:''not to be confused with journalist E. Blair Bolles (1912–1990)''
Edmund Blair Bolles (born 1942) is an American
humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humani ...
and author. Bolles argues that human
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...
and
originality
Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from replica, reproductions, clones, forgery, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romantici ...
are real and natural, deriving from animal
memory
Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
systems. He developed this doctrine in three books written in the 1980s.
Bolles is the grandson of Wisconsin congressman
Stephen Bolles
Stephen Bolles (June 25, 1866July 8, 1941) was an American politician, a newspaper editor, and a congressman from Wisconsin.
Early life
Born in Springboro, Crawford County, Pennsylvania, Bolles attended the public schools; was graduated from th ...
.
Work
His major work includes:
* ''So Much to Say'' (1980), regarding the
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
of children from birth to age five. It proposes that children are driven to talk because they have "something to say," have private emotions and thoughts to report.
* ''Remembering and Forgetting'' (1986), which opens with the sentence, "Remembering is an act of imagination." Bolles makes a sharp distinction between computer memory (storage) and human remembering (recreating sensory experiences).
* ''A Second Way of Knowing'' (1991), about
perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
, which Bolles defines as knowing the meaning of what the senses present. The book contrasts the sensory-based knowledge of animal and humans with a view of symbolically based computation available to computers.
References
*
Notable Former Volunteers / Arts and Literature. Peace Corps official site. Accessed 5 January 2007.
External links
Bolles' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bolles, Edward Blair
American humanists
Living people
Peace Corps volunteers
1942 births