“People”
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Questions about rhizomatic learning | Jenny Connected - 0 views
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Stephen Downes's comment in OLDaily, Feb. 7 Questions about rhizomatic learning Jenny Mackness, February 6, 2014 At a certain point, perfectly good theories become nonsense. This may be that point. I am sympathetic with the list of questions Jenny Mackness poses to Keith Hamon about rhizomatic learning (a concept I'm increasingly questioning). For example: "I'm not sure that I would know how to distinguish a 'rhizomatic learner' from other learners." And "'A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo.'" Strictly speaking, this is false of rhizomes (unless you're talking of the specific connection between plant and plant, in which case, one wonders how it is different from any other connection (and wonder why it can't have a middle)). I've commented to Dave Cormier (who seems to have a better handle on this) about this in the past: a rhizome network is a mesh, which is good, but there's no openness, no diversity, not really even any autonomy. And you mix that in with (quite frankly) silly statements from Deleuze and Guattari (like: "'State space is 'striated' or griddled") you get something that really begins to lack coherence. I've long complained of continental philosophers that when they don't understand something, they just make stuff up. There's too much of that in educational theory too.
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Australian Humanities Review: Deleuze and the Internet by Ian Buchanan - 0 views
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Is the Internet a rhizome? All the straws in the wind say 'yes' it is. Whereas mechanical machines are inserted into hierarchically organised social systems, obeying and enhancing this type of structure, the Internet is ruled by no one and is open to expansion or addition at anyone's whim as long as its communication protocols are followed. This contrast was anticipated theoretically by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari especially in A Thousand Plateaus (1980), in which they distinguished between arboreal and rhizomic cultural forms. The former is stable, centred, hierarchical; the latter is nomadic, multiple, decentred - a fitting depiction of the difference between a hydroelectric plant and the Internet.26
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The Amazing Story of Kudzu | Max Shores - 1 views
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There's so much of this fast-growing vine in the Southeastern U.S., you might think it was a native plant. Actually, it took a lot of hard work to help kudzu spread so widely. Now that it covers over seven million acres of the deep South, there are a lot of people working hard to get rid of it! But kudzu is used in ways which might surprise you…plus Kudzu's history
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Rhizome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views
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"In botany,[dendrology], a rhizome (from Ancient Greek: rhízōma "mass of roots",[1] from rhizóō "cause to strike root")[2] is a modified subterranean stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes may also be referred to as creeping rootstalks or rootstocks."
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The Essence of Peopling - 4 views
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“peopling”
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The first part of this essay is an account of innermost peopling – the social, self-conscious nature of human cognition. The second part of this essay moves outward, connecting cognition to the rituals and social information flows that make up the most important parts of our environment.
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In Others in Mind: The Social Origins of Self-Consciousness (one of my favorite books of all time), Philippe Rochat presents a social model of human cognition,
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Rochat, in contrast, models human cognition as fundamentally social in nature. Each person learns to be aware of himself – is constrained toward self-consciousness – by other people being aware of him. He learns to manage his image in the minds of others, and finds himself reflected, as in a mirror, through the interface of language and non-verbal communication.
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infinite recursion
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We see ourselves through the constraining influences of other people, through the 'peopling' of others. Others people us. It is a limited recursion. I think this has significance in #rhizo15. How? We are all seeing ourselves through the eyes of others. How accurate is that subjective view? Sometimes it is off by degrees of magnitude. For example, I see some pretty effusive praise for stuff that by its nature is half-baked. Yes, some is very good for a first draft, but most goes little past the initial draft and into further revision. I expect further recursion, further refinement through reciprocal action, sometimes I get it, mostly I don't. Part of me take no offense while another part is deeply disturbed that the responses I get are so cursory. And the cursory nature of most responses, the desultory considerations of others we have come to respect become the default. And, worse, they become internalized as the default mutual mental modeling. Shallow of necessity, quick by force of circumstance, and a bare reciprocal exigency.
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How much of that is on other people? How much of it is on us? How inviting are we to gather up ideas, particularly those who challenge our thinking? That "infinite" word in there .. that's a lot of recursive thinking going back and forth, toppling on itself ...
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The self is not unitary and separate from others; peopling occurs in the context of mutual-mental-modeling relationships, which continue to affect each person when he is alone.
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Each person’s self is spread out among many people, simulated in all their brains at varying levels of granularity. And each person has a different “self” for each one of the people he knows, and a different self for every social context.
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Therefore, we have different subjective reflections from among different folk. Each reflection is a unique self simulated by another's mind. The same is true for social context. We have a Rhizo15 self created by our Rhizo15 folk. My question here is whether it is in any way an objective measure and does that matter? Should any of us care about the simulations of others? Should we rebel and subvert these simulacra because they are not 'us'? It is hard to argue for this position simply because this acceptance of the peopling of others seems quite natural. It is natural for us to consider this subjective and recursive view from others as the real deal. Or is it just the default view? Can we generate another way toward identity that is a balance between outer and inner subjectivity?
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The self at work is different from the self at home with close friends, or in bed with a spouse. And none of these are the “true self” – rather, the self exists in all these, and in the transitions between them. There can never be one single, public self; to collapse all these multiple selves together would be akin to social death.
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Mentally maintaining one’s identity in relation to others, including one’s accurate social status and relationships in each case, is the core task of being human.
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a huge portion of our internal cognitive machinery, of which we are not normally aware, is concerned with the ordinary function of maintaining one’s own identity and that of others
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Baumeister and Masicampo posit that interfacing between identities – both within a single mind, and between minds – is the purpose of conscious thought (Conscious Thought Is for Facilitating Social and Cultural Interactions: How Mental Simulations Serve the Animal–Culture Interface). And just as Rochat proposes that we are “constrained toward consciousness” by others, Kevin Simler says that we “infect” each other with personhood.
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Three views of this social model of cognition: 1. Baumeister and Masicampo: conscious thought is the transport mechanism for moving between inner identity and outer identity. 2.Rochat: we become conscious because of others, 'constrained by folk' in order to be. 3. Simler: we infect each other with consciousness through the interaction of identity.
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There is a profound irreconcilability or dissonance between first-and third-person perspectives on the self once objectified and valued. This dissonance shapes behaviors in crucial ways, as individuals try to reconcile their own and others’ putative representations about them. These two representational systems are always at some odds or in conflict, always in need of readjustment. It is so because these systems are open, and they do not share the same informational resources: direct, permanent, and embodied for the first-person perspective on the self; indirect, more fleeting, and disembodied for the third-person perspective on the self. A main property of this dissonance is that it tends to feed into itself and can reach overwhelming proportions in the life of individuals. More often than not, this dissonance is a major struggle, expressed in the nuisance of self-conscious behaviors that hinder creativity and the smooth “flow” of interpersonal exchanges. Others in Mind, p. 41
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People are able to accomplish this feat of mutual simulation by use of two tools: language and ritual. Ritual allows for the communication of information that language can’t convey – hard-to-fake costly signals of commitment, dependability, harmoniousness, and cooperative intent.
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If humans are somehow calibrated to expect a constant flow of social information, then the sparseness of ritual and social participation in modern environments might trigger a cascade of rumination.
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A very simple example is greetings. “Greeting everyone you see” is a candidate for a ritual universal, a part of the ritual atmosphere that displays good fit with peopling
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(with some caveats).
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Ritual 2:"Serene Social Sloth Sunday, a made-up internet holiday in which we avoid posting "outrage porn"
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Ritual 4: Share natural spaces through YouTube, make part of any group meeting e.g. Hangout.
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Ritual 5: "With joy and zest, publicly celebrate milestones and recurring events. Affirming shared history, we nourish community, crystallize a sense of accomplishment, and build group identity by unifying our stories and common goals. Can be planned and ritualized, or as spontaneous as a group cheer." Celebrate | Group Works. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2015, from http://groupworksdeck.org/patterns/Celebrate
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Ritual 6: Feedforward with the imagination. In other words project your self into the future and 'recall' all that 'happened' from the beginning of #rhizo15. In a way I think this defines what rhizomatic learning is. Each of us creates identity for the group by being who we are with the voices we have. Why not imagine that forth along with others instead of relying solely upon the weekly proddings of one person identified as 'teacher/leader'. Feedforwardings would allow us to compare rhizomatic identities. and from there decide where we might go as a group as well as individually.
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Information about the self from the first-person perspective tends to be inflated and self-aggrandizing; information about the self from the third-person perspective, projected into the minds of others, tends to be deflated and self-deprecatory.
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A freeway is useful for getting from place to place, but it’s not a place to merely exist in the moment.
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“we’re here to fart around together.”
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In conclusion, drink tea, together with your friends; pay attention to the tea, and to your friends, and pay attention to your friends paying attention to the tea. Therein lies the meaning of life.
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touches of sense...: Doodling in Latin... - 1 views
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I just couldn't be bothered.
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I am the one at the back that the teacher gives stern looks to.
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I am the archetypal distracted student.
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This class has got nothing to do with me.
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left me feeling a little frustrated
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subjectives
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lump of concrete just under the surface
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I chose three posts which marked me from the first days of rhizo15:
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Of note: I wrote a post today before I read this that explored 3 ways of looking at 1 walk: http://rhetcompnow.com/tools/one-walk-three-ways/
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"Ethics in MOOCS: the Two Four Ten or so Commandments of #rhizo15"
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uses language
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exudes energy in her writing
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"Those who can meander freely through such a course as #rhizo15, whether it be maze-like or cloud-like or layers-deep or miles-wide, should consider this choice, this freedom, this perquisite of economy and culture and opportunity as an entryway into possibility." This is the work of more than just facility, this is flexing and breathing and working repetition to serve a larger purpose--that of pointing to the nature of contingency in the world of free agent. We open the doors of adjacency one after the other and here she points to our agency as a working through and through mazes and more mazes. Sweet metaphor.
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one of the games that I prefer.
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If you like this then go to these two podcasts: https://soundcloud.com/allusionistshow/puns https://soundcloud.com/allusionistshow/c-bomb
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Dejected
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dejected, ppl. a. (dɪˈdʒɛktɪd) [f. deject v.] 1.1 lit. Thrown or cast down, overthrown. arch. 1682 Wheler Journ. Greece vi. 427 Buried in the Rubbish of its dejected Roof and Walls. 1881 H. James Portr. Lady xxvi, Looking at her dejected pillar. b.1.b Allowed to hang down. 1809 Heber Passage of Red Sea 12 The mute swain‥With arms enfolded, and dejected head. c.1.c Of the eyes: Downcast. 1600 [see 3 b]. 1663 Cowley Pindar. Odes, Brutus ii, If with dejected Eye In standing Pools we seek the Sky. 1715-20 Pope Iliad ix. 626 With humble mien and with dejected eyes Constant they follow where Injustice flies. d.1.d Her. Cast down, bent downwards; as dejected embowed, embowed with the head downwards. 1889 Elvin Dict. Her., Dejected, cast down, as a garb dejected or dejectant. †2.2 Lowered in estate, condition, or character; abased, humbled, lowly. Obs. 1605 Shakes. Lear iv. i. 3 The lowest and most deiected thing of Fortune. 1641 Milton Reform. ii. (1851) 71 The basest, the lowermost, the most dejected‥downe-trodden Vassals of Perdition. a 1680 Butler Rem. (1759) II. 14 Able to reach from the highest Arrogance to the meanest, and most dejected Submissions. 1721 [see dejectedness]. 3.3 Depressed in spirits, downcast, disheartened, low-spirited. 1581 Marbeck Bk. of Notes 115 So that he was deiected and compelled to weepe for very many, which had fallen. 1608-11 Bp. Hall Medit. & Vows i. §39, I marvell not that a wicked man is‥so dejected, when hee feeles sicknes. 1667 Pepys Diary (1879) IV. 369 Never were people so dejected as they are in the City. 1793 Cowper Lett. 8 Sept., I am cheerful on paper sometimes, when I am absolutely the most dejected of all creatures. 1835 Lytton Rienzi x. viii, Thus are we fools of Fortune;-to-day glad-to-morrow dejected! b.3.b transf. (Of the visage, behaviour, etc.
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Adjacent
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adjacent, a. and n. (əˈdʒeɪsənt) [ad. L. adjacent-em pr. pple. of adjacē-re to lie near; f. ad to + jacē-re to lie. Cf. Fr. adjacent, 16th c. in Littré.] A.A adj. 1.A.1 Lying near or close (to); adjoining; contiguous, bordering. (Not necessarily touching, though this is by no means precluded.) adjacent angles, the angles which one straight line makes with another upon which it stands. Also fig. in Logic of nearness in resemblance. c 1430 Lydg. Bochas v. xiii. (1554) 132 a, There wer two cuntries therto adiacent. 1509 Barclay Ship of Fooles (1570) 104 [He] warred on other realmes adiacent. 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. ii. ii. 218 A strange inuisible perfume hits the sense Of the adiacent Wharfes. 1663 Gerbier Counsel 6 The Houses adjacent, and those which are opposite. 1745 De Foe Eng. Tradesm. XI. xxxiv. 72 Those parts of Essex, Surrey, and Kent, which lie adjacent to London. 1789-96 J. Morse Amer. Geog. I. 302 The adjacent inhabitants had assembled in arms. 1827 Hutton Course of Math. I. 317 The sum of the two adjacent angles dac and dab is equal to two right angles. 1846 Mill Logic iii. xxi. §4 (1868) II. 108 With a reasonable degree of extension to adjacent cases. 1860 Tyndall Glaciers i. §2. 20 Furnishing ourselves with provisions at the adjacent inn. †B.B n. That which is adjacent, or lies next to anything; an adjoining part; a neighbour. Obs. 1610 Healey St. Aug., City of God 721 The LXX rather expressed the adjacents, then the place it selfe. 1635 Shelford Disc. 220 (T.) He hath no adjacent, no equal, no corrival. 1725 De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 224 The whole place and its adjacents.
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Conject