The term 'dialogic', does not just apply to literature. For Bakhtin, all language - indeed, all thought - appeared dialogic. This means that everything anybody ever says always exists in response to things that have been said before and in anticipation of things that will be said in response. We never, in other words, speak in a vacuum. As a result, all language (and the ideas which language contains and communicates) is dynamic, relational and engaged in a process of endless redescriptions of the world.
I liked the essay about the guy who lost his hearing - especially how the process of going through that altered his fundamental notion of self - and forced him to accept himself as a cyborg of sorts because his fundamental perception depended on software upgrades and improvements to his augmentation. He goes on to say how having a more complex view on representation can be rooted in seeing yourself as subjective, dependent, interconnected, dialogical.
Dumit talks about the distribution of fact on the projection of the self - using PET and Prozac as case studies to illustrate that there is an ongoing discussion that forms around notions of the self in relation to technology.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Whole Body Interaction
Feedback from Full Body Interaction Brainstorm
Sean, How can we extend the interaction beyond just waving around? (Put people in a setting, direct them towards different parts of each others bodies etc.)
How will Natal effect peoples perception of this area? Will people come to expect full body interactions in the future?
Great tool for teaching choreographing - circus arts - why not design a tool where you can record the path of a dance and then have that played back with audio in the space for people to learn from.
Discussions about the difficulty of setting up something like this came up. Many people say they have desired a space for something like this but have been disappointed how little access students have to installing things in the new building.
Full body interaction that extends from our engagement with objects transcends the boundaries of where you setup your interaction - due to the clunky nature of current setups thats perhaps why we haven't seen this type of work outside of the museum.
Consider what objects, (Balls and cards) could be used by groups to influence virtual content in spaces..
Paired interfaces can also encourage whole body interaction - Someone mentioned a project by David Cranner that uses a secret handshake - and they think it is the best gestural interface they have seen so far.
What if you use this as a tool to increase peoples awareness of their bodies? In relationship to each other but also to individual parts of the body, the space. Elle noted that developing an awareness of the body gets you out of your head, and helps you understand others.
In this way, Pol said what if you make a system that explores the people rather than the people exploring the system?
Jing Ha said that he sees it as an interesting space to "extend the body" mentioning that babies first instinct is to incorporate something into their bodies - what if this space lets you control a larger digital space around you? (this is sort of what gspeak is but I think he means what if the interface just extended parts of your body out onto the floor or wall, as a part of yourself)
Then we talked about the "call effect" - someone mentioned a large puppet, sultans puppet that takes 150 people to control it. What happens when we are forced to require multiple people to do something. In this case a game makes the most sense - because the interaction is not open ended, like many of the "experiential" games that we have been prototyping.
Ryan mentioned that his group is setting up a space like this for exploring children who play with their whole bodies - and said that we should consider collaborating with them if we cannot find a space.
Sean, How can we extend the interaction beyond just waving around? (Put people in a setting, direct them towards different parts of each others bodies etc.)
How will Natal effect peoples perception of this area? Will people come to expect full body interactions in the future?
Great tool for teaching choreographing - circus arts - why not design a tool where you can record the path of a dance and then have that played back with audio in the space for people to learn from.
Discussions about the difficulty of setting up something like this came up. Many people say they have desired a space for something like this but have been disappointed how little access students have to installing things in the new building.
Full body interaction that extends from our engagement with objects transcends the boundaries of where you setup your interaction - due to the clunky nature of current setups thats perhaps why we haven't seen this type of work outside of the museum.
Consider what objects, (Balls and cards) could be used by groups to influence virtual content in spaces..
Paired interfaces can also encourage whole body interaction - Someone mentioned a project by David Cranner that uses a secret handshake - and they think it is the best gestural interface they have seen so far.
What if you use this as a tool to increase peoples awareness of their bodies? In relationship to each other but also to individual parts of the body, the space. Elle noted that developing an awareness of the body gets you out of your head, and helps you understand others.
In this way, Pol said what if you make a system that explores the people rather than the people exploring the system?
Jing Ha said that he sees it as an interesting space to "extend the body" mentioning that babies first instinct is to incorporate something into their bodies - what if this space lets you control a larger digital space around you? (this is sort of what gspeak is but I think he means what if the interface just extended parts of your body out onto the floor or wall, as a part of yourself)
Then we talked about the "call effect" - someone mentioned a large puppet, sultans puppet that takes 150 people to control it. What happens when we are forced to require multiple people to do something. In this case a game makes the most sense - because the interaction is not open ended, like many of the "experiential" games that we have been prototyping.
Ryan mentioned that his group is setting up a space like this for exploring children who play with their whole bodies - and said that we should consider collaborating with them if we cannot find a space.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Connection and Identity
Has anyone ever made a game for a therapist to use in therapy? As Sherry asks? Want to make a game? hmmmmmmm
The therapeutic exchange is a place where the imaginary becomes real.
Erik Erikson - adolescents concretely imagine a future, stressing the importance of visualization in this playful process.
Therapy is a transitional space where childhood development can occur - a creative play space for reenacting the self.
Joanies involvement with a made up character helps her sustain who she wants to be.
Keep the ego ideal realistic so that you do not become too self critical.. (further work)
Games become a ritual in which aggression feels codified and safe. (16 year old sweet/man)
Laurence has a diminished capacity to distinguish reality and fantasy. What gives children this capacity? Would making something in the physical work enrich the fantacy world? Is it a physical digital - or is the nature of fantasy projection of desire anywhere?
Last paragraph: Generalizations about the impact of gaming fall short because adolescents use gaming as a safe place to deal with the surges of desire they have and help organize their inner selves. But at the same time if they can be incited not to master their aggression, but to act upon it. How can we develop games that encourage mastery and development but not extreme fantasy?
Multi-User Dungeons:
MUDs are environments for construction and reconstruction of the self (in a post modern we reinvent ourselves, moving past the notion of progress to a more non linear thinking)
Virtual space as a Dungeon from dungeons and dragons.
What do you mean a "resolutely postmodern context"? (ask) Complex and overlapping perspectives portrayed?
MUD as a "second chance" - life, intentionality, itelligence (what the defnintions are)
-one can develop mastery in a MUD and then transfer that into life?
-Network can serve as an evocative object for thinking about community. Could serve as place to act out social ideas (like world of warcraft)
to remake the self in the game....
-MUD as a vehicle for "working through something" - peter and julie examples.
-Contrast escapism vs. a vehicle for working things out. A parrallel life to try things out...
virtual | (evocative) | real
Contrast of MUD as continuous, not just a weekend thing.
MUDs can be a projection of your inter fantasies, where one may find their voice only through another persona.
Qualities of the cam that contrast from real life:
1) Ongoing - play as much as you want
2) anonymous: be who you want to be
3) invisible: no one knows who you really are
4) be multiple characters
ego ideal - embodying aspects of the self you hate or fear in real life...
In this sense the game becomes a therapist - a safe place to deal with unresolved issues (instead of drinking or suicide)
Identity means one - interesting...
GENDER and COMMUNITY:
social and cultural issues revealed through the games:
gender - by being able to become anyone people learn what it is like to be each gender.
evocative objects to consider gender and community through role playing.
Real and the virtual - evocative spaces are spaces to play and think about the real world.
Robots vs People behind systems.
Build something, be someone - constructionist ethos...
In the end do we become what we play or do we use that play to work through our issues? Thats the big question.
----------
CyberPlaces:
Matthew hopes to derive something real from an imaginary contact - that is his "trick"
"you may be the same in the game but not in my head" - differentiation between the virtual and the real.
Thereputic process as emergent and provisional - one that constructs itself as it goes along - throw away the book
Blurs the notion of what is real and fantasy just as we do in therapy.
Cell phones:
Enabled her to connect with some part of thier relationship that they were unable to face in reality.
Texting as a way of filling spaces
Her cell phone was her talisman
Object holds some representation of who you were before - associations in the mind...
Ring tones of the old relationship
Sleeping with it near her.
New phone = new her... a new start in some ways..
The therapeutic exchange is a place where the imaginary becomes real.
Erik Erikson - adolescents concretely imagine a future, stressing the importance of visualization in this playful process.
Therapy is a transitional space where childhood development can occur - a creative play space for reenacting the self.
Joanies involvement with a made up character helps her sustain who she wants to be.
Keep the ego ideal realistic so that you do not become too self critical.. (further work)
Games become a ritual in which aggression feels codified and safe. (16 year old sweet/man)
Laurence has a diminished capacity to distinguish reality and fantasy. What gives children this capacity? Would making something in the physical work enrich the fantacy world? Is it a physical digital - or is the nature of fantasy projection of desire anywhere?
Last paragraph: Generalizations about the impact of gaming fall short because adolescents use gaming as a safe place to deal with the surges of desire they have and help organize their inner selves. But at the same time if they can be incited not to master their aggression, but to act upon it. How can we develop games that encourage mastery and development but not extreme fantasy?
Multi-User Dungeons:
MUDs are environments for construction and reconstruction of the self (in a post modern we reinvent ourselves, moving past the notion of progress to a more non linear thinking)
Virtual space as a Dungeon from dungeons and dragons.
What do you mean a "resolutely postmodern context"? (ask) Complex and overlapping perspectives portrayed?
MUD as a "second chance" - life, intentionality, itelligence (what the defnintions are)
-one can develop mastery in a MUD and then transfer that into life?
-Network can serve as an evocative object for thinking about community. Could serve as place to act out social ideas (like world of warcraft)
to remake the self in the game....
-MUD as a vehicle for "working through something" - peter and julie examples.
-Contrast escapism vs. a vehicle for working things out. A parrallel life to try things out...
virtual | (evocative) | real
Contrast of MUD as continuous, not just a weekend thing.
MUDs can be a projection of your inter fantasies, where one may find their voice only through another persona.
Qualities of the cam that contrast from real life:
1) Ongoing - play as much as you want
2) anonymous: be who you want to be
3) invisible: no one knows who you really are
4) be multiple characters
ego ideal - embodying aspects of the self you hate or fear in real life...
In this sense the game becomes a therapist - a safe place to deal with unresolved issues (instead of drinking or suicide)
Identity means one - interesting...
GENDER and COMMUNITY:
social and cultural issues revealed through the games:
gender - by being able to become anyone people learn what it is like to be each gender.
evocative objects to consider gender and community through role playing.
Real and the virtual - evocative spaces are spaces to play and think about the real world.
Robots vs People behind systems.
Build something, be someone - constructionist ethos...
In the end do we become what we play or do we use that play to work through our issues? Thats the big question.
----------
CyberPlaces:
Matthew hopes to derive something real from an imaginary contact - that is his "trick"
"you may be the same in the game but not in my head" - differentiation between the virtual and the real.
Thereputic process as emergent and provisional - one that constructs itself as it goes along - throw away the book
Blurs the notion of what is real and fantasy just as we do in therapy.
Cell phones:
Enabled her to connect with some part of thier relationship that they were unable to face in reality.
Texting as a way of filling spaces
Her cell phone was her talisman
Object holds some representation of who you were before - associations in the mind...
Ring tones of the old relationship
Sleeping with it near her.
New phone = new her... a new start in some ways..
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Technology and Rememberance
Joan Didion:
Freud contends that the difference between mourning and melancholia is that in the former all that has been lost has been lost from consciousness and there is a necessarily painful withdrawal from what has been lost, but in the latter, melancholia, it is not clear what has been lost because the identification has involved unconscious components. Whatever was taken in from the deceased was taken into the unconscious, and its loss provokes a loss of self-regard and a sense that it is the ego which is empty, not the external world.
Freud contends that the difference between mourning and melancholia is that in the former all that has been lost has been lost from consciousness and there is a necessarily painful withdrawal from what has been lost, but in the latter, melancholia, it is not clear what has been lost because the identification has involved unconscious components. Whatever was taken in from the deceased was taken into the unconscious, and its loss provokes a loss of self-regard and a sense that it is the ego which is empty, not the external world.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tranistional Objects
On Evocative Objects:
These reading reinforce the importance of projection - of playing as a child and developing a safe place to explore and develop skills for life in a place separate from the consequences of life. The imaginary is as important as the real for a child, play is their work.
From D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality, New York: Routledge, 1989, p. 51.
"To get to the idea of playing it is helpful to think of the preoccupation that characterizes the playing of a young child. The content does not matter. What matters is the near-withdrawal state, akin to the concentration of older children and adults. The playing child inhabits an area that cannot be easily left, not can it easily admit intrusions. This area of playing is not inner psychic reality. It is outside the individual but it is not the external world. Into this play area that child gathers objects or phenomena from external reality and uses these in the service of some sample derived from inner or personal reality. While hallucinating the child pits out a sample of dream potential and lives with this sample in a chosen setting of fragments from external reality. [Thus] in playing, the child manipulates external phenomena in the service of the dream and invests chosen external phenomena with dream meaning and feeling. [And] there is a direct development from transitional phenomena to playing, and from playing to shared playing, and from this to cultural experiences."
The bunny represents a safe place for development... and also for the adults in her life to project their own desires and expectations.
On the world book 1950's quiet military child:
"I have had many teachers, but the World Book was my first, the one that taught me how to learn. Today I help others through their own, similar transitions, from alienation to belonging in the world, from chaos to conversance."
The silver pin is about the process of airing frustrations and grievances with one's parents through reflection - in this case the silver pin tells a stories, evoking memories:
"In conclusion, a good relation to ourselves is a condition of love, tolerance, and wisdom towards others. This good relation to ourselves has, as I have endeavoured to show, developed in part from a friendly, loving and understanding attitude towards other people, namely those who meant much to us in the past, and our relationship to whom has become part of our minds and personalities. If we have become able, deep in our unconscious minds, to clear our feelings to some extent towards our parents of grievances, and have forgiven them for the frustrations we had to bear, then we can be at peace with ourselves and are able to love others in the true sense of the word."
We are able to love others when we have cleared things with our parents - because in turn that means we are clearing things with ourselves, and once we have done that it opens us to loving those who are now close to us. The notion of identity is linked to the developmental relationships of our youth - and coming to terms with those later helps us grow to love and eventually foster the development of others.
On Rites of Passage & Liminality:
Victor Witter Turner (May 28, 1920 – December 18, 1983) was a British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals and rites of passage. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often referred to as symbolic and interpretive anthropology.
In Forest of Symbols, Aspects of Ndembu Ritual - he noted that in liminality, the transitional state between two phases, individuals were "betwixt and between": they did not belong to the society that they previously were a part of and they were not yet reincorporated into that society. Liminality is a limbo, an ambiguous period characterized by humility, seclusion, tests, sexual ambiguity, and communitas. Communitas is defined as an unstructured community where all members are equal.
Turner gained notoriety by exploring Arnold van Gennep's threefold structure of rites of passage and expanding theories on the liminal phase. Van Gennep's structure consisted of a pre-liminal phase (separation), a liminal phase (transition), and a post-liminal phase (reincorporation).
It seems that a child does the same thing when playing - they are in a liminal stage of development where they are not quite in real life but also not part of previous life - it's a safe place to withdraw and learn from what you have been to what you will become, to learn about identity.
A liminal state is one between the folds, like the character in "Catch me if you Can" - who is a trickster - one who pretends to be in a role he is not - in truth not in one part of the social state or the other. It is only through opposition that his state is liminal. (because it is not part of the norm)
I am curious how Turkle relates Transitional objects - and transitional states like liminality - I think more broadly, she is pointing out that liminal states are evocative, because you can't define someone as one thing or another. And technology sometimes fits in this space, we don't yet know how it fits into our social identities...
Playing and Reality
Playing is in the liminal space between the inner world and the outer reality - it is outside the individual but not in the external world. It is the state of withdraw that occurs when a child plays that is important because it allows for them to reflect. Play is the time when a child learns to relate or have relationship - because the play in inviting another person into your internal world. A child takes their imagined phenomena and demonstrates it with various play objects. The child invests meaning in the objects of play....
Transitional objects lead to playing -- playing leads to collaboration (shared playing) or shared experiences -- and this leads to cultural experiences. (identification with a society) What makes play exiting is the precariousness between what is real and subjective - the blurred distinction between the two is exciting.
So a transitional object for a child is one that allows her to transition away from her mother to herself - to feel safe enough to transition through play from the mother to social engagement with others and the world - and identifying her body in relation to the world.
It is interesting that transitional objects exist in between the subjective and objective space - a liminal (or subliminal) space which is evocative because it is in between - and the precariousness of that is exciting.
If technology like a computer is exciting because it is a safe place to "play" to simulate the real - rather than be in the real, than that may explain the concern over the increased realm of the simulated being chosen over the real - computers are evocative objects because they have a certain amount of autonomy, they are extensions of our minds that portray the subjective mind in objective external ways.
These reading reinforce the importance of projection - of playing as a child and developing a safe place to explore and develop skills for life in a place separate from the consequences of life. The imaginary is as important as the real for a child, play is their work.
From D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality, New York: Routledge, 1989, p. 51.
"To get to the idea of playing it is helpful to think of the preoccupation that characterizes the playing of a young child. The content does not matter. What matters is the near-withdrawal state, akin to the concentration of older children and adults. The playing child inhabits an area that cannot be easily left, not can it easily admit intrusions. This area of playing is not inner psychic reality. It is outside the individual but it is not the external world. Into this play area that child gathers objects or phenomena from external reality and uses these in the service of some sample derived from inner or personal reality. While hallucinating the child pits out a sample of dream potential and lives with this sample in a chosen setting of fragments from external reality. [Thus] in playing, the child manipulates external phenomena in the service of the dream and invests chosen external phenomena with dream meaning and feeling. [And] there is a direct development from transitional phenomena to playing, and from playing to shared playing, and from this to cultural experiences."
The bunny represents a safe place for development... and also for the adults in her life to project their own desires and expectations.
On the world book 1950's quiet military child:
"I have had many teachers, but the World Book was my first, the one that taught me how to learn. Today I help others through their own, similar transitions, from alienation to belonging in the world, from chaos to conversance."
The silver pin is about the process of airing frustrations and grievances with one's parents through reflection - in this case the silver pin tells a stories, evoking memories:
"In conclusion, a good relation to ourselves is a condition of love, tolerance, and wisdom towards others. This good relation to ourselves has, as I have endeavoured to show, developed in part from a friendly, loving and understanding attitude towards other people, namely those who meant much to us in the past, and our relationship to whom has become part of our minds and personalities. If we have become able, deep in our unconscious minds, to clear our feelings to some extent towards our parents of grievances, and have forgiven them for the frustrations we had to bear, then we can be at peace with ourselves and are able to love others in the true sense of the word."
We are able to love others when we have cleared things with our parents - because in turn that means we are clearing things with ourselves, and once we have done that it opens us to loving those who are now close to us. The notion of identity is linked to the developmental relationships of our youth - and coming to terms with those later helps us grow to love and eventually foster the development of others.
On Rites of Passage & Liminality:
Victor Witter Turner (May 28, 1920 – December 18, 1983) was a British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals and rites of passage. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often referred to as symbolic and interpretive anthropology.
In Forest of Symbols, Aspects of Ndembu Ritual - he noted that in liminality, the transitional state between two phases, individuals were "betwixt and between": they did not belong to the society that they previously were a part of and they were not yet reincorporated into that society. Liminality is a limbo, an ambiguous period characterized by humility, seclusion, tests, sexual ambiguity, and communitas. Communitas is defined as an unstructured community where all members are equal.
Turner gained notoriety by exploring Arnold van Gennep's threefold structure of rites of passage and expanding theories on the liminal phase. Van Gennep's structure consisted of a pre-liminal phase (separation), a liminal phase (transition), and a post-liminal phase (reincorporation).
It seems that a child does the same thing when playing - they are in a liminal stage of development where they are not quite in real life but also not part of previous life - it's a safe place to withdraw and learn from what you have been to what you will become, to learn about identity.
A liminal state is one between the folds, like the character in "Catch me if you Can" - who is a trickster - one who pretends to be in a role he is not - in truth not in one part of the social state or the other. It is only through opposition that his state is liminal. (because it is not part of the norm)
I am curious how Turkle relates Transitional objects - and transitional states like liminality - I think more broadly, she is pointing out that liminal states are evocative, because you can't define someone as one thing or another. And technology sometimes fits in this space, we don't yet know how it fits into our social identities...
Playing and Reality
Playing is in the liminal space between the inner world and the outer reality - it is outside the individual but not in the external world. It is the state of withdraw that occurs when a child plays that is important because it allows for them to reflect. Play is the time when a child learns to relate or have relationship - because the play in inviting another person into your internal world. A child takes their imagined phenomena and demonstrates it with various play objects. The child invests meaning in the objects of play....
Transitional objects lead to playing -- playing leads to collaboration (shared playing) or shared experiences -- and this leads to cultural experiences. (identification with a society) What makes play exiting is the precariousness between what is real and subjective - the blurred distinction between the two is exciting.
So a transitional object for a child is one that allows her to transition away from her mother to herself - to feel safe enough to transition through play from the mother to social engagement with others and the world - and identifying her body in relation to the world.
It is interesting that transitional objects exist in between the subjective and objective space - a liminal (or subliminal) space which is evocative because it is in between - and the precariousness of that is exciting.
If technology like a computer is exciting because it is a safe place to "play" to simulate the real - rather than be in the real, than that may explain the concern over the increased realm of the simulated being chosen over the real - computers are evocative objects because they have a certain amount of autonomy, they are extensions of our minds that portray the subjective mind in objective external ways.
8 Stages of Development
In Class, Sherry mentioned how important Eric Erikson's Stages of development art to understand, so I took some time to review them and post them to the journal I'm keeping as a record of what we cover in class. Arline Harder of www.learningplaceonline.com summarized them in an accessible manner as seen below:
1. Infancy: Birth to 18 Months
Ego Development Outcome: Trust vs. Mistrust
Basic strength: Drive and Hope
Erikson also referred to infancy as the Oral Sensory Stage (as anyone might who watches a baby put everything in her mouth) where the major emphasis is on the mother's positive and loving care for the child, with a big emphasis on visual contact and touch. If we pass successfully through this period of life, we will learn to trust that life is basically okay and have basic confidence in the future. If we fail to experience trust and are constantly frustrated because our needs are not met, we may end up with a deep-seated feeling of worthlessness and a mistrust of the world in general.
Incidentally, many studies of suicides and suicide attempts point to the importance of the early years in developing the basic belief that the world is trustworthy and that every individual has a right to be here.
Not surprisingly, the most significant relationship is with the maternal parent, or whoever is our most significant and constant caregiver.
2. Early Childhood: 18 Months to 3 Years
Ego Development Outcome: Autonomy vs. Shame
Basic Strengths: Self-control, Courage, and Will
During this stage we learn to master skills for ourselves. Not only do we learn to walk, talk and feed ourselves, we are learning finer motor development as well as the much appreciated toilet training. Here we have the opportunity to build self-esteem and autonomy as we gain more control over our bodies and acquire new skills, learning right from wrong. And one of our skills during the "Terrible Two's" is our ability to use the powerful word "NO!" It may be pain for parents, but it develops important skills of the will.
It is also during this stage, however, that we can be very vulnerable. If we're shamed in the process of toilet training or in learning other important skills, we may feel great shame and doubt of our capabilities and suffer low self-esteem as a result.
The most significant relationships are with parents.
3. Play Age: 3 to 5 Years
Ego Development Outcome: Initiative vs. Guilt
Basic Strength: Purpose
During this period we experience a desire to copy the adults around us and take initiative in creating play situations. We make up stories with Barbie's and Ken's, toy phones and miniature cars, playing out roles in a trial universe, experimenting with the blueprint for what we believe it means to be an adult. We also begin to use that wonderful word for exploring the world—"WHY?"
While Erikson was influenced by Freud, he downplays biological sexuality in favor of the psychosocial features of conflict between child and parents. Nevertheless, he said that at this stage we usually become involved in the classic "Oedipal struggle" and resolve this struggle through "social role identification." If we're frustrated over natural desires and goals, we may easily experience guilt.
The most significant relationship is with the basic family.
4. School Age: 6 to 12 Years
Ego Development Outcome: Industry vs. Inferiority
Basic Strengths: Method and Competence
During this stage, often called the Latency, we are capable of learning, creating and accomplishing numerous new skills and knowledge, thus developing a sense of industry. This is also a very social stage of development and if we experience unresolved feelings of inadequacy and inferiority among our peers, we can have serious problems in terms of competence and self-esteem.
As the world expands a bit, our most significant relationship is with the school and neighborhood. Parents are no longer the complete authorities they once were, although they are still important.
5. Adolescence: 12 to 18 Years
Ego Development Outcome: Identity vs. Role Confusion
Basic Strengths: Devotion and Fidelity
Up to this stage, according to Erikson, development mostly depends upon what is done to us. From here on out, development depends primarily upon what we do. And while adolescence is a stage at which we are neither a child nor an adult, life is definitely getting more complex as we attempt to find our own identity, struggle with social interactions, and grapple with moral issues.
Our task is to discover who we are as individuals separate from our family of origin and as members of a wider society. Unfortunately for those around us, in this process many of us go into a period of withdrawing from responsibilities, which Erikson called a "moratorium." And if we are unsuccessful in navigating this stage, we will experience role confusion and upheaval.
A significant task for us is to establish a philosophy of life and in this process we tend to think in terms of ideals, which are conflict free, rather than reality, which is not. The problem is that we don't have much experience and find it easy to substitute ideals for experience. However, we can also develop strong devotion to friends and causes.
It is no surprise that our most significant relationships are with peer groups.
6. Young adulthood: 18 to 35
Ego Development Outcome: Intimacy and Solidarity vs. Isolation
Basic Strengths: Affiliation and Love
In the initial stage of being an adult we seek one or more companions and love. As we try to find mutually satisfying relationships, primarily through marriage and friends, we generally also begin to start a family, though this age has been pushed back for many couples who today don't start their families until their late thirties. If negotiating this stage is successful, we can experience intimacy on a deep level.
If we're not successful, isolation and distance from others may occur. And when we don't find it easy to create satisfying relationships, our world can begin to shrink as, in defense, we can feel superior to others.
Our significant relationships are with marital partners and friends.
7. Middle Adulthood: 35 to 55 or 65
Ego Development Outcome: Generativity vs. Self absorption or Stagnation
Basic Strengths: Production and Care
Now work is most crucial. Erikson observed that middle-age is when we tend to be occupied with creative and meaningful work and with issues surrounding our family. Also, middle adulthood is when we can expect to "be in charge," the role we've longer envied.
The significant task is to perpetuate culture and transmit values of the culture through the family (taming the kids) and working to establish a stable environment. Strength comes through care of others and production of something that contributes to the betterment of society, which Erikson calls generativity, so when we're in this stage we often fear inactivity and meaninglessness.
As our children leave home, or our relationships or goals change, we may be faced with major life changes—the mid-life crisis—and struggle with finding new meanings and purposes. If we don't get through this stage successfully, we can become self-absorbed and stagnate.
Significant relationships are within the workplace, the community and the family.
8. Late Adulthood: 55 or 65 to Death
Ego Development Outcome: Integrity vs. Despair
Basic Strengths: Wisdom
Erikson felt that much of life is preparing for the middle adulthood stage and the last stage is recovering from it. Perhaps that is because as older adults we can often look back on our lives with happiness and are content, feeling fulfilled with a deep sense that life has meaning and we've made a contribution to life, a feeling Erikson calls integrity. Our strengt h comes from a wisdom that the world is very large and we now have a detached concern for the whole of life, accepting death as the completion of life.
On the other hand, some adults may reach this stage and despair at their experiences and perceived failures. They may fear death as they struggle to find a purpose to their lives, wondering "Was the trip worth it?" Alternatively, they may feel they have all the answers (not unlike going back to adolescence) and end with a strong dogmatism that only their view has been correct.
The significant relationship is with all of mankind—"my-kind."
Monday, February 22, 2010
Genetic Epistemology
Piaget (foundational swiss psychologist) provides concise insight into his theory of cognitive development and knowledge which are together called "genetic epistemology" - a study of the origin of knowledge that takes into account it's psychological and developmental roots.
This is a non-traditional (not a Logical Positivist) view of epistemology that takes into account not only the figurative and logical definitions of knowledge or logic stemming from language - but logic coming from that which is innate, our actions and experience during development.
The notion of scientific thought as a "living tissue" - just as our minds are in a continual process of renewal or "continual tranformation and reorganization" - is essential to understanding the nature of scientific knowledge. How do we achieve "higher levels of thought" - as he puts it - concepts and powerful ideas that can transform our knowledge of the world?
Many things which could be described as a "primitive intuition" he would investigate and reveal as intellectual constructions that occur during our development. He proposes doing this through looking at the psychological research - not through private speculation on the part of the philosopher.
Chomsky asserts that language is based on and derived from logic - reason stemming from innate development.. Logical Positivists state the opposite: logic extends from language.
Piaget points out that there are multiple logics during innate development - many ways of knowing, limits to formalization. There is a necessity for considering thought itself as well as considering axiomatized logical systems - since it is from thought that the logical systems develop. Knowledge is not purely formal - it is also experiential..
This seems obvious to me from an intuitive point of view - perhaps this is why Piaget wrote a novel in his 20's that set forth many of his claims before he formally pursued them. The problem with using language to study language is that logic is detached from experience - this might translate to a general trend in academics that pushes many people away - the formalization of knowledge, and symbolization without taking into account human development.
Genetic Epistomology deals with both the formation and the meaning of knowledge. The nature of transitions from lower to higher and more useful ways of knowing is the fundamental question. These transitions are historical and psychological in nature.
There is a parallelism between the progress made in the logical and rational organization of knowledge and the corresponding formative psychological processes. (rational and formative work together in feedback cycles, the events and structure so to speak)
Distinguishing between the figurative and the operative aspects of thinking will help us to understand how you study development. Figurative: imitation, perception, mental imagery... Operative deals with the transition from one state to another -- Human knowledge is essentially active - a process.
Knowing an object does not mean copying it - it means acting upon it. It means constructing systems of transformation that can be carried out on or with the object.. (easy to see how papert was influenced by this)
Knowledge then is a system of transformations, that become progressively adequate. Rather than knowledge being derived from objects --- it is derived from the action upon the objects. This is the basis of logical and mathematical abstraction.
This is illustrated through the story about how a young child realized a mathematical concept - commutativity - the sum is independent of the order. He was able to abstract the number of pebbles - but upon reflection or "reflective abstraction" - the transformation from one hierarchical level to another - and in this a reorganization occurs.. An Epiphany - a new mental accommodation or understanding.
This moment of realization is what Eleanor Duckworth might refer to as the "having of a wonderful idea" - the pleasurable aquiring of knowledge. It is in the coordination of actions that the knowledge is acquired, The experimentation with materials - the acquiring of scientific knowledge.
In sum, Piaget, Papert and Turkle make a strong argument for the use of materials and objects and the points of entry to knowledge and understanding of the world - leveraging the moment of knowing that comes through discovery...
This is a non-traditional (not a Logical Positivist) view of epistemology that takes into account not only the figurative and logical definitions of knowledge or logic stemming from language - but logic coming from that which is innate, our actions and experience during development.
The notion of scientific thought as a "living tissue" - just as our minds are in a continual process of renewal or "continual tranformation and reorganization" - is essential to understanding the nature of scientific knowledge. How do we achieve "higher levels of thought" - as he puts it - concepts and powerful ideas that can transform our knowledge of the world?
Many things which could be described as a "primitive intuition" he would investigate and reveal as intellectual constructions that occur during our development. He proposes doing this through looking at the psychological research - not through private speculation on the part of the philosopher.
Chomsky asserts that language is based on and derived from logic - reason stemming from innate development.. Logical Positivists state the opposite: logic extends from language.
Piaget points out that there are multiple logics during innate development - many ways of knowing, limits to formalization. There is a necessity for considering thought itself as well as considering axiomatized logical systems - since it is from thought that the logical systems develop. Knowledge is not purely formal - it is also experiential..
This seems obvious to me from an intuitive point of view - perhaps this is why Piaget wrote a novel in his 20's that set forth many of his claims before he formally pursued them. The problem with using language to study language is that logic is detached from experience - this might translate to a general trend in academics that pushes many people away - the formalization of knowledge, and symbolization without taking into account human development.
Genetic Epistomology deals with both the formation and the meaning of knowledge. The nature of transitions from lower to higher and more useful ways of knowing is the fundamental question. These transitions are historical and psychological in nature.
There is a parallelism between the progress made in the logical and rational organization of knowledge and the corresponding formative psychological processes. (rational and formative work together in feedback cycles, the events and structure so to speak)
Distinguishing between the figurative and the operative aspects of thinking will help us to understand how you study development. Figurative: imitation, perception, mental imagery... Operative deals with the transition from one state to another -- Human knowledge is essentially active - a process.
Knowing an object does not mean copying it - it means acting upon it. It means constructing systems of transformation that can be carried out on or with the object.. (easy to see how papert was influenced by this)
Knowledge then is a system of transformations, that become progressively adequate. Rather than knowledge being derived from objects --- it is derived from the action upon the objects. This is the basis of logical and mathematical abstraction.
This is illustrated through the story about how a young child realized a mathematical concept - commutativity - the sum is independent of the order. He was able to abstract the number of pebbles - but upon reflection or "reflective abstraction" - the transformation from one hierarchical level to another - and in this a reorganization occurs.. An Epiphany - a new mental accommodation or understanding.
This moment of realization is what Eleanor Duckworth might refer to as the "having of a wonderful idea" - the pleasurable aquiring of knowledge. It is in the coordination of actions that the knowledge is acquired, The experimentation with materials - the acquiring of scientific knowledge.
In sum, Piaget, Papert and Turkle make a strong argument for the use of materials and objects and the points of entry to knowledge and understanding of the world - leveraging the moment of knowing that comes through discovery...
Science of the Concrete
Raw Nature vs The Categorization of Nature:
In the Science of the Concrete, Strauss points out that the intimate knowledge the primitives have of their environments does not just extend from that which is connected to survival - they develop intimate understanding of the world around them through experiential engagement. Levi-Strauss cites example after example of idiosyncratically complex taxonomic schemes devised by “primitive” cultures around the world.
“[A]nimals and plants are not known as a result of their usefulness; they are deemed to be useful or interesting because they are first of all known. It may be objected that science of this kind can scarcely be of much practical effect. The answer to this is that its main purpose is not a practical one. It meets intellectual requirements rather than or instead of satisfying needs.”
If we define a genuinely scientific attitude as a desire for knowledge for it's own sake, there are countless examples of observations and experiments in primitive cultures which lead to cultivated plants, pottery, fuels, poison - these must be careful and almost science like discoveries.
He uses the example of the craftsman (bricoleur) and the Engineer (one who relies on the ideas behind the matarial). The Bricoleur approximates "the savage mind" and the Engineer approximates the scientific mind. The craftsman uses the tools at hand and develops an intimate vocabulary around those tools - putting preexisting things together in new ways. The engineer creates new tools and meanings, by considering a set of theoretical understanding or principles which one might call science.
But the engineer demonstrates the principles - or understands them through engagement with the material. And the engineer works within the constraints of his principles (the history of his ideas)
Mythological thought is a type of intellectual bricolage - it expresses itself as adaptations of speculative observation that made sense to preserve as stories. They are principles of reflection that in action have very practical use. Mythology takes the debris of social discourse and constructs ideological castles based on the remains of events - building structures up by fitting together events. It orders and re-orders the events to find meaning in them..
Science creates it's results and principles in the form of events - by fitting those events into hypothesis and theories. So in a sense the practice of both is similar:
Scientists create events (change the world) by means of structures - and bricoleurs (myth-makers) create structures by means of events.
Sherry Turkle's work relates to this in that:
We start with ideas instead of materials - therefore reinforcing our ideas in how we tell our ideas. But if we start with materials we can be myth-makers - we can discover the "magic" and mystery in the world around us, and then allow the structures of science to help us correlate our myths... the cycle between mythmaker and scientist - is the creative practice of the artist - he says:
"Art lies half-way between scientific knowledge and mythological or magical thought. The artist constructs a material object that is also one of knowledge. Thus one might infer that an artist must find inspiration in the material world, and the world of ideas - cycling back and forth between a world of language, and that of phenomenological experience.
He argues that the same force demanding order is what motivates the primitive and the scientific minds - and they are not so radically different from each other. Myth and magic postulate an all-embracing "determinism" - whereas science is based on a distinction between levels -- so in a sense what is his saying is that magical rites and beliefs could be seen as acts of faith in science yet to be born!
Games and Rites (Rituals) are compared at the end of the article to help deepen his point about the blurred distinction between knowing by the concrete and knowing through structure. Games propose a structure and produce events as a result of that structure, like science. This may explain their popularity in capitalist society. Rituals and myths construct and reconstruct events (on many planes) and use them to create structural patterns which serve alternative means (such as mourning, or joining together a group, or inspiring desire) - which may in the end be the fuel which brings one to the sciences.
In the Science of the Concrete, Strauss points out that the intimate knowledge the primitives have of their environments does not just extend from that which is connected to survival - they develop intimate understanding of the world around them through experiential engagement. Levi-Strauss cites example after example of idiosyncratically complex taxonomic schemes devised by “primitive” cultures around the world.
“[A]nimals and plants are not known as a result of their usefulness; they are deemed to be useful or interesting because they are first of all known. It may be objected that science of this kind can scarcely be of much practical effect. The answer to this is that its main purpose is not a practical one. It meets intellectual requirements rather than or instead of satisfying needs.”
If we define a genuinely scientific attitude as a desire for knowledge for it's own sake, there are countless examples of observations and experiments in primitive cultures which lead to cultivated plants, pottery, fuels, poison - these must be careful and almost science like discoveries.
He uses the example of the craftsman (bricoleur) and the Engineer (one who relies on the ideas behind the matarial). The Bricoleur approximates "the savage mind" and the Engineer approximates the scientific mind. The craftsman uses the tools at hand and develops an intimate vocabulary around those tools - putting preexisting things together in new ways. The engineer creates new tools and meanings, by considering a set of theoretical understanding or principles which one might call science.
But the engineer demonstrates the principles - or understands them through engagement with the material. And the engineer works within the constraints of his principles (the history of his ideas)
Mythological thought is a type of intellectual bricolage - it expresses itself as adaptations of speculative observation that made sense to preserve as stories. They are principles of reflection that in action have very practical use. Mythology takes the debris of social discourse and constructs ideological castles based on the remains of events - building structures up by fitting together events. It orders and re-orders the events to find meaning in them..
Science creates it's results and principles in the form of events - by fitting those events into hypothesis and theories. So in a sense the practice of both is similar:
Scientists create events (change the world) by means of structures - and bricoleurs (myth-makers) create structures by means of events.
Sherry Turkle's work relates to this in that:
We start with ideas instead of materials - therefore reinforcing our ideas in how we tell our ideas. But if we start with materials we can be myth-makers - we can discover the "magic" and mystery in the world around us, and then allow the structures of science to help us correlate our myths... the cycle between mythmaker and scientist - is the creative practice of the artist - he says:
"Art lies half-way between scientific knowledge and mythological or magical thought. The artist constructs a material object that is also one of knowledge. Thus one might infer that an artist must find inspiration in the material world, and the world of ideas - cycling back and forth between a world of language, and that of phenomenological experience.
He argues that the same force demanding order is what motivates the primitive and the scientific minds - and they are not so radically different from each other. Myth and magic postulate an all-embracing "determinism" - whereas science is based on a distinction between levels -- so in a sense what is his saying is that magical rites and beliefs could be seen as acts of faith in science yet to be born!
Games and Rites (Rituals) are compared at the end of the article to help deepen his point about the blurred distinction between knowing by the concrete and knowing through structure. Games propose a structure and produce events as a result of that structure, like science. This may explain their popularity in capitalist society. Rituals and myths construct and reconstruct events (on many planes) and use them to create structural patterns which serve alternative means (such as mourning, or joining together a group, or inspiring desire) - which may in the end be the fuel which brings one to the sciences.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Objects Embody Ideas
Falling in love with Science:
Imagination is sparked by Objects. They are the gateways to knowledge and deep understanding.. we fall in love with them and this passion drives our pursuit of science.
One problem this work of memoir addresses:
-We are entering a time of crisis in the sciences and mathematics - with a decline in American students being invested in the Sciences.. Why?
(Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat")
Thomas Friedman believes that to fight the quiet crisis of a flattening world, the United States work force should keep updating its work skills. Making the work force more adaptable, Friedman argues, will keep it more employable. He also suggests that the government should make it easier to switch jobs by making retirement benefits and health insurance less dependent on one's employer and by providing insurance that would partly cover a possible drop in income when changing jobs. Friedman also believes there should be more inspiration for youth to be scientists, engineers, and mathematicians due to a decrease in the percentage of these professionals being American.
Is this really a quiet crisis? I think this represents an opportunity for less privileged sectors of the workforce around the world to participate in knowledge creation and management. It just means that the playing field is leveling.
--
"One reason we don't pay enough attention to our things is that we are distracted by our digital dreams" - another is a stigma against talking about passions in science.
Things reveal the mystery of the inner workings of the world - this is what we mean by transparency... knowing how something works.
The 90's saw a movement away from this - new opacity cast as transparency: you can make something work without knowing how it works.
Eventually this can translate into trying to understand how the human mind - and body work - understanding the self as we do the external objects that embody ideas.
Programming gives us a metaphorical understanding of the mechanism behind the magic.
Objects are the paths into scientific creativity - we realize something about the self and something about science - to realize is to understand, to understand is to build. (it's like Mitch's wheel: The creative thinking spiral: Imagine - Create - Play - Share - Reflect..... This comes from a basis in having a fascination with how things work and a lover for the beauty of design.
Today children grow up in many worlds: Digital (virtual), the physical (analogue), and nature. Do we differentiate between them or are they blended into each other. To me they all work together, one weaves into the other, but this has only come after many years of being fascinated with all three.
Objects give us a "experiential" understanding - a feel for how things go together... Children build their theories based on the objects the meet in the world.
In Paperts Constructivist Model - Children make their minds through actual building. The ideas extend from an experiential engagement with the material objects.
Mastering a Microworld is comforting (psychologically). It's a world where you have some control unlike more uncertain real world challenges.
And our intimacy with objects allows us to forget ourselves - we become larger in our focus and this is pleasurable.
Our connection with objects is somewhat transitional - they are a part of ourselves - Sherry claims that later in life those moments when we feel at one with the universe draw their power from our earlier experiences with transitional objects..
I am skeptical - in some ways it does - but in many ways its about transcending the self through seeing the self as small - in the presence of the sublime, or something much larger than the self - rather than extending the notion of self or projecting the self into the objects.
body syntonic learning - is where one thinks through physical exploration of the materials. (she discovers that suppleness is the precursor to what is ultimate most secure (structurally).
Worlds of objects are worlds of mystery and control unlike worlds of people - which are unpredictable. In these worlds failing, or debugging can be viewed as a positive activity.
Lego: serious play. we become designers.
Analogue and Digital: Natural and Simulated -- with digital objects one is freed to build strait from the mind but the mechanics behind it are opaque, the ideas behind the object are traded for flexibility and freedom, but it's a "simulated" kind of freedom.
We learn through bodily understanding (Logo and the Turtle example) Kindergarden allows this through play.. experimentation...
Star Logo - demonstrates that through a decentralized process, structure emerges - teaching fundamental principles about evolutionary theory and how the world works.
Digital Worlds make everything possible, but constrain "experience" - a trade off apparent in most science classes where virtual science is employed. Things are made to work out!
In a program there is a certain craving for the unpredictable, once you figure out the program you lose interest - unless somehow there is person on the other end, responding to your behaviors (AI example from ARS)
Kay indicates that we learn from both physical and digital worlds - but we should not loose track of those things in the physical world that are worth fighting for... (What are these? The objects and the body right? The action of engaging with the tactility of the objects)
Sherry argues that we need to fall in love with science through objects - and accept those passions to revitalize science. This also involves embodying the simulated in the physical - and making technology more transparent - right?
Objects are points of entry into larger transformative experiences of understanding, sociality, confidence - when they are shared...
Conclusion: through scientific memoir, we can revitalize science education - we will understand that scientists are made through falling in love with how something works.... or how understanding it expands their view of what is possible.
---
Imagination is sparked by Objects. They are the gateways to knowledge and deep understanding.. we fall in love with them and this passion drives our pursuit of science.
One problem this work of memoir addresses:
-We are entering a time of crisis in the sciences and mathematics - with a decline in American students being invested in the Sciences.. Why?
(Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat")
Thomas Friedman believes that to fight the quiet crisis of a flattening world, the United States work force should keep updating its work skills. Making the work force more adaptable, Friedman argues, will keep it more employable. He also suggests that the government should make it easier to switch jobs by making retirement benefits and health insurance less dependent on one's employer and by providing insurance that would partly cover a possible drop in income when changing jobs. Friedman also believes there should be more inspiration for youth to be scientists, engineers, and mathematicians due to a decrease in the percentage of these professionals being American.
Is this really a quiet crisis? I think this represents an opportunity for less privileged sectors of the workforce around the world to participate in knowledge creation and management. It just means that the playing field is leveling.
--
"One reason we don't pay enough attention to our things is that we are distracted by our digital dreams" - another is a stigma against talking about passions in science.
Things reveal the mystery of the inner workings of the world - this is what we mean by transparency... knowing how something works.
The 90's saw a movement away from this - new opacity cast as transparency: you can make something work without knowing how it works.
Eventually this can translate into trying to understand how the human mind - and body work - understanding the self as we do the external objects that embody ideas.
Programming gives us a metaphorical understanding of the mechanism behind the magic.
Objects are the paths into scientific creativity - we realize something about the self and something about science - to realize is to understand, to understand is to build. (it's like Mitch's wheel: The creative thinking spiral: Imagine - Create - Play - Share - Reflect..... This comes from a basis in having a fascination with how things work and a lover for the beauty of design.
Today children grow up in many worlds: Digital (virtual), the physical (analogue), and nature. Do we differentiate between them or are they blended into each other. To me they all work together, one weaves into the other, but this has only come after many years of being fascinated with all three.
Objects give us a "experiential" understanding - a feel for how things go together... Children build their theories based on the objects the meet in the world.
In Paperts Constructivist Model - Children make their minds through actual building. The ideas extend from an experiential engagement with the material objects.
Mastering a Microworld is comforting (psychologically). It's a world where you have some control unlike more uncertain real world challenges.
And our intimacy with objects allows us to forget ourselves - we become larger in our focus and this is pleasurable.
Our connection with objects is somewhat transitional - they are a part of ourselves - Sherry claims that later in life those moments when we feel at one with the universe draw their power from our earlier experiences with transitional objects..
I am skeptical - in some ways it does - but in many ways its about transcending the self through seeing the self as small - in the presence of the sublime, or something much larger than the self - rather than extending the notion of self or projecting the self into the objects.
body syntonic learning - is where one thinks through physical exploration of the materials. (she discovers that suppleness is the precursor to what is ultimate most secure (structurally).
Worlds of objects are worlds of mystery and control unlike worlds of people - which are unpredictable. In these worlds failing, or debugging can be viewed as a positive activity.
Lego: serious play. we become designers.
Analogue and Digital: Natural and Simulated -- with digital objects one is freed to build strait from the mind but the mechanics behind it are opaque, the ideas behind the object are traded for flexibility and freedom, but it's a "simulated" kind of freedom.
We learn through bodily understanding (Logo and the Turtle example) Kindergarden allows this through play.. experimentation...
Star Logo - demonstrates that through a decentralized process, structure emerges - teaching fundamental principles about evolutionary theory and how the world works.
Digital Worlds make everything possible, but constrain "experience" - a trade off apparent in most science classes where virtual science is employed. Things are made to work out!
In a program there is a certain craving for the unpredictable, once you figure out the program you lose interest - unless somehow there is person on the other end, responding to your behaviors (AI example from ARS)
Kay indicates that we learn from both physical and digital worlds - but we should not loose track of those things in the physical world that are worth fighting for... (What are these? The objects and the body right? The action of engaging with the tactility of the objects)
Sherry argues that we need to fall in love with science through objects - and accept those passions to revitalize science. This also involves embodying the simulated in the physical - and making technology more transparent - right?
Objects are points of entry into larger transformative experiences of understanding, sociality, confidence - when they are shared...
Conclusion: through scientific memoir, we can revitalize science education - we will understand that scientists are made through falling in love with how something works.... or how understanding it expands their view of what is possible.
---
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Inner History of Devices
Intimate Ethnography is the practice of actively listening to peoples stories and creating a safe place for their stories to emerge so the full subtleties can be examined.
Through memoir, Turkle explains, we learn about our own inner lives, and how to find the general in the particular. Technology serves as a Rorschach over a lifetime, a projective screen for our changing and emotionally charged commitments.
What is it about modern community that has so taxed us, that we sometimes reconstitute it through machines? And is that really satisfying?
It makes me think back to a conversation I had with my brother over Christmas. He has always been a hacker of sorts - figuring out things on the computer and living in a virtual space alone in physical proximity - but full virtual people exactly in his predicament. He pointed me to the Hackers Manifesto:
I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I'm a smart ass.. Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...
And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...
This text was a revelation for him. This is a place where he also felt competent and valued - even if in a superficial way. Here is a constructed world, where at least he can exhibit control and see visual confirmation of his value.
I'm not sure if there is a direct correlation between vicarious living in movies, film, literature, computer games, or even the imaginary worlds constructed by children in play. They all involve substituting direct experience for vicarious - and then somehow learning about ourselves through indirectly relating to aspects of ourselves in constructed narrative spaces. All this probably sounds a bit too academic, but it's starting to bring together a portrait of modernity where the myths we create are more dynamic and we actually engage in their creation and interpretation.
In the Second Self, Turkle tells the story of how she came into the practice of studying how people interact with computers and machines at MIT. Essentially machines are entering into our thinking about ourselves - we use unconscious language slips or phrases that have anthropomorphic connotations - without thinking about why.
As a programmer, I agree with some of this - but there is an aspect of this that Sherry has completely left out. Often, when working with a program on a computer, I think of the people who designed the software, and the intricate web of political ideas that enable that particular technology. If I am using a service I like to know who made it - and consider mistakes more of a design problem. As a designer, I see people behind everything I interact with and it feels more like a rich landscape to navigate than an extension of myself.
She also points out that many times what we construct on a computer often represents some aspect of our lives in which we feel we have failed, or is fostered better in the relative safety of a virtual representation. (many examples of computer programmers, even in 1984)
For many people I think this is accurate - a good interpretation - but often what we do on a computer is a means to an end, and the process of getting there is a battle with an entirely unflexible logic based system, with predictable agency. The more I get to know how a systems works the less I mythologize it - I see it a facilitator - or a vehicle for very human ideas and expressions - one that is particularly lacking when it comes to understanding human subtly.
A "thick description" (as verbosely described) by Geertz - might be characterized as understanding the subtlties of semantics - not sytax: differentiating the behavioral intentions and social motivations behind an action by intimate understanding and considering the context. A wink, twitch, or mock - are all understood differently - and a thick description parses the underlying ideas behind human behavior. It does this "I think" if I understand correctly - by making evident and available the answers that others have given in the context of their actions - in other words if we are doing memoir work - rather than extrapolating and bringing our own values into an ethnographic description we try to exercise a deep listening and translate that in an authentic and intricate manner.
One of the frustrating things for me is the "turtles all the way down" complexity of it all style of writing that obfuscates the overall intention of the ethnographer - which is to increase the understanding between cultures, and give us insight into our human nature. We are all human, and learning how to live together and make decisions that cultural gaps is a big part of the battle.
Mumford speaks of a "machine-tool" like a lathe - where the line between man and machine, at least when categorizing is weak. A musician and his instrument, and programmer and his computer - the language by which we structure the instruction set - are all intertwined.
The notions of time, the magician - and a mechanized view of time becoming part of our consciousness is really interesting. It is true that the things we make change who we are - I deeply believe that - and can see that that is the first step to understanding this line of inquiry. If what we make changes who we are then the designer has a deep responsibility to consider the implications of what the release into the world - and what that design might mean to the person who incorporates it into their life.
From Wikipedia for reference:
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called the "father of modern anthropology".
He argued that the "savage mind" had the same structures as the "civilized" mind and that human characteristics are the same everywhere. These observations culminated in his famous book Tristes Tropiques, which positioned him as one of the central figures in the structuralist school of thought, where his ideas reached into fields including the humanities and philosophy. Structuralism has been defined as "the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity."
Through memoir, Turkle explains, we learn about our own inner lives, and how to find the general in the particular. Technology serves as a Rorschach over a lifetime, a projective screen for our changing and emotionally charged commitments.
What is it about modern community that has so taxed us, that we sometimes reconstitute it through machines? And is that really satisfying?
It makes me think back to a conversation I had with my brother over Christmas. He has always been a hacker of sorts - figuring out things on the computer and living in a virtual space alone in physical proximity - but full virtual people exactly in his predicament. He pointed me to the Hackers Manifesto:
I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I'm a smart ass.. Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...
And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...
This text was a revelation for him. This is a place where he also felt competent and valued - even if in a superficial way. Here is a constructed world, where at least he can exhibit control and see visual confirmation of his value.
I'm not sure if there is a direct correlation between vicarious living in movies, film, literature, computer games, or even the imaginary worlds constructed by children in play. They all involve substituting direct experience for vicarious - and then somehow learning about ourselves through indirectly relating to aspects of ourselves in constructed narrative spaces. All this probably sounds a bit too academic, but it's starting to bring together a portrait of modernity where the myths we create are more dynamic and we actually engage in their creation and interpretation.
In the Second Self, Turkle tells the story of how she came into the practice of studying how people interact with computers and machines at MIT. Essentially machines are entering into our thinking about ourselves - we use unconscious language slips or phrases that have anthropomorphic connotations - without thinking about why.
As a programmer, I agree with some of this - but there is an aspect of this that Sherry has completely left out. Often, when working with a program on a computer, I think of the people who designed the software, and the intricate web of political ideas that enable that particular technology. If I am using a service I like to know who made it - and consider mistakes more of a design problem. As a designer, I see people behind everything I interact with and it feels more like a rich landscape to navigate than an extension of myself.
She also points out that many times what we construct on a computer often represents some aspect of our lives in which we feel we have failed, or is fostered better in the relative safety of a virtual representation. (many examples of computer programmers, even in 1984)
For many people I think this is accurate - a good interpretation - but often what we do on a computer is a means to an end, and the process of getting there is a battle with an entirely unflexible logic based system, with predictable agency. The more I get to know how a systems works the less I mythologize it - I see it a facilitator - or a vehicle for very human ideas and expressions - one that is particularly lacking when it comes to understanding human subtly.
A "thick description" (as verbosely described) by Geertz - might be characterized as understanding the subtlties of semantics - not sytax: differentiating the behavioral intentions and social motivations behind an action by intimate understanding and considering the context. A wink, twitch, or mock - are all understood differently - and a thick description parses the underlying ideas behind human behavior. It does this "I think" if I understand correctly - by making evident and available the answers that others have given in the context of their actions - in other words if we are doing memoir work - rather than extrapolating and bringing our own values into an ethnographic description we try to exercise a deep listening and translate that in an authentic and intricate manner.
One of the frustrating things for me is the "turtles all the way down" complexity of it all style of writing that obfuscates the overall intention of the ethnographer - which is to increase the understanding between cultures, and give us insight into our human nature. We are all human, and learning how to live together and make decisions that cultural gaps is a big part of the battle.
Mumford speaks of a "machine-tool" like a lathe - where the line between man and machine, at least when categorizing is weak. A musician and his instrument, and programmer and his computer - the language by which we structure the instruction set - are all intertwined.
The notions of time, the magician - and a mechanized view of time becoming part of our consciousness is really interesting. It is true that the things we make change who we are - I deeply believe that - and can see that that is the first step to understanding this line of inquiry. If what we make changes who we are then the designer has a deep responsibility to consider the implications of what the release into the world - and what that design might mean to the person who incorporates it into their life.
From Wikipedia for reference:
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called the "father of modern anthropology".
He argued that the "savage mind" had the same structures as the "civilized" mind and that human characteristics are the same everywhere. These observations culminated in his famous book Tristes Tropiques, which positioned him as one of the central figures in the structuralist school of thought, where his ideas reached into fields including the humanities and philosophy. Structuralism has been defined as "the search for the underlying patterns of thought in all forms of human activity."
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