Glen,
You say:
>I do coaching work. In that area I find a large population of people who
>are into understanding self growth theories far more than they are into
>self growth application.
Do you think we on this LO list are such people: more interested in
verbalizing about theories than in applying them?
>Theories have a dissociated quality to them. They are mental
>constructs/models that aren't integrated into experience.
Glen, doesn't every theory imply a practice, demand it?
For example, the theory of relativity, or the theory that the world is
round, or the theory that our universe is helio rather than
anthropocentric: each theory implies a confirming or disconfirming
practice.
Perhaps you're saying that some people enjoy playing with the theory,
elaborating it, arguing about it, rather than looking for opportunities ot
test it in practice, to confirm or disconfirm it.
Premise, proposition: any theory that doesn't suggest appropriate practice
is merely language, a language game, rather than the possibility of a
guide to new directions, new work, new ways of organizing human life.
>From my times with teaching advanced statistics I learned a concept of
>Theory modeling from a Bayesian perspective. One tests over and over.
>Which each new test, action, we gain more data to formulate a better
>model. Theories that don't have that testing, that action component, can
>never be demonstrated to hold any validity or reliability.
Which theories that we've discussed here can't be validated, verified?
Entropy? Linear vs global thinking? Learning styles? Hierarchical vs non
hierarchical organiztion?
How would we find out if, say, the theory of "entropy" as usefully
explaining phenomena of human organizations can be tested in practice, in
the world in which we live?
Steve
--Steve Eskow <dreskow@corp.webb.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>