Unconscious Competence LO17883

d.l.dwiggins@computer.org
Sun, 26 Apr 1998 09:34:36 -0700

Replying to LO17728 --

David Hurst writes:
> I have been silent for a while, buried in "book-mode." I am working on
> some ideas about the transfer of knowledge and have found the old 2X2
> diagram with the dimensions; Unconscious/Conscious, Incompetent/Competent
> to be useful as a broad frame. One proceeds from UC Incompetence to C
> Incompetence, to C Competence, and finally to UC Competence. I am working
> on the question "How?"

> Does anyone know the history of this 2X2 diagram or of anyone who has used
> it extensively?

It's new to me, but I like it. Two observations:

Rather than "finally to UC Competence", consider what you've described as
one round of a spiral, where you've attained a degree of competence and
now begin a new round ending in a higher degree.

Looking at At's framework through this lens, I hypothesize: the movement
from UC-I to C-I is accomplished through entropy production, pushing one
away from equilibrium to the unstable state of awareness of one's
incompetence. At that point, a bifurcation occurs, resulting in an
immergent dropping back to the original state (or maybe lower?), or moving
one to C-C (emergent learning). From there, digestive learning brings one
to the UC-C state.

As a model of At's framework, this is clearly oversimplified, but might be
of some use. I'm most bothered by its treatment of immergence.

And finally a third observation: "Competence" here is probably not the same
concept that's been discussed on the "Employee Ranking" thread.

-- 

Don Dwiggins "All models are false, SEI Information Technology but some are useful" d.l.dwiggins@computer.org -- George Box, "Statistics for Experiments"

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