Alan wrote:

>  I'm not
> interested in "defining the self," and to the extent I am interested in
> it, it would be through (post)Lacanian reasoning, say, issues of subjec-
> tivity, not explicit morality.

and, later:

>  I'm not sure
> that the content/form dichotomy for example _is_ intrinsic - I fail to
> see for example how it would work on the level of fundamental
> particles. Also, isn't the notion of "taking responsibility oneself" a
> form of rugged individualism - what if I refuse to take such?

I fail to see how anything works at the level of fundamental particles, myself... especially when "fundamental" seems to be the most elusive thing around.

I am concerned with more practical, directly experiential phenomena -- "development," laws, school grades, decisionmaking -- and while I agree with Jon Marshall that is-ness is a pretty slippery thing, it appears to me that you have to start somewhere or alse all argument rapidly becomes circular. What I am positing as "intrinsicality," then, is that I only need one place to start, not three.

When I wrote this morning, "What works is what has worked for several thousand years, now: call it conscience, or self-reflection, or mu, or metta or whatever, its that feeling of solidarity that lives in community," I was aware that the mix of internal and external referents might be confusing. (Cf kmm064.) My experience has been that sanity -- or civilization -- is a thin film, and that the community-education-conscience cycle is a precarious thing indeed. Whether it really is or not, I find it a more productive image than the alternative reductionist position that they are tough, bounded, independent entities.

So the interesting issue, to my mind, is the dynamic relation between individual and community. "Defining" may not be the best word for this, I agree; but English is not strong on distinguishing between states and processes anyhow. The current state (!) of my thought is that there is real, functional, survival value in accepting a dialectic, not only between indiv and group, but between group action and group rule(s) as well as between my thought content and my thought structure (or self), what is meant and what is stated, the poetic exchanges that comprise a list and the didacticism of a computerized list- server (not to mention (re Philosophy and Cybermind) the outrageous possibility that mankind does not live by rationality alone. (Cf Saul.)

The corollary is, there is real disfunctional value in conflating these dyads -- as when lawmaking becomes political manipulation, or assessment grading becomes judgment (or the goal of study), or "I" become my-identity-thing-of-the-moment (or my creation/ handiwork)... or a list becomes nothing-but talk about how to organize itself..

Certainly there is synthesis -- "where I start" is going to get modified in my search for meaning -- but that's not circularity, that's growth. But synthesis can't be "engineered" without strangling it: we (in the Korzybskian we-sub-one sense) do not have the tools (and we-sub- 2 have them, but they're now integrated -- and, lo, there's a new syn underway... Cf. Bootstrap). It's much better to leave it to itself, and go with the flow. If you have to do something "about" the river, I say (in epigrammatic mode), put your effort into finding out what river it is.

=======
But this is just why education is such a fascinating notion, in terms of either the individual process of adjustment to the world, or the social process of trying to reproduce itself. (Dualistic) Consciousness is determined to think "I. learn. something." (and if society thought, it would think something pretty similar as it bundles its littlies into boxes), basically cooking up all kinds of new gimmicks and terms to define an organic process into "objective" states. And, no suprise I'm sure, it's here that the flaws in the discrete position are most clearly evident, and where my "current state" of thought began.

---

Ken wrote:

> It is impossible in practice, and maybe even in
> principle, to give reasons for all of what one believes. But the struggle
> to provide justification is of crucial importance in any philosophical
> project. 

As it happens, I revisited the [ Open University] site today, and found a happy phrase:

[A student is expected] to be able to create a synthesis containing both the results of their analysis and new ideas independently created

which suggests all is not lost: the educational institution is to be a miniature society, a controlled environment wherein one can practise the art of synthesis until it becomes natural. But the question this raises is whether one can explicitly learn something without being- made-explict also being learned: Isnt this the conflation problem referred to above? Of course: as any parent knows, and as sages of previous ages knew, what is learned best is that learned without realizing. It follows (and I think contemporary schooling is evidence) that for a human dialectic to be true (to 'work'), it cannot be expressed. (Therefore, if it is true, it is intrinsic...)

And what ho! here's another: [ Enriching Computer-Mediated Group Learning By Coupling Constructivism With Collaborative Learning ] by W. R. Klemm and J. R. Snell

 Department of Veterinary Anatomy & Public Health
   Texas A & M University 
   College Station, TX 77843

ABSTRACT

   Group learning can be a powerful educational experience, whether in
   distance or on-site education. However, group learning is often
   trivialised by the threaded-topic discussion format that is typically
   used in computer conference systems. Teachers can lead a group to
   raise the intellectual level of group discourse by requiring student
   groups to produce tangible work products (not just opinion comments)
   and by creating a logical structure to achieve this end. Secondly, the
   teacher's efforts can be leveraged by promoting interdependent student
   teams in which students help each other to produce the academic 
   deliverables [sic].

I translate: An easy piece for CM would be to collaborate on a textual 'product' that was something more than A-says followed by B-says...

Notes

Comments? Contributions? Write to Serchan.