Friday, April 01, 2005: dourish ch3 (continued)
Abstraction is the principle of using the same object for multiple purposes. (e.g. clone computers, emulators, etc.). Implementation is the opposite. Abstraction hides implementation (p. 82). Abstraction is the "black box" of UI. Files are stored in directories that look like "folders". One of the problems that Dourish has studied is how to add accountability (discussed earlier) to the abstraction. Or, in other words, how does one make the abstraction make more sense, and show what led to the abstraction. I have an example from Mac OS X: when minimizing a window, the "genie effect" shows the window being "sucked" into the dock. The abstraction of the how the window gets stored on the dock is animated. Without it, the transition from workspace to dock makes little sense. With it, the physical experience of putting something away is mimicked visually (and audibly with the vacuum sound). Lakoff and Johnson, in Metaphors We Live By speak of physical space as an important metaphor that we use to organize out thoughts. Harrison and Fourish instead argue that place is more appropriate -- focusing the on the physical vs. social differences between the words (p. 89). What is important in space is the activities (social) that happen there. So while a dining room and seminar room are similarly configured, different activities happen there that are appropriate to the CoP in the space. Dourish refers to Erving Goffman's (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life . Anthony Gidden's (1984) Structuration Theory uses a "Locales Framework" to do a similar thing, employing the five components of Foundations, Civic Structure, Individual Views, Interactional Trajectory, and Mutuality (p. 93). Since human activity has traditionally taken place in a physical medium, the metaphors of the physical medium have transferred over to the electronic mediums, but electronic metaphors will be developed.
posted by regardingjohn @ 10:24 AM 0 comments
Monday, April 04, 2005: less dourish, more embodiment
Instead of reading more of Dourish this week, I'll scour the net to come up with an answer toWhat does embodiment theory bring to the table that is unique? How does it vary from the symbolic Information Processing theories?"But let me spout my own thoughts first. I recognize that there is an "embodiment theory" out there, and although there are arguments about it, and applications of it to different disciplines, there's a general agreement on the core tenet of Descartes' dispute against mind/body dualism. That's not much to bring to the table, in my opinion. For me, the development of meaning is key in embodiment. Embodiment is knowledge that has been mushed (altered, customized) to fit within, and mean something to the individual in the situational context of that individual (mind/body/being). It goes beyond the context of the body, and includes understanding within the context of the physical and social environments that the body operates within. Embodiment exists both within, and external to, the individual -- and this is where the concept of abstraction comes into play. For example, embodiment is partly in the feel of the steering wheel of a particular car. In a different car, one needs to relearn (or at least adjust), although our ability to abstract makes it relatively easy to do so.
posted by regardingjohn @ 1:41 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, April 05, 2005: IP vs. "real" embodiment
In the embodiment of meaning N. Katherine Hayles, whom I started my journey into embodiment with, considers the differences between Herb Simon's symbolic IP version of embodiment and her own. She writes:
I applaud Herbert Simon's effort to put cognitive science in conversation with literary criticism. It is an effort I have made myself from time to time. And I would like to agree that his definition of meaning makes sense in a literary context. But I get nervous with the implication that, given this definition of meaning, computers can be said not only to generate meanings, but also to understand them. Simon's announced aim is to make available to literary critics a precise definition of meaning understood in operational terms. An unannounced aim, but one I think we are entitled to infer, is to define meaning in such a way as to advance his program of simulating human intelligence with computers. He writes, "Meanings flow from the intensions of people (or perhaps people and computers, a controversial issue)." If computers can generate meaning, then it follows (his parenthesis suggests) that computers possess intension. When a computer is programmed to achieve a goal, does it have intension toward that goal? Suppose we are willing to grant that proposition. Immediately another issue arises, for intension is only part of meaning; the other (and perhaps larger) part of meaning flows from understanding. Chance events may create juxtapositions that have meaning for observers, even though no intension was involved in producing the meaning. But meaning without understanding on someone's part is not meaning, for only when understanding occurs is it possible to say, "Oh, I see what it means."
She continues by tying meaning to emotion (and the endocrine system). Since computers don't have endocrine systems, they can't have emotions, or meaning, or therefore, embodied knowledge. I will not go so far. I'll suggest that computer input systems and networks can form a rudimentary endocrine-like system that can be argued to be parallel to ours, and therefore one might argue that computers can have some sort of embodied knowledge. What I will suggest is that, if they have embodied knowledge, it's markedly different from ours. At the point where "meaning" is introduced, the discussion becomes far more philosophical, and questions like: What does it mean to have meaning? and What does it mean to "know"? or -- to be human? demand to be answered. Then sentience must be tackled, and foundational beliefs of ontology and epistemology arise. And it's here that I stop arguing, and simply state my own take. I am a constructivist, but allow for the agency of the individuals as they negotiate with both recognized and unrecognized influences of their environments (social and physical) within the constraints of their own genetic makeup. It's a merging of social, radical, and critical constructivism -- I want to eat the cake that I have.
posted by regardingjohn @ 10:13 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 06, 2005: Simon says...
I need to read Simon's article here (part 1-5), and the responses/commentary on it. The question involves digging further into "the meaning issue". Specifically, "what role does 'growth' (physical change/development of the body) play?" How does familiarity, or the everyday encounters with meaning (that computers can have) differ from emotional or reflective ("Ah-ha!") meaning? (Is this adaptive vs. routine expertise). How much of being an expert in a domain occurs (or is determined) while in "flow" (or routine). Having vocabulary vs. having problem-solving skills.
posted by regardingjohn @ 10:51 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, April 19, 2005: dourish ch 5-7
I'm slightly embarrassed to report that I've now finished chapters 5-7 of Paul Dourish's Where the Action Is book, and don't remember a stitch of it. The problem, I realized this afternoon on the bus as I opened to my marked page in chapter 7, is that I haven't blogged on it for 5, 6, or 7 -- and after filling my mindspace with AERA last week, I shuffled all the off to deep storage rather sloppily, without close attention to the indexing. It's in there somewhere, and maybe if I re-read it all some of it will surface, but it seems pretty lost to me right now.
The problem that snowballs to this is that "the end is near" and I need to start tying things together, but I also need to close this book, and don't have the time to reread it. A conundrum that blogging about will not solve... back I go.
posted by regardingjohn @ 11:00 PM 0 comments
dourish ch 5 - Quickly now ...
"This chapter has two goals. The first is to open up the notion of embodiment and explore the set of ideas that it brings together. In particular, the notion of "meaning" that featured so strongly in the last chapter needs to be examined more closely. Just what aspects of meaning are important, and how are they conveyed through embodied interaction?" (p. 128).
Ok, that's cool.
posted by regardingjohn @ 11:16 PM 0 comments
Sunday, April 24, 2005: Lakoff and Núñez, Where Mathematics Comes From (2000)
Preface: The idea of the book is to take cognitive perspective of mathematics, and to ask "Is the system of mathematical ideas also grounded in bodily experiences?" (p. xiv) They go on to say that "many of the most fundamental mathematical ideas are inherently metaphorical in nature" -- pushing the Metaphors We Live By stuff with examples like "the number line, where numbers are conceptualized metaphorically as points on a line" (xvi). The big challenge apparently, is that Núñez' wants to get all forms of "actual infinity" to work in the metaphor concept. Good luck, I say.
Introduction: Two questions frame the debate they're setting up on page 1. Exactly what mechanisms of the human brain and mind allow human beings to formulate mathematical ideas and reason mathematically? "Is brain-and-mind-based mathematics all that mathematics is? Or is there, as Platonists have suggested, a disembodied mathematics transcending all bodies and minds and structuring the universe -- this universe and every possible universe?" (p.2)
So, let's question some of the assumptions in these two questions. Are the brain and mind are separate? Are they constructed of "mechanisms" (like a clock, I suppose)? Are they separate from human beings (in a power-position of "allowing")? The second question I make no bones about. I guess this is telling of my own thoughts/understandings (that there is no transcendental disembodied mathematics). They lay out the argument for the second question by considering that (essentially) *all* things carried out or investigated by humans is done with human language, human senses, human logic, and therefore biased. "It is sometimes assumed that the effectiveness of mathematics as a scientific tool shows that mathematics exists in the structure of the physical universe. This, of course, is not a scientific argument with any empirical scientific basis" (p.3).
[Ed note: It's clear to me that mathematics just isn't my bag. In Csikszentmihalyi's language of Flow, I'm apathetic to it. I suppose that if I knew it better I'd be more interested, but now I feel like I have too many other things that I need to focus on and no time to learn it, which is what I'd need to do in order to appreciate it more. It's like piano that way.]
They make a big deal about embodied realism (Lakoff & Johnson 1999) (reviewed nicely on this page this page:
Lakoff, a distinguished professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Johnson, head of the philosophy department at the University of Oregon, begin with "three major findings of cognitive science": first, that the mind "is inherently embodied"; second, that thought "is mostly unconscious"; and third, that abstract concepts "are largely metaphorical." "More than two millennia of a priori philosophical speculation about these aspects of reason are over," the two declare in their introduction, for these findings "are inconsistent with central parts of Western philosophy. They require a thorough rethinking of the most popular current approaches, namely, Anglo-American analytic philosophy and postmodernist philosophy." The best way to see why is to examine how these findings alter the concept of reason. "Reason," the authors state, is still viewed as "the defining characteristic of human beings." It includes "not only our capacity for logical inference, but also our ability to conduct inquiry, to solve problems, to evaluate, to criticize, to deliberate about how we should act, and to reach an understanding of ourselves, other people, and the world."Reason, according to cognitive science, however, is not disembodied, as the tradition has largely held, but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily experience.... The very structure of reason itself comes from the details of our embodiment. The same neural and cognitive mechanisms that allow us to perceive and move around also create our conceptual systems and modes of reason. Thus, to understand reason we must understand the details of our visual system, our motor system, and the general mechanisms of neural binding.
Reason, in short, is not independent of perception and bodily movement, and neural associations take place between perceptual and inferential acts. Our bodies and brains determine the kinds of categories we will form for making sense of experience. So, for instance, our spatial notions of "in front of" and "in back of" derive from our being creatures with fronts and backs who project that distinction onto objects like cars and TVs. Reason is also "evolutionary, in that abstract reason builds on and makes use of forms of perceptual and motor inference present in 'lower' animals." That discovery "utterly changes our relation to other animals and changes our conception of human beings as uniquely rational."
According to Lakoff and Johnson, reason is therefore not universal in the sense of being transcendent--it is "not part of the structure of the universe." That led some early readers to tag the pair as "relativist" or even "multiculturalist," which they deny. They acknowledge that reason may be widely or universally (if contingently) shared by humans because of our similar bodies, a position they call "embodied realism," as distinct from the philosophical tradition's "disembodied realism." As such, reason is not "completely conscious, but mostly unconscious." It is "not purely literal, but largely metaphorical and imaginative," not dispassionate but rather "emotionally engaged."
If all this is true--and Philosophy in the Flesh attempts to demonstrate it by applying "embodied realism" to classic metaphysical puzzles (such as time and causation) and the history of philosophy itself--out goes much of our philosophical baggage from "major classical views of what a person is." Goodbye to the Cartesian subject, with a mind independent of the body. So long to Kant's radically autonomous person, because reason doesn't transcend the body. Adieu to the ideal utilitarian agent, since embodied humans don't control most of their reasoning, let alone the part that maximizes self-interest. Equally dispensable is the fashionable image of the mind as purely computational--fungible software working on fungible hardware--because real, embodied minds do not merely manipulate empty symbols.
So what does this all mean to me? It means that they're going to try to dispel the myth that mathematics is a Platonically disembodied Truth using what they know about cognitive science. It will be a tough task, because in order to dispel the myth of Science, and "Truth", you probably have to assert another "truth", which folks often take as only confirming the existence of Truth. In the end, you rarely convince any but those alread in the choir. Tough.
posted by regardingjohn @ 2:28 PM 0 comments
Monday, April 25, 2005: Lakoff and Núñez "Metaphorical Structure of Mathematics" (1997)
Lakoff, G. & Núñez, R. (1997). Metaphorical structure of mathematics: sketching out cognitive foundations for a mind-based mathematics. In English, L (Ed.) Mathematical reasoning: analogies, metaphors, and images. (pp 21-89) Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.
Lakoff and Núñez start this article with a warning -- that the cognitive science of mathematics is a new field of study that turns on its head the 20th century idea of mind-free mathematics. This in turn relies on http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/120/newphil.htm#Meta the Folk Theory of Kinds and the Metaphors of Essence</a>, which states (briefly here) that science seeks the essential properties of things. But math is only "a lens through which they see the world" (p.26) "... mathematics has not been properly understood as a product of inspired human imagination, and has been taught ... [as] a mere grasping of transcendental truths, something lesser and less interesting (p. 29). Math is a commonplace conceptual metaphor that needs to be stable (p. 30).
They continue by giving examples of math grounding metaphors: arithmetic is Object Collection (sets); arithmetic is Object Construction (+ - x ÷); arithmetic is motion/location (number line) (p. 35-38). And: functions are machines (p. 47). And it goes on and on through all sorts of math concepts I'd never learned including some fun ones like "monsters" (p. 72-79), until we get to the Morals of the chapter (p. 83-85):
My take: I'm glad someone is looking at this; and I suspect that I could probably learn to like math as much as I respect it. I recall a high school conversation with my father about "Math vs. Other subjects" -- he liked math because the answers were either right or wrong, whereas English, History, etc. could be argued, or subjectively disputed. It was exactly my argument for disliking math. I saw it as rigid and dull.
But that's Math, and not Embodiment, and I need to wrestle with embodiment here. So I come up with moral #6: math (like all language-based human ideas) is grounded in the body, where "embodiment" means rooted in physical experience. Can a computer be embodied? Sure, since it's a representation/manifestation of a human idea, rooted in human metaphor, and since we're the one deciding, we can call its data/knowledge embodied. And we can tell the machine to call it embodied too. But some folks will probably object. We're not as good at obeying.
posted by regardingjohn @ 7:22 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 27, 2005: cognitive flexibility theory
I always liked the name Spiro. How old is this theory, anyway? 1990. Okay, I've missed out the last 15 years. Imagine all the fun I could have had. What? Already having fun? Calling it something else?
Cognitive flexibility theory focuses on the nature of learning in complex and ill-structured domains. Spiro & Jehng (1990, p. 165) state: "By cognitive flexibility, we mean the ability to spontaneously restructure one's knowledge, in many ways, in adaptive response to radically changing situational demands...This is a function of both the way knowledge is represented (e.g., along multiple rather single conceptual dimensions) and the processes that operate on those mental representations (e.g., processes of schema assembly rather than intact schema retrieval)." The theory is largely concerned with transfer of knowledge and skills beyond their initial learning situation. For this reason, emphasis is placed upon the presentation of information from multiple perspectives and use of many case studies that present diverse examples. The theory also asserts that effective learning is context-dependent, so instruction needs to be very specific. In addition, the theory stresses the importance of constructed knowledge; learners must be given an opportunity to develop their own representations of information in order to properly learn.
Is this anything new? Specific case-based (context-specific) learning. Situated. Big picture learning. Ability to improvise and adapt according to the needs of the situation. Wait, here are the principles:
And here's an article on its implications for teaching. It includes this quote: "Spiro's approach to instruction focuses on multiple presentations of information. Content must be covered a number of times with different purposes; therefore there are many concrete examples of the uses of a concept" (Dick, 1991, p. 43). They're talking about transfer here folks. Where things are understood more comprehensively, and are more apt to be useful in various situations when they are seen/learned from multiple (different) perspectives. Yes, it's not easy. Yes, it subverts the hegemonic effect of direct instruction. Yes, it's very cool stuff that builds off of Constructivism and it's just a few lego bricks from my hero Papert's Constructionism
"Constructionism shares constructivism's connotation of learning as `building knowledge structures' irrespective of the circumstances of the learning. It then adds that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it's a sandcastle on the beach or a theory of the universe... If one eschews pipeline models of transmitting knowledge in talking among ourselves as well as in theorizing about classrooms, then one must expect that I will not be able to tell you about my idea of constructionism. Doing so is bound to trivialize it. Instead, I must confine myself to engage you in experiences (including verbal ones) liable to encourage your own personal construction of something in some sense like it. Only in this way will there be something rich enough in your mind to be worth talking about." (Papert, 1990)
By the way, here's a very enjoyable article on the various facets of A Journey into Constructivism. Oh, and, here's the crowning cool thing: Spiro's coming to campus this Friday, and giving a talk, and I need to go.
Saturday, April 30, 2005: Rand Spiro
Rand Spiro, Michigan State presentation/visit on Friday, April 29, 2005. Cognitive Flexibility theory
My thoughts: It's too bad that this tool will be sold, rather than shared with other educational researchers, but I suppose this is the way of the [capitalist] world. I'd like to see it widely used. I especially appreciate his ideas on learning -- that people expect things to be simple, we try to open up that perception, and try to get people to be ready to see more. Too bad, again, that we'll have to pay to try to get people to do that...
posted by regardingjohn @ 12:29 PM 0 comments
