Posts Tagged ‘context’

About Coding the Context

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

According to Bahktin a Code is a deliberately killed Context. In this Blog I try to Code the Context without Killing it.

The word Context is derived from the Latin word con-textere which means Weaving (Textere) together (Con). The word textere is connected to words like Text, Archi-tect (Carpenter), Tech-nology (Craftmanship), Tekhne (Art), Textile, Texture and Textura (Web, Structure).

A Context is Something that Surrounds Something Else, Puts Something on its Place or Relates Something to Something Else that has a stronger Foundation. Other words that are part of the same Family are Frame of Reference, Setting, Environment, Background, Situation, Ambience, Circumstances, Fabric and Framework.

We can Taste, Smell, Feel (the Texture of the Skin), Create (Weaving), Look (Structure) and Emerge in a Context (Become One). Tasting, Hearing, Feeling and Smelling are Context-Independent. When we Taste, Hear, Touch or Smell we are In The Context.

Our Eyes are the Senses that are Context-Dependent. A Context changes when we Move Away from the Context. A Context is highly dependent on our Frame of Reference, our Point of View. If we change our Focus the context becomes vague or changes into another context. If we look at the Right Distance with the Right Angle the context is clear. We have reached the state of Clarity.

When we Move UP a context becomes a Surface. Moving Up changes the Landscape. Many Contexts merge into a One. When we have lost track we have to climb to a point where we can have an Overview. If we leave the Landscape and use an airplane the Landscape changes into a Map.

When we need to have an Overview we have to find the Right Scale. The word Scale means climbing and when we climb we stay in the Landscape that contains the Context we want to Observe.

When we look at a Context we can look at the Whole or we can look at the Parts. When we have no knowledge of the Context we are not able to define the Parts. There are infinite ways of defining the parts and all the time we define parts the Context disappears. The Parts become a context of their own.

If we understand the context we are able to determine the Whole and the Parts. When the context is created by a Human (an Archi-tect, Carpenter) we recognize the Whole by one or more distinctive Parts. A Door or a Window stands for a House. When the context is part of Nature we have no knowledge of the causal chain of creation. Nature is a Wonder, a Web that was never Woven.

If the context was constructed and we know about the Context we are able to arrange the parts and reconstruct the Context. If we have no idea about the genesis of the Context we are unable to reconstruct the Whole. If the context is destroyed we will never be able to repair it. Never deconstruct a context you don’t understand. You will never be able to recreate it.

If the context was created by a Craftsman (Tech-nology) You will always see the Sign of the Craftsman. A Craftsman is the creator of Art (Teckne) and strangely enough a piece of Art is never Perfect. When the Context is made by a Machine it is Perfect.

If we look at a Context we can point to it to show it to Others. We have to realize that the Others have a different Point of View. They see something else.

When we point to the Context and we want to make our point we can utter a sound. The sound can be related to the Whole (“house”) or to a Part (“window”). If the Other understands the Context he will recognize the Pointed Sounds and reply with his own Sounds (“huis”, “raam”). In this way we can reach mutual understanding about the Context. If You know about the Context and the other does not know about the Context he will only recognize the Whole but not the Parts.

We will never be able to utter enough words to describe the Context. A Context is a Picture and “a Picture Paints a Thousand Words”. When you want to explain a Context to Others make a Picture. Don’t use a Map because a Map is the result of a movement Up to get an Oversight. When you move to High you are Abstracting and Nobody will Understand you’re Abstraction. “A Map is not the Territory”

When you Ex-Plain something you are moving something out of “the plain” (a Flat Surface) to the Right Level. You have to move from the flat level of the Map or the Picture to the 3 dimensions of the Earth. Always take people with you to the Context and show them what is really happening out there. An explanation of a Map will never recreate the Experience of the Exploration of the real Territory.

A Context is always connected to the Emotions. You love the Animal. A house remembers you of your Childhood and you feel nostalgia. When you experience Beauty you have discovered the Whole. When the Emotions take you away you are not Focused. Look at the Context with the Eyes of an Innocent Child.

A Context always moves in Time. A house is designed, build, used and destroyed. The influence of Time can only be seen of you visit the Context often. If you are visiting the Context for the first time you can listen to others who tell the Stories that are connected to the Context. Sometimes a Context is a Focal point of many Stories. It has attracted many Visitors and has changed from an Object to a Texture. The Context is weaved by the experiences of many people (Con-textere).

The origin of the word Thinking is Thenkon which means “Making Visible” (I don’t See the Point, Insight). Thinking was also related to “Standing in the Middle” (Understand). To think you have to stop in the Center of the Context (The Right Point Of View). Later the meaning changed. Thinking became related to the Ears and Listening. The word Dumb means Deaf and you are Stupid when you don’t listen to the Person who Knows everything. When Thinking moved to the Head it became without Feeling. Think with you’re Body.

If you want to understand a Context walk around in the Landscape and Observe from the Right Point of View. Listen to the Stories of Others who have already found Clarity. Don’t believe you are Stupid when you’re Ears function. If you lost Oversight climb to the Right Scale but never leave Earth. If you do this the Worlds becomes flat and changes into a Map.

Act like a Crafsman. Use the Tech-nology of Your Body (Senses, Emotions, Imagination,Expectation) to Create Art (Tehkne). Never strive for perfection but improve Your Self. Weave (Textere) Beautifull Stories that bring Clarity to people that Think they are Dumb but cannot See.

Enjoy The Web (Textura) that was never Woven.

LINKS

How to Kill a Context (in Dutch)

About Bhaktin

About “Just-in-Time”-Learning or Why we are still Waiting for Educational Simulators

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Learning is an autonomous process. Human beings (and other organisms) respond to a change in their internal or external environment. We are not able to adapt to every change but small and gradual changes are implemented without noticing.

When you play the piano and pay attention to the notes your fingers are playing, your fingers will remember the notes they are playing. After some time you are able to find the notes by “letting your fingers go their way“.

Education is forced learning. We want somebody to acquire knowledge or a practice in the timeframe we have defined. Some people are able to do this with ease others fail.

In the old days children were educated in the context they lived in. Most of the time they copied the activities of their parents. The girls became a mother and the boys took over the practice of their father. Some of them failed and went their own way.

At this moment children are unable to learn in the context they live in. School is a completely artificial context where people are forced to learn what the “policy-makers” have defined.

Children learn without any force outside the school-environment and in certain situations this environment is an environment the “policy-makers” don’t like. Children learn to survive in a ghetto and are trained to become a thief or a seller of drugs.

What we see is a conflict between “real life” and “constructed or abstract life“. In about a hundred years we have created a highly abstract environment and this environment needs workers to sustain itself.

The abstract environment changes with an increasing speed. When somebody is trained to repair a car the car is changed into a highly computerized system and repairing is only possible when the computer tells the mechanic what to.

Adding numbers and multiplying numbers was educated at school. The calculating machine changed the game. The only thing you have to learn is to use the calculator.

The educational system is far behind the abstract world we are creating. It is forcing young people to learn things but they are unable to motivate why. The industry needs people to operate the machines but when they have trained their employees the world has changed.

The outside (abstract or imaginary world) is distancing itself from the internal world of human being and the real world they live in. The communication industry creates its own imaginary world that is shown in movies and games.

Why do young people have to spend so much time in a constructed environment that is totally disconnect from every part of the outside world it was aimed at?

The solution to this problem was invented a very long time ago and it is was called Life-Long-Learning. If we start to learn something we really need we learn without any problem.

Why is life-long-learning or “just-in-time”-learning not implemented?

Why are policy-makers writing big documents about this issue but are not implementing their vision?

The main reason is that they want to implement this concept in the “old fashioned educational system” using the old fashioned tools and the old fashioned employees.

The world has changed everywhere but the Educational System is still in the state of 50 years ago. This is really a very strange situation.

The first problem we have to solve is when “just-in-time“-learning has to start in life. Let us pick an age. Say 13 or 14. It is the time when many children start to have a job.

In the vision of “just-in-time-learning” this is the moment to give them the opportunity to make mistakes and ask questions that are “to-the-point”.

When children change (= learn) and are “adapted” we could change their environment and add complexity. In the end some of them could become even brilliant scientists. There are many examples in history of “self-made” scientists (Faraday).

I can imagine that you have a lot of arguments to show that this is a totally unpractical solution.

We could do something else. We could simulate “real-life’ and change the educational environment into a game.

Again I ask you why this has not been done until today. Well the first answer is that it has been done and there are already very effective educational games on the market. Some of them are even for free.

The second answer is that they are blocked by the educational publishers that make a lot of money by selling books and of course they are blocked by the teachers who don’t know what to do when children are learning without them.

About the Infinite Game

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

In the Western World many people play the Analytic Game. The Analytical Game resolves the conflict between the Facts of the Senses and the  Models, Rules and Norms of the Human Prediction System, the Expectation (often called Thinking).

The complementary Game is what Will McWhinney and his friend Burkhard Sievers, called the Game that Creates New Games.

James P. Carse (A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility) calls this game the Infinite Game. Perhaps a much better name would be the Game of Life.

Life is a Journey

Infinite players play with rules and boundaries. They include them as part of their playing. They aren’t taking them serious, and they can never be trapped by them, because they use rules and boundaries to play with.

The players are always busy to continue the Game of Life by creating new Games.

They love to play but the aim is not to win because winning ends the game.

The Infinite Game is a Game where the Imagination and the Emotions are playing their roles. The Emotions e-valua-te and the Imagination creates.

A very important distinction between the two Games is Context. The Analytic Game is “above the Context”.

It uses the Abstractions of Maps and Diagrams. When you use a map to travel you will never see the real territory.

The Game of Life is “in the Context”.  In this game Life is a Journey. You will meet people you will never meet when your life is completely planned and you will see places nobody has seen before.

Life Above the Context is dull and predictable.

Life In the Context is an Adventure and Full of Risks.

Evaluation is a Context-Dependent Process. It takes into account that every Situation is unique and needs a unique approach.

The Game of Life is an Improvisation

The Game of Life is about Improvisation. You listen to the Rythm and the central Theme and start your own variation that is “in line with the flow”.

Sometimes you are the person who starts a new rhythm and a new theme and others follow you. You are there at the right time and the right moment.

Timing is essential in the Game of Life.

The Game of Life is about the Tao and Synchronicity. Things happen by accident but the events are meaningful. They are created by the Imagination.

The Game of Life is about Magic. You are the creator of your own reality and your creation bounces back on you. Reality produces signs but the signs are the result of your own creation.

Your personal Magic becomes much stronger when you have a vision and you believe in this vision.

The Game of Life is about belief and not about truth. You know there is no eternal truth because everything changes but behind the changes is an emerging pattern.

The pattern is chaotic and structured. It arise out of the Whole and moves back into the Whole.

The Game of Life is the game of AND. Life is a contradiction, an eternal conflict, a dilemma because meaning is created by “making the difference‘. It is the Comm-Union of Diversity.

The Game of Life is about Spirit (Imagination) and Soul (Emotion).

The Game of Life is Immortal. When the Fire of the compassion of your soul and the Light of your spirit becomes One with the stream of Creation  you will live for ever.

The Game of Life is eternal and new Games are created all the time.

The Games are not competitive but collaborative.

The Game is fueled by Ideas and Ideas are abundant. Some of them stay for a long time. Other ideas just arise and move away like clouds in the Wind.

The Game is Life is a Field. It contains (Standing) Waves and Waves merge without any problem.

dance

The Game of Life is the Game of Music, Dance and Poetry. It does not force. It gives you the freedom of your own interpretation, your own mood.

The Game of Life is a Spiraling Spiral.

The Game of Life is about Values and Quality.

Your personal Values help you to evaluate and Quality is what you want to accomplish.

Quality is the complement of Quantity.

It is something the Numbers and the Names are unable to Express.

LINKS

About the theories of Will McWhinny

About Buckert Sievert

About the Infinite Game of James P. Carse

About Boundaries

About Context

About Adventure

About Synchronicity

About Collaboration

About Fields

About (Standing) Waves

About Music

About Poetry

About the Spiraling Spiral

About Values and Quality