michael