looking for rest in all the wrong places

Maybe what happens is that I look for *rest* in my email
inbox, and what I should just do is go take a nap!

philosophical background...

1. So my idea for a research problem is: building a
"weather map" of learning. I'm actually interested in
"weather maps" of all sorts, but learning is a nice place
to start.

What do I mean by a "weather map for learning"? First of
all I'm thinking it could be either personalized, showing
what *I* am learning, or what *you* are learning,
relative, somehow, to the grand scheme of things -- if and
when there is a "grand scheme" (there is, in mathematics,
for instance). But the map could also be larger scale,
i.e., at the level of a community or even a society.
E.g. what are the students in the different cities in the
Bay Area learning? Do students in Oakland and Berkeley
spend their time on very different things? Or what about
students in the USA, Japan, and UK?

A lot of the large-scale data streams are presumably
available from ongoing research. But the small-scale data
streams may not be so detailed; maybe we just know an
individual's test scores, for example, but we have no
record of specific learning modules. Well, if computers
are used more and more intelligently, I think more
fine-grained data about user interactions will be
available. We could start with some simple things like
looking for trends in web browsing history.

2. BUT, OK, just what good would this sort of "map" do
anyone? Why do we like "data" so much? Or, more
specifically, even if we have mountains of data, how do we
make sense of it or do anything useful with it at all?

This is where the "foundations of knowledge" stuff starts
to come in real handy. Some issues here are as follows:

A. Is a "learning map" actually useful to the student? I
personally think it would be -- but do I have any
convincing reasons for thinking this? Why would it be
better to have a picture of how much "coverage" something
like the quadratic formula gets me, as opposed to just
knowing that I'd completed the quadratic formula chapter
in my Algebra text book (for example)?

B. I personally think it has to do with motivation and
power. Or, another way to put this, it is really
distasteful to me to see learning separated from both
emotional and social contexts. When I was a kid, I liked
completing another math course just because it gave me a
sense of progress and mastery. But I'm imagining how much
more accurate my sense of what was going on in these
regards would have been if each problem was justified --
if I was getting an accurate read-out of my real
empowerment (e.g. you're 70% of the way towards mastering
the basics of civil engineering, or what have you). A
student who has a map of the educational process doesn't
need to be led (like a lamb to the slaughter, as it were)
but can instead lead themself (onwards to glory!). How I
would have liked to be able to say: "I know what I'm
doing, and I have the skills profile to prove it." As it
was, I think I've always been a bit clueless about what my
real skills are...

C. So I think that a learning environment that includes a
detailed map of the learning process is going to boost a
student's self-confidence and sense of useful social
connection as well. ("I've just got to do another 30% of
this course and I can get a job as a civil engineer.")
Part of the problem here is where does that extra "30% of
the course" come from? It's nice to imagine a learning
environment with all these brilliant features -- but in
fact, we're in a very different reality at present.

D. If we're going to take up the challenge of creating an
educational world like the one I'm envisioning, I think
that at present the real challenge has to do with putting
together many different statements (e.g. from government
or philanthropic non-profits, from educators, from
students, from employers, etc...) -- e.g. "we don't have
enough graduates with proficiency in Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics" -- and actual functioning
operations that address the various issues that these
folks are bringing up.

E. These "functioning operations" bring us into a
relatively broader sphere of "knowledge" and "practice" --
we're no longer just talking about mapping some *stuff*
called "Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics", but both mapping and engineering a broad
range of social practices that relate, whether closely or
not so closely, to these subjects.

F. From this point of view we could say that the relevant
"knowledge" isn't embodied in textbooks and course notes
or even things like experiment and publication practices,
but in a huge multidimensional social/cultural engine/loom
that weaves HISTORY.

G. I would claim that the more usefully or intelligently a
given learning activity connects to THAT, the better.
Learning should just be a matter of "something I read in a
book one time", but almost a matter of
learning/experiencing/becoming who one *is* -- enjoying
and expanding one's view on society, for example.

3. The thing is, life goes on (or has so far) without big
or expensive projects to centralize and coordinate all of
this cultural knowledge in support of learning. Indeed
arguably "culture" works much better in a decentralized
way -- so maybe learning does too?

And yet -- isn't it also the case that, though they be
dispersed and flexible, things like LANGUAGES already
provide some sort of "integration" for the way people work
together? Integration need not be a matter of lock-step,
but can instead be a "loose-enough interoperability".

In short, decentralization is good, but interconnection is
also good, and we can have both. One of the most
interesting features of a system with interconnected bits
is that each interconnection can be a place to gather
"data" (on how information flows between the components).
Data is something people are often interested in...

4. But as I was saying above, "even if we have mountains
of data, how do we make sense of it or do anything useful
with it at all?"

The *specific* "foundations of knowledge" thing that I'm
thinking about is that people like it when things "make
sense" -- but what's that? I'm guessing that it has to do
with employing a handful of activity patterns --

simplifying, interconnecting, establishing control,
establishing practices, discerning motivations, and
doing experiments

At present these are just some ideas I sort of cooked up:
I'm eager to "put them to the test" -- specifically, I
want to make a nice survey of "the way things are" and
then see if I can use those 6 patterns to get to "the way
things could be". That sort of design work is what's "on"
presently.

5. As for why or how "philosophy stuff" relates -- I don't
think I would have thought of half of the things I've
talked about here had I not read Deleuze's "Logic of
Sense". Really that book is about *how events happen*,
given that otherwise we just have a bunch of *stuff*
sitting around. In a way it almost seems like magic --
looking at the various patterns and trends and seeing how
ultimately they spring to life at some points!

At the same time, I'm also seeing more clearly (thanks
partly to a book on Nietzsche that I'm reading) that this
is absolutely just a point of view... MAYBE a point of
view that I can use to enhance my own personal power, or
to help enhance the power of organizations I'm working
with/for.

Even just the idea of "assembling things" is actually a
sort of complicated idea from a philosophy point of view:
this would be something having to do with Hume, for
example, as opposed to Plato (who would probably instead
look for the essential nature of things to reveal
themselves with time).

Finally, I've been trying to get more into Foucault, who
as both a sort of "archivist" and "cartographer" is in
many ways close to what I have in mind as a way of
working. If there is an "philosophical update" from me,
it is to think in terms of dynamic maps and not static
ones. (This relates also to a mathematical idea I've been
thinking a little bit about -- having to do with
semi-self-similar structures; maybe 'practals' or
something like that...)

Obviously I'm not just here to "play with ideas" and so
forth -- but a little bit can't hurt if I'm also able to
"produce". It may in fact turn out that one of the things
the people here would *most* like me to produce is some
"theory" to go along with the practical stuff the grant is
working on.

But at the moment as I said, I'm more concerned with
designing "practical implementation projects that will
produce measurable changes"... and I'm perfectly happy
with that. THIS essay just describes what's going on in
the background.

taking the day off

I feel like it would be good to know when to "take the day
off", but maybe what's on my mind is just "lightening up"
and not expecting the day to be too serious?

identity, interrupted

I am listening to "Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce
read by Patrick Healy
(cf http://www.themodernword.com/Joyce/audio_5.html).
It seems to be exactly the sort of text that is best
enjoyed read aloud. Perhaps time after time.

I'm also looking at "Nietzsche's Philosophy of Nature
and Cosmology". Thinking about the things that
go beyond language.
(cf http://mtprof.msun.edu/Win1993/PlankRev.html)

My current thought is that "intelligence" (sometimes
not so intelligent) exists in "interfaces". Or put it
another way, that Coincidence, Causality, and
Correlation, are completed by Creativity.

But.

The "but" is that once some rather concrete idea
is enunciated, it creates some requirement to
actually do work. That seems to create pressure.
It's not as though we have infinite attention (right?)
(cf http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/468828.html)

It's interesting to mix these things in with the legacy
of the Beats
(e.g. http://www.stevesilberman.com/celestial/)
which just aren't going to pay the bills no matter
how "true" they are -- though perhaps by simply
shifting perspective a bit ("trendiness not
timelessness") we can recover some Sex Pistols-like
/currency/.

I mean, thinking about how focus can be quite nice:
how in order to focus at all, one in fact needs to be
reasonably calm (not hyperfocused; not too "distracted"
either). In the words of Susanna Kaysen,

«freedom was the price of privacy»

but equally, /privacy is the price of freedom/.

an alternative to 'causative process'

We might conceive of the artist as a pre-given entity who views, is
inspired by, and utilizes pre-given things in the world around her as
she then goes about making her work. The production of the work would
then be a causative process contributing in turn to the production of
the historical world. We might also understand the work as an
objectification of the artist, an expression of her inner spirit that
externalizes and actualizes it. Nishida envisioned an alternative: the
artist takes in or intuits the world and transforms or enacts it, both
of which are but two moments in a single unfolding—not only of the
world but of the artist as well. Both artist and work are formed
mutually and are reflected in one another. While this mutual formation
can be described in terms of a causative process taking time, with the
person first intuiting or internalizing and then acting or
externalizing, Nishida described it in terms of the place or topos
wherein intuiting entails acting and acting intuiting, and wherein the
difference between internal and external collapses.
--http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nishida-kitaro/

the space in between seeing and acting

«In attempting to explain the formation and working of the historical
world, Nishida coined the term "action-oriented intuition" (kōi-teki
chokkan). His texts suggest a reciprocity between action and intution,
so that we could also speak of "intuition-oriented action" or simply
of "action-intution" [...] Here again Nishida sought to discover the
topos or common space that underlies a distinction, this time between
intuition or seeing as a more or less passive reception of the world
and its objects, and action as the human-engendered production of the
world.» --http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nishida-kitaro/

snake & monkey

To my way of thinking, the snake's main activity is to be
apprehensive. There are a variety of "good" reasons to
be apprehensive, and probably a variety of not so good
reasons as well.  What I notice is that there's a very
"embodied" or even "yogic" aspect of this.  Movement, talking
with people, breathing all tend to counteract the apprehension.
But much, much, more so -- a sense of accomplishment tends
to make the snake happy,  whereas a sense of failure puts it into
a mode of embroiled frustration.

The snake often sends messages that the monkey doesn't know
what to do with.  It's not clear to me whether it's more apprehensive
about the monkey's potential behavior or about the
situation as a whole.  One way the opposition can be fake is
if the snake says to the monkey: "look at this horrible situation
you've gotten us into."

Well, just because the monkey has a wider range of
activities and proclivities and so on doesn't mean that
it should always take the blame when things go wrong.
The snake seems to think so and wishes to absolve
itself of all blame.  But clearly an apprehension engine
like the snake DOES contribute to bringing things about
(even if its main contribution is to put on the brakes).

I don't think either one is going away (since both
presumably correspond to real brain structures and
not just temporary habits), so I'm guessing the
challenge I face (and presumably at least some
other people are challenged by the same thing) --
is how to make them both happy.

For example, putting in some effort to teach the
monkey to feed and care for the snake, while
also teaching it how to avoid getting bitten or
hissed at a lot.

Going a bit further with this:

Saying things like "trust your intuition!" may really
over simplify matters, if there's a snake-intuition
and a monkey-intuition, for example, and they
*are* in conflict.  And saying "humans are social
animals" is another over simplification, insofar
as humans do have hereditary origins among
much "less social" animals who are still somehow
"social".

http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Parental_Care.html

I don't think I understand where self-criticism
comes from (on the one hand) any better than I
understand where language comes from (on the
other).  Sometimes feeling better is as simple
as having a cup of coffee... potentially both very
social and at the same time, a "mere" matter of
neurochemical doctoring.  Similarly, sometimes
we have the strongest self-criticisms in social
situations -- other times it seems more a matter
of getting up on the wrong side of the bed.

The interplay of animal meanings (e.g. sex)
and human meanings (e.g. partnership) is
hard to understand.  Society is more than
the sum of its brains.  If I've done an OK job
sketching a hypothetical brain's self-relations,
another interesting next step would be to look
at what happens when brains collide.  How
do the range of interpersonal experiences from
admiration to zealotry come about, and where
do they go to once they've arisen?