tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post5043686666705447501..comments2024-02-14T22:50:48.749+10:30Comments on Bill Kerr: philosophical principlesBill Kerrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-52500688405733748712007-10-07T10:26:00.000+09:302007-10-07T10:26:00.000+09:30More in response to tomI think 3,4 and 5 is part o...More in response to tom<BR/><BR/>I think 3,4 and 5 is part of modernity that emerges from the computer, that is a continuation of the Enlightenment / Marxist modernity of the other points<BR/><BR/>In that <A HREF="http://www.vpri.org/pdf/human_condition.pdf" REL="nofollow">alan kay </A> essay he points out that most of modern science (400 year tradition) can be done with simple tools - requires point of view, effort, time but not money - but that new forms of science do open up as accessible to children using computers (eg. dynamic systems approaches)<BR/><BR/>So apart from my Korzybski-ist PM deviation it all works for meBill Kerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-16177706789843810412007-10-07T10:15:00.000+09:302007-10-07T10:15:00.000+09:30hi tom,I hadn't realised that Korzybski was post-m...hi tom,<BR/><BR/>I hadn't realised that Korzybski was post-modern until I read Doug's wikipedia link. My influence there came from the <A HREF="http://www.vpri.org/pdf/human_condition.pdf" REL="nofollow">alan kay article </A>, which is beautiful in all respects (ideas, presentation, writing style) - but also from Gregory Bateson, read long ago ('Mind and Nature'). Actually Hegel comes in there too. Marxist philosophy owes a lot to idealist philosophy.<BR/><BR/>Your comment that 1,2,7 and 8 represent a modern view (despite some of them originating from more than 2000 years ago) is spot on. I guess the "web2.0" movement might find that a bit hard to understand :-) Most of them seem to think that history began with AJAX, without even understanding the AJAX :-) I haven't read Andrew Keen but liked the fact that he at least referred to the historical context in his <A HREF="http://conversationhub.com/2007/07/09/video-david-weinberger-and-andrew-keen/" REL="nofollow">debate with Weinberger </A>Bill Kerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-73952321029992794712007-10-07T09:46:00.000+09:302007-10-07T09:46:00.000+09:30There is a pretty clear distinction between the mo...There is a pretty clear distinction between the modern (1., 2., 7., 8.), post-modern (6.) and the math/tech sides (3., 4., 5.) in your points.<BR/><BR/>One thing that drives me crazy about our favorite ed-tech K-12 Web 2.0 rhetoricians is the exclusion of modernity and modernism from the discourse. To get this right you have to understand modernity and then understand how new technology sits on top of it.Tom Hoffmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08577165613934129833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-71866385320182926412007-10-07T07:14:00.000+09:302007-10-07T07:14:00.000+09:30hi doug,Your first paragraph might induce me to wr...hi doug,<BR/><BR/>Your first paragraph might induce me to write a new blog about something I've been thinking about recently - the problem of living in the present (and how that's partly a critique of the "web2.0 movement"). At any rate, good luck with dealing with the pervasiveness of instrumentalism - sometimes to explain it to others does make some impact.<BR/><BR/>very interesting links to Korzybski - loved the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski#Anecdote_about_Korzybski" REL="nofollow">anecdote in wikipedia</A> where he demonstrates that people eat words, not just food<BR/><BR/>You will love this essay by alan kay, <A HREF="http://www.vpri.org/pdf/human_condition.pdf" REL="nofollow">our human condition, 'from space'</A><BR/><BR/>You mention Neil Postman. I've been reading his book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death", his critique of TV on our discourse. It has made me see the world through new eyes. I discuss Postman in a couple of other blogs:<BR/><A HREF="http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/09/our-intelligence.html" REL="nofollow">our intelligence </A><BR/><A HREF="http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/08/everything-bad-while-in-process-of.html" REL="nofollow"> everything bad </A>Bill Kerrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00206808014093631762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29868932.post-29055175314049441622007-10-07T04:34:00.000+09:302007-10-07T04:34:00.000+09:30I appreciate, in particular, the bullet point abou...I appreciate, in particular, the bullet point about difficulty sustaining the critique of instrumentalism, since this has moved me in the last several months to evaluate my own philosophical positions. It's not easy to come to terms with the contradictions I face in my own educational practice (dialectics, again?).<BR/><BR/>And to throw another log on the fire for you regarding point #6, map and territory, the work of the general semanticist <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski" REL="nofollow">Alfred Korzybski</A> has been popularized by Neil Postman and S.I. Hayakawa, (also Wendell Johnson, who is less well-known, I think), and they've used the map-territory metaphor extensively in their writing. I recently ran across an archive of articles published in <A HREF="http://learn-gs.org/library/etc/index.html" REL="nofollow">ECT: A review of General Semantics</A>. Maybe you can make use of some of them.Doug Noonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13407946361739255563noreply@blogger.com