Learning involves shared attention -spiritually too

At the moment, I seem to be making connections between stuff I happen across and things to do with mindfulness. Now this is a bit peripheral to what the linked article is focussing on but nevertheless it caught my... well, attention. In the context of connections to mindfulness, this sentence got me thinking:

"Shared attention is the starting point of conscious human learning"

What is intriguing me about this, I think, is that I'm coming to the theological conclusion that mindfulness is shared attention with God. Mindfulness in the sense of giving attention to something and maintaining/returning attention to it is implicated in the picture from Genesis 1 of God giving attention to what was made and what was teeming or doing its (God-given) thing and seeing that it was good. A Christian mindfulness shares God's attentiveness to what is (made), joins God in being mindful of what God has made. So the quote about shared attention in a way characterises a Christian mindfulness by potentially including God. Of course, a point to take from Genesis and systematic theology is that God is the initiator of sharing; God is inviting us to see "that it is good" one piece of the world at a time.

But let's take that further with what that quote goes on to say about conscious human learning. When I hear or read 'learning', I tend to relate that to 'formation', that is to spiritual development and growth. I see the formation as a partially overlapping semantic field with learning. When we grow spiritually it is learning that takes place. When we learn, as Christians, we are to align our learning with our spiritual outlook and experience.
And I can't help but relate that to Genesis 2 and the naming of the creatures. In the bit of the story I'm thinking of, God brings the animals to Adam to name and Adam's names stand -"that was its name". I have written elsewhere of what is implied by naming. Briefly, naming implies noticing and learning about similarities and differences. It involves, to some degree at least, classifying and deciding what is 'in' or 'out' in the application of a label /name; "Yes that is also a squirrel but it's red, while that one was grey", for example. In this story we note how attention is shared, in fact how God engineers a shared focus to which Adam responds by noticing, learning and consolidating learning by naming. It's worth noticing too that from this perspective the 'naming' which is art or science is essentially the same: focus, notice similarities and differences and render them into another medium in order to think about and share learning. So, in this story shared attention really is the starting point of conscious human learning.

The sharing bit is important too.

before children could acquire the tools of speech and language, you had to ensure they felt a sense of “being and belonging”

Is that not also present in the Genesis 2 story? God's giving being and the sense of belonging engendered by the induction into a status in the garden. It's important too because language is a shared endeavour. Language is never a solo operation. Shared attention requires trust and mutual respect: we won't share attention if we sense that in doing so we are being co-opted to our detriment. There's probably a theology of advertising lurking there ...

How babies learn – and why robots can’t compete | News | The Guardian: ' via Blog this'