Walter Logeman: Journal
I have just listened to a spectacular podcast. From 2006 – I missed it till I changed my system of managing podcasts – giving in to the iTunes default way.
Kevin Kelly – The Next 100 Years of Science: Long-term Trends in the Scientific Method.
Download: iTunes — Direct download
The textual summary is here:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly06/kelly06_index.html
I continue to discuss the podcast and relate themes to my own writing.
McLuhan (Wikipedia) said the computer was the extension of the brain, in the same way the wheel was an extension of the legs. Prosthesis. Kevin Kelly (podcast) has taken this a step further. The web, the cloud, the one connected machine, is an extension of the self. Well done. Everything is out there in that cloud.
But self? What is self?
Via negativia, it is not the thoughts, not the sensations, not even the breath as air interfaces with the body, it is not the body. Psychodrama postulates the personality as the sum of our roles and more than the sum of the parts, and each role is part of a system of networked roles. I’m tempted to say the self is our networked roles, and that they are extended into the net. Useful as that idea might be it is not the self.
And does self have a small or a capital S? to place the notion in a Jungian frame, self or Self? Another word for “me” or an archetype?
Is it the self that dreams?
The self is what’s left when we drop the ego?
It is not so much a mystery, but a difficult thing to talk about. Psyche, soul, self, spirit all these things are usually appended to a tradition of language, they are hard to talk about without metaphor, as there is no “thing”. Soul, in the Archetypal psychology tradition is somewhat different from soul the Christian tradition. Ken Wilber tried to typologise it all, usefully?
For all that, Kevin Kelly’s contribution adds something wonderful to the sphere of discourse. And via negativia, something similar happens in cyberspace as in the age old discourse about Self. Is the Net the hardware? It is not the hardware. Is it the software then? Certainly not one particular bit of software, and not really all of it either. The net involves people, it is between people, perhaps it is people mediated by the net. It is a conversation, one conversation.
One. There may be a few small clouds but to be really part of anything is to be connected to the net, to the one big cloud. One net. Hold that idea and reflect on the collective unconscious. Also hold the idea that all life is expression of one unfolding DNA fest. And then note the religious idea we are all one.
Once again I am at a familiar place, psyche & cyberspace resonate, psyberspace.
I have been assisting some people to connect online, and to participate in online groups. blog. This is a post for people who are computer shy. “Not technical”. Hate computers. Feel stupid around computers. Wish we were back with no email, and vinyl disks.
Perhaps one of the reasons kids can do this more easily than older people is that they play. If you want to paint you need to finger paint, mix colours, try texture, play with what you have. One pencil and some paper is enough.
I was older but got into computers through play on a ZX81 (my father’s gift to his grandson). Later when the phone got involved the main play was a game of connect. Like having two tin cans and string. 
Before you can use this medium in a creative way… play. Play till you know what ctrl a and ctrl b and ctrl c, v, x, z, n, u, can do! (Are there any more of those?)
Who reads manuals? Occasionally maybe, but mostly I play. I might try every item on the menu to see what it does. I look for a buddy who likes to play and send tests, I fire a question into Google rather than look at a manual, then there is a chance of some serendipity, a conversation.
One step leads to the next, but too often people want to miss the play step, and go straight to the work step. Then it becomes painful.
Even if you are scared of it… hate it, you can play. Think of a child hiding behind their mother’s skirts when there is something scary… they still peep out, they look. Then they might take a step. And children play together.
A computer course might help… but it is often that something will work when you are taught on another computer & then at home you can download the right software. Pain! Passwords don’t work! Pain. How much of that sort of pain do you need before you quit?
It is all about levels. Like levels in a computer game. Level 1. Switch it on. Level 2. Get connected. Level 3, do something you want to do. Those levels might involve quite a bit of play! Phone call play. Finding a buddy play. Trial & error play. Playing with the crap that comes up on a new laptop. Deleting it. Where are things stored? Installing Google Desktop so you can find things, setting up the virus checker. If all that stuff is tedious… boring scary… how can you play? If it is a series of levels to get through… maybe it is fun.
It is fun for me, and for many people I know, and almost the opposite for others. Is it a gene?
I had the extra incentive that there was a spell checker on my Commodore64, it liberated me from dyslexia. That was a strong incentive to play. Another thing is that I find the net, the cyberworld, where ideas live, alluring. Before the net I was a reader, and I am still. A hyper-reader, I learn about the next book from the one I am currently reading, links. Always hungry for the next book. A craving to be on the edge of the known & the unknown.
Here is one idea… don’t try to achieve anything at all. Look at this thing in front of you; not this post, not your computer, but this window into worlds unchartered. What is alluring? Nothing… Ok, try again, don’t pay attention to the fears, the doubts the, critique… focus on what is alluring… can you hear the call at all?
P.S. the image above was the result of five minutes play in ArtRage 2. I am called to that!
I have no doubt behaviour patterns change. The article makes sense. But I don’t like the way people talk about humans. As if we are just a bunch of neurones. It may be true, but music is just vibrations, so are paintings, lightwaves on the retina. That is not human talk.
So a more disturbing phenomena is that people are seen as computers by psychologists.
An interesting article follows none the less about the use of cell phones by kids, and the effect of the net on our concentration.
I continue to hold an hypothesis that the behaviour of particles is a microcosm of human relationships. Not just as a metaphor, but that something of the “tele” involved is the same in both levels.
Listening to this podcast from Nights on RNZ confirms and extends this hypothesis. But hypothesis aside – it is ASTOUNDING stuff!
Synchronistically I just had this one arrive from the BBC IOT, have not listened yet.
I’m motivated about theatre after todays experience is Second Life, both because of it being a Theatre par excellence AND because our host Kim had such an exciting deep perspective about drama and education. Learning about Boal was a find, though it is more a case of finding something lost. I think I owned a copy of Theatre of the Oppressed at one time, having a brush with Paulo Friere in the early seventies. He spoke here just as we were setting up a school.
The motivation is not just an external thing, it has been on my mind as I prepare to train others in Psychodrama this year. Theatre is an essential component of Psychodrama – it is as much theatre as therapy, it is therapy because it is theatre… but we must go further than that. Psychodrama is not only “clinical Psychodrama” it includes applications on the world, good theatre can transform the world.
I don’t like the line he has below, though the last thing I really want is a debate, I love the spirit of all this,
“it is a rehearsal for the revolution”
The reason I don’t like that in therapy is more obvious. It is possible in surplus reality to scream, shout, and annihilate whole planets, to do what you will. This only works if people are stable enough to see this as NOT a rehearsal.
So what is it?
Transformation, making things possible in the world.
So, when it comes to Sociodrama, that too might be a way of transformation, making things possible in the world.
Theatre guru Augusto Boal: “As workshop leader, I am merely an instrument”
February 2008 –“I always fiercely opposed our government, but that is over now. Gilberto Gil is an excellent Minister of Culture. The Minister of Justice recently announced that cultural centres will be established in two hundred Brazilian cities. That is fantastic, because I know this is not an empty promise. It feels like a reward for our years of work.”
Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal (Rio de Janeiro, 1931) wrote his first book, Teatro del oprimido (Theatre of the Oppressed), in 1975. His philosophy has attracted followers under that name throughout the world. “The audience holds a general rehearsal for what happens in daily life. Key concepts are human development and freedom. The theatre shows us new roles. In essence, these roles are ready and waiting for the time when the viewer actually needs them. The theatre itself is not revolutionary: it is a rehearsal for the revolution.”
I had my first Second Life Experience today. It was OK!
I have written it up in a private space.
I am excited to learn about Augstus Boal and Metaxis
Blog post quote follows
While tidying up my cupboards I found a sheet of info from my Social Work training in the early 80s. I have OCRed it and it appears below. It is one of the best things I got from the Social Work training. SYSTEMS.
Systems Approach to Social Networks
The conceptualisation of the human body into systems e.g. digestive systems circulatory system, autonomic nervous system assists in the treatment of individual people. Social work is developing system concepts which can assist in the treatment of social problems.
The system concept used in the management of cases includes the following four systems:
CHANGE AGENT SYSTEM.
The initiators of planned change. Usually .kis unit, but at times other agencies – e.g. Child and Family Guidance Centre.THE CLIENT SYSTEM,
The individual, family or group-that is the expected
beneficiary of the change.ACTION’ SYSTEM
The various people that effect the change – this
can of course include the client or the chance agent but also any other avalilable.resources.TARGET SYSTEM.
The people or groups that need to be changed in order to achieve the goals.It is important to note.that in one “case” there may be a variety of goals and that for EACH goal there will be a different content in each system.
E.G.
A patient may wish to improve her relationship with her
husband – (goal 1). She may wish to have her children back
from a foster placement (goal 2). Each of these goals may
have quite different TARGET, ACTION, CLIENT systems.
Note: that each goal is contracted with the client and social worker
and must be acceptable to bothSocial Work Practice
Model & Method
Pincus & Minahan., Peacock Pub. 1975.
Phronesis (Greek: φρόνησις) in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is the virtue of moral thought, usually translated “practical wisdom”, sometimes as “prudence”.
I imagine the word Praxis is in there somewhere, action and reflection. But it is not because of that idea I am blogging this. It is because of two references in the Wikipedia article to books that refute the use of physical sciences in the social world.
Phronesis is the capability to consider the mode of action in order to deliver change, especially to enhance the quality of life. …
Gaining phronesis requires maturation, in Aristotle’s thought:
“ Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it (Nichomachean Ethics 1142 a). ”
Learning from experience is in there, but that is different from learning empirically, there is something else going on. The type of knowing that one gets from internal (moral?) investigation is qualitatevley different from observation of the world.
Here are the two books. I’ll add the Amazon links.
Bent Flyvbjerg, in his book Making Social Science Matter, has argued that instead of trying to emulate the natural sciences, the social sciences should be practiced as phronesis. Phronetic social science [1] focuses on four value-rational questions: (1) Where are we going? (2) Who gains and who loses, by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should we do about it?
In After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre makes a similar call for a phronetic social science, combined with weighty criticism of attempts by social scientists to emulate natural science. He points out that for every prediction made by a social scientific theory there are usually counter-examples. These derive from the unpredictability of human beings, and the fact that one unpredictable human being can have a world-changing impact.
Amazon Making Social Science Matter
Amazon After Virtue
… the ability to perceive difference is a crucial, perhaps a necessary prerequisite for spontaneity. I saw more clearly one of the purposes of the psychodramatic technique of mirroring, it allows information, potentially lost* to be maximised and responded to.
This is a quote from an article I wrote in 1987! My friend Don said he had something I wrote back then, he dug it out. Wonderful to see it. Thanks Don! I recognised it as something I had written, especially the typeface from my old Brother Golf Ball printer but that was about it, I recalled nothing of the content.
I quite like it though, and here is a link to the whole paper, now scanned and online.
