Replying to LO24659 --
At: an amazingly deft use of metaphor in this disquisition you have
exhibited!
I urge you to include in your analyses that underpin your use of metaphor,
though, to consider that in *authentic* linguistic transactions, we have,
in addition to semantics and syntax (definition and grammar), semiotics
(sense or meaning). This broaches the distinction between Knowledge and
Meaning, between epistemology and moral theory (and by that, I certainly
don't mean moralizing), between positive science (from which you base your
metaphors) and social science.
Metaphor, as a figure of speech, is not the truth itself, rather, it helps
to *show* the truth, literally, *carry the truth across* the figure of
speech. Much of what you say is valid in the *mechanics* of working
w/learning organizations. But in the process of such work, there is so
much more than just physical or positive reality. Just as an example: it
is so easy to identify systems and sub-systems in electrical circuits, no
question at all as to where this computer component is or what that
peripheral is, etc. To extend your metaphor from the physical substrates
that define computer mechanics to socio-cultural entities first involves
the physical identification and articulation of the *culture* in a given
inquiry--of course, this is a modeling experience, as well, so the whole
experience of constructing, somehow, by metaphor, an isomorphism between
the terms of your metaphor is an abstraction, that is, a tool, itself, and
one that works at at least one or two levels away from the reality that
you wish to investigate...
I hazard to identify your *authentic* beliefs as those accrued according
to the socio-cultural act of *meaning-making* (Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Peirce,
Meleau-Ponty, LeviStrauss, etc.). Semiotics is a dimension of language
that is *unheard* except by those involved in the *sensible/sense making
system* we call culture. Much sense (or belief) in any system (culture) or
sub-system (sub-culture) can appear as noise or even silence to discrete
individuals within or near to the system in which meaning is shared. Your
exclusive dependence upon physical metaphors to ground your thinking makes
a whole lot of sense in some of your modeling of these problems, but, I am
afraid it runs its course when we get close to the issues that really
matter in these discussions... ;-} rap.
Refs:
The Media and Communication Studies Site :
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Functions/mcs.html
Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign - Charles Sanders
Peirce Whenever a sign is present, ideology is present too - Valentin
Volosinov So - how was your day? We'll start off with the manifest content
then move on to the underlying meaning - Biff (Chris Garratt & Mick Kidd)
A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie - Umberto Eco Genres are
not systems: they are processes of systematisation - Steve Neale
AM de Lange wrote:
...SNIP...
> Finally, let us consider the following sentence:
> . When the beliefs are gone (which takes a matter of
> . minutes), a new change becomes natural and effortless.
> What beliefs do we speak of here? Are they beliefs acquired through rote
> believing or do they also involve beliefs which emerged through authentic
> learning? Should they involve authentic, beliefs, it is easy to destroy
> them -- impair merely one of the seven essentialities. But what price will
> we have to pay? As I understand it, an irreversible loss lower down of
> authentic learning and eventually constructive creativity as well as
> higher up of caring love.
>
> I myself will resist the removal of my authentic beliefs with all which I
> can muster. As for beliefs acquired through rote learning (i.e. assumed
> beliefs) a fellow learner merely has to point them out for me to make work
> of them. Winfried, is this not a strange application for transistor
> modeling -- the on(conductive)/off(isolative) switching? Get hold of the
> input current to the base and you can control the larger flow of current
> between the emittor and collector. Now think in terms of wholeness and the
> associativity pattern in it. Can you see why so many people go for the
> control of the mouthpiece?
-- "Dein Wachstum sei feste und lache vor Lust! Deines Herzens Trefflichkeit / hat dir selbst das Feld bereit', auf dem du bluehen musst." Peasant, Richard A. Parkany: SUNY@Albany Prometheus Educational Services - http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/ Upper Hudson & Mohawk Valleys; New York State, USALearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
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