Re: [xmca] Don C about the "epic" googlization film - a bit of mca history

I like the way your perspective defines the goals of education, Michael, and
the notion of expertise it draws upon. Lots to think about there.
mike

On 6/28/07, Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:
>
> Hi Mike,one of the problems we have both in the social sciences and in our
> personal lives---not all of us---is recognizing what is at stake. I view it
> as LIFE, and individual lives are the means by which life reproduces itself.
> There is no ulterior reason for individual life other than to make life and
> society survive. Harold Garfinkel talks about "immortal society," which
> contrasts our own mortality. Individually we realize possibilities that
> exist at a collective, cultural level.
> Now when you think activities from the perspective of society, or rather,
> the dialectic of individual and collective, we no longer have to wonder
> about expertise in individuals but at expertise at the collective level,
> where it doesn't matter whether it is in this or that person, this or that
> individual. LIFE and society don't care, as long as the activity reproduces
> them.
>
> That's why I am not concerned with where expertise resides, and therefore
> I argued, among others, for education to allow people not special expertise
> but to be able to participate in meetings that mobilize collectively
> available expertise (e.g., in a problem of water supply for individual
> homes, we draw on expertise of scientists, engineers, philosophers,
> politicians and the like, who need to be able to talk across the differences
> in their root Discourses).
>
> Cheers,
>
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> On 28-Jun-07, at 7:31 AM, Mike Cole wrote:
>
> Steve-- I believe the Googlezon film is a useful tool for thinking about
> the issue of changes in agency
> and ontology associated with massive parallel computing systems that are
> the media for our knowledge
> of thought and the world. It also overlaps the theme of data mining for
> inter-cultural business advertising
> and decision making Naeem introduced. Sure, there is a lot of hype, which
> includes the hype over how
> flat the world is, but Friedman is pointing at a real phenomenon, or part
> of one.
>
> Michael. I am all for organizing activity that leads to expansive
> learning. But, again, going to the opposite
> extreme and saying that deep knowledge and skill in a domain is simply a
> mode of hierarchy/power creation
> is, in my view, not helpful. Two really friendly and cooperative peers who
> have no experience gardening (to pick
> a domain where I readily concede my dufferhood, yet try to contribute as
> best I can, while not hesitating to
> stop in at my garden store to figure out why and how I killed two fig
> trees in two years) might starve because
> they cannot expand quickly enough. By the same token. western experts who
> went into Liberia to "teach the
> farmers" how to grow rice more efficiently were, for the reasons that
> bother Michael and Louise. responsible
> for widespread misery, starvation, displacement of people from the land,
> etc. I am not valorizing expertise
> unconditionally. I do value highly taking advantage of the enormous
> heterogeneity of knowledge in a very
> heterogeneous and uncertain world. I still do not want my grand daughter
> piloting the next plane I ride in,
> even if her best friend is co pilot.
> mike
>
> Mi
>
> On 6/28/07, Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Mike,
> > perhaps we have to rethink the "more knowledgeable partner" and think
> > zpd as Yrjö suggested as a change in the activity system that leads
> > to expansive learning, and this may happen also in the case were
> > equally knowledgeable partners get together, or if a new tool is
> > introduced, different forms of division of labor are evolved, etc.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> >
> > On 27-Jun-07, at 7:41 PM, Mike Cole wrote:
> >
> > No one picked up on this and I should probably just drop it but the
> >
> > continued discussion on ZOPED prompts me to ask, could a computer
> >
> > algorithm be a "more knowledgeable" partner? Adaptive testing is another
> >
> > example of an artificial intelligence that tries to move people into a
> >
> > zone of maximum response. If the vision in EPIC 2015 were actualized,
> >
> > might not the algorithm be a sensei, showing us the way forward? I
> >
> > understand that the notion of _forward_ is problematic, but is that not
> >
> > also true of a human sensei......or any teacher? And why should the goal
> >
> > in a zoped be the ability to act independently? Most of the things in my
> >
> > life that have expanded my capabilities are things I have come to rely
> >
> > on and are now a part of me. I can't imagine how I ever wrote anything
> >
> > of value when I wrote in long hand, had a poor (now nearly blind thanks
> >
> > to me) secretary type it up, correct, edit, repeat, and so forth. Here I
> >
> >
> > link with Donna's contribution where she mentions natural born cyborgs.
> >
> > Can anyone doubt that within my lifetime (and I'm OLD) that things like
> >
> > MP3's and cell phones will be available as surgical implants?
> >
> >
> >
> > Mind you, this all scares the beejeezes out of me..........djc
> > _______________________________________________
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> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
>
>
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Received on Thu Jun 28 08:03 PDT 2007