Replying to LO23975 --
AT writes:
(This first, in response to my comment that I did not see the mechanism he
proposed to for expressing tacit knowedge as formal knowledge as something
which depletes tacit knowledge)
> If you do not see the mechanism, is it not the case that all explicit,
> formal knowledge is nothing but part of tacit knowledge.
> What then do you
> make of "A person knows more than what that person can
> tell."? For me a
> denial of any mechanism by which tacit some knowledge gets
> articulated,
> entails in the long run that knowledge does not have any process or
> structure in it so that any categorisation or attributation of it is a
> waste of time. It is especially Prigogine and Capra who
> stress that there
> are inner relationships between process and structure of all
> systems which
> make gives them chararteristic patterns externally.
One of the most common examples of tacit knowledge is the riding of a
bicycle. If we could write a manual for this, we would then have formal
knowledge, I suppose, but how would we describe and explain balance?
peripheral vision? the relationship of both to avoid destructive
relationships of bike to rider to environment? (NOTE: after nearly 50
years of trying, I am still a poor bicycle rider, colliding with parked
cars, trees, and other inanimate objects, but rarely human. I can,
however, navigate heavy rapids in a loaded canoe with no problem. How do
we formalize that?)
AT follows with an interesting lesson in metabolism and the transformation
of chemicals. It is a good teaching, but not related to the tacit/formal
arguement in progress. Although the acids, proteins, etc. turn into
flesh, bone, blood, and energy, they are not germaine to the arguement in
this sense:
We do not need to teach people how to metabolize. This is not a matter of
knowledge, in a cognitive sense, that is, I do not need to reflect on a
protein in order to more effectively incorporate it into my system. By
eating the thing which contains the protein, my body does what it is
supposed to do with the protein. If there's too much fat surrounding the
protein, as in my most favorite red meats, they have a more apparent
effect on my body than the intended protein ingestion.
Knowledge of chemistry is fascinating, there are many life lessons to be
learned and perhaps what AT is trying to teach is is not so much formal as
it is tacit. Great examples maked for great learning experiences. We
experience the AHA!, Eureka!! by reading some of his examples. This is
why, even when they don't seem to be at all sensible, I read them again.
They usually teach me something.
> By the way, one of the greatest conceptual problems to learners in
> chemistry (and this not merely my opinion -- see the many papers in
> Journal of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society) is to
> grasp that once any atom, free or bound, becomes the focal
> point (reaction
> centre) in any chemical reaction, its properties change as a result of
> that very reaction.
>
> In my opinion it is a cenceptual problem because learners, as
> a result of
> rote learning, have never contemplated the existence of the
> tacit/implicit
> and formal/explicit levels of knowledge. In most cases I succeed in
> helping them to overcome this difficulty by pointing out that
> what they
> experience is in not a difficulty in chemistry, but a difficulty in
> cognition (knowledge creation) itself. The cases in which I
> do not succeed
> in my help involve learners who believe that they have to learn only
> chemistry in chemistry -- if they have any learning diffculties (which
> they are "sure" they do not have), they will consult a
> psychologist/psychiatrist.
This is pretty important stuff which I firmly believe to be the basis of
organizational as well as personal learning systems. It is most important
to learn how to learn, much more important that learning the stuff of
detail. Relationships are the essence. Or, in AT's formal expression of
creativity, the essentialities. Relationships, not subjects or objects or
actions.
I snipped some conversation here to get back to the point: AT said:
> >> When articulating tacit knowledge into formal knowledge
> >> AND THEN MAKING SURE that the formal knowledge do
> >> indeed express the tacit knowledge, there are also costs
> >> involved. It means that this process is NOT reversible
> >> because SOMETHING gets used up. The LOSS of this
> >> SOMETHING is manifested in the tacit knowledge getting
> >> depleted FASTER than the formal knowledge getting filled.
I still don't see the depletion of tacit knowledge because of its
description. Do I stop digesting your proteins and acids, AT, because you
have told me how I do it?
AT asks me to take up a thread on a third possible relationship which has
to do with the depletion of capacity in the gray cells as a result of
learning. I will only say for now, that there is a mathematics there, and
it's a big mathematic.
I made a joke here:
> >I do, however, believe that you can't step in the same
> >stream once and that it is this systems dynamic which
> >needs be understand in more than two axes.
>
> Should it not be "twice" rather than "once"?
Someone's response to the Greek "can't step in the same stream twice" was
indeed, "no, you can't step in the same stream once" As a wader of
rivers, I agree. Your entrance into the dynamic changes it. The comment
is about the stream's behaviour (which reall IS the stream) not it's
approximate location in space and time.
> >With whimsical and good spirited teaching, the joke
> >becomes the intellectual paradigm which creates the
> >new theory.....
>
> I cannot understand this one. Please explain it to me.
I can't either, but it was VERY much fun to write!!!
> >Gemba Kaizenski
>
> I do not understand this too. Please explain it also.
Gemba Kaizen is the latest manifestation of the Japanese writer Imai on
"kaizen" or incremental improvement. Gemba means workplace, not just the
factory, but the kitchen, the study, the classroom, the mind. Imai posits
cleanliness, order, antientropic activities, unending attention to details
or space and time as a beginning to excellence. I am Polak. The -ski
(Polish -cki with the 'c' pronounced 'ts') an adjectival ending. This
makes me "An incremental improver of the workplace".....
Zavacki
--"John Zavacki" <jzavacki@greenapple.com>
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