Collaborative Project Proposal

[Nora]

Not long after I joined the IGS board, I wrote a proposal for a grant from New Voices in Journalism, which funds innovative uses of new media for furthering the goals of non-profits. My proposal included, among other things, what I called a "first-responder" group, who would commit to monitoring various news streams for stories that seem to exemplify identification, language abuse, flawed abstractions, logic mis-use, etc., and then write gs-oriented responses that they or others could then incorporate into letters to local editors, posts on forums and blogs, or even use as the basis for email campaigns.

We did not get the grant, but the idea still makes good sense, to me, anyway. I'd like to propose that This new group (which is not That) collaborate to develop something like what I had proposed. We have the forum for doing so, and the folks who can do it, and the web has progressed just that much more that it does not tax the imagination to see some of our blog postings appearing on other sites. Whatever we do will take work: reading, discussing, writing, editing, vigilance, persistence, rationality, etc.

I've attached to this post the original proposal to New Voices, so you can get a better idea of what I envisioned, to kick off discussion on what we might want to make of it.

Thoughts?

[Gary Chapin]

Count me in, Nora. I'd be happy to take the Educational press beat. I can't monitor TV news, though -- I don't want to have to go back on my meds. :)

[David Linwood]

Hi Nora,

Interesting proposal. I wonder if we could get acceptance of a similar proposal along the lines you sketched if we associated ourselves with the TCU School of Journalism? Perhaps Steve Stockdale could address this idea and find out if Tommy Thomason at TCU might spring for such an idea.

Nora, are you currently associated with any University based Journalism Departments?.

I have a very close friend here in the English Department at U of TN, Knoxville. I am a Lecturer in the Math Dept, I believe U of TN Journalism is under the aegis of the English Department, but I'll check it out.

David

[Nora]

At the time I wrote the proposal, I had thought we might get some help from the folks at Missouri or some other school, but since we didn't get the grant, we obviously didn't pursue it.

It would be great if TCU would consider somehow sponsoring or participating in or advising on this project. Steve? Any thoughts on that? Maybe your students could participate as a class assignment? Real practical applications of gs....

Alas, I not only do not have any journalism connections, I don't really have any journalism creds. When I first went to college, I thought I would major in journalism, but I got married instead (got my "Mrs" degree, as they used to say in those days.) I went back in the 70s to get a BS in Math from one of the Vermont state colleges--I was one of three total math majors in the whole school.

In most other fields in which I dabble, I qualify as self-taught, I guess. I grew up believing that I could do most any job with a little bit of practice and a fair amount of bluff. It has worked more than once (but in exchange I have to endure severe bouts of imposter syndrome waiting for someone to call my bluff!) Generally I made a point of having an opinion about anything that came up. You'd be surprised how often that sounds like knowledge! (Or maybe you wouldn't).

That, combined with a fairly strong belief in my grasp of good English got me into writing and editing. I'll mark up anybody's copy--I have even been known to send letters to companies whose websites or magazines I read, offering free advice on typos and other errors I encounter (talk about chutzpah, eh?). Once my name appeared in ETC, I realized I could indeed do anything (hah!). So I elbowed my way into Paul, and when time came for him to retire, no one could think of anybody else to do it, so the prize fell to me. I very much enjoyed many aspects of producing the past few issues, but I can happily look ahead to something else just as rewarding and maybe not quite so stressful.

[David Linwood]

Hi Nora:
A tentative addition to your lovely logo?
David

[Nora]

With strings attached, eh? I like it--it made me laugh. I actually started out trying to turn the word "Time" into a structural differential, but free-hand, it looked pretty silly, with all these very squiggly lines hanging off the letters. Your idea works better--very tidy.

[David Linwood]

Hi Nora,
It's a first effort -- let's see what others can do, so we have a choice, or a contest, or what not -- maybe just have fun. A laugh or two is great.

We could build a Consciousness of Abstraction Laboratory here online. Let me quote from a description of mine here.
__________________________________________________________
In 1945, after I had been working for two months at the Institute of General Semantics in Chicago on 56th Street, I took a seminar with Dr. Frank Chisholm, and then an intensive summer seminar with Alfred Korzybski. I purchased a copy of Science and Sanity and immersed myself in its pages for a solid month, hour after hour, each day, reading through it, thoroughly, in a week and a half, pausing only for quick meals and a few hours sleep each day.

On my second reading I made extensive marginal notes, and the third time, I paused long enough to write down my own “take” on various notions that Korzybski presented.

I was especially impressed with AK’s central formulation of the consciousness of abstracting. I felt that was the keel of the ship – in Book II, Part VII: On the Mechanism of Time-Binding.

And the neurological data that AK reviewed In Chapter XVII, On the Notion of ‘Matter’, Space’, ‘Time’, gave me a very solid understanding of the physical nature of ‘sensation’, and the tools employed by the mind-body in the process of abstraction. AK quoted directly from Introduction to Neurology by Professor C. Judson Herrick. Herrick’s Table of Physical Vibrations had a tremendous impact on my re-orientation. I began to realize how very little of the process level we actually had access to in our view of the ‘universe’ (the process level.)

I discussed these notions from Korzybski’s book with my friends at the dormitory where I lived. They were fascinated by my summary.

We decided to set up our own “laboratory” in the commons room at the dormitory. Two of our number volunteered to be blind-folded – we took turns at this – and when their vision was thoroughly blocked by a layer of cloth, covered with a black mask that prevented all possibility of ‘peeking’, we rearranged all the furniture in the commons room into an ‘obstacle course’. The idea was to traverse the obstacle course without touching any of the rearranged furniture, by depending only on the sound waves, and our interpretation of those sound waves, and perhaps temperature differences on various parts of our skin surface, like the forearm, palm, forehead, etc.

One experiment – my favorite – consisted of approaching a solid wall, while blindfolded and getting as close to it as possible, without actually touching it, guided entirely by sound wave reflections, and heat transfer from the cooler wall plaster. I became very good at this after some hours of practice, and could get my nose as close as a quarter inch without touching.

We also used a pair of points on a drawing compass that we could adjust to a fraction of a millimeter, and test the skin sensations on the back, the chest, the arms, etc., while we were blind-folded, to measure the ‘resolution’ of the touch sensation on various parts of the anatomy. The table that Korzybski quotes in his book (IV Structural Factors in Non-A Languages) correlated nicely with our experience in this set of experiments.

Points as far apart as four inches are felt as a single point on the skin of the back. Points together as close as two millimeters are still felt as two points on the palmar surface of the forefinger. Survival seems to dictate that we ‘face’ danger and not turn our back on it.

Points on the tip of the tongue as close as a millimeter are still ‘perceived’ as two points. But why is the tip of the tongue so capable of resolution compared to the fingertip? Think of the last time you detected that tiny, sharp piece of bone in your chicken salad sandwich.

I cannot over-emphasize the ‘impact’ that these experiments have on one’s view of the world. When one finally ge

[Nora]

Yeah, that's the idea. Although these might not be quite so much fun in the virtual world. Your story does remind me of a possible virtual approach.

I get a periodic RSS feed from a site called Cognitive Daily. These folks blog on all the latest in neuroscience, and once a week along with the report on a particular study, they conduct a poll. Sometimes there's a movie to watch, or slides to look at or a sound file. Their readers do the poll and then respond with their impressions, reactions to the study, interpretation of the results, etc. Besides giving folks a chance to participate in the research (kind of), this also provides some interesting insight into the people who frequent the blog.

The Cognitive Daily site participates in a larger "blogosphere" of 70 neuroscience and general science oriented blogs, called "scienceblogs.com", and they all share links with each other and comment on each other's blogging. We need to get in with such a group. We can do that best by coming up with some interesting posts with fun exercises like you describe.

We can start by having some of our people visiting the participating sites, posting comments, linking back to posts here. That draws in readers that will then comment on stuff here, and link back to their own blogs. The net is really a network now, all interconnected.

[David Linwood]

A short "dream sequence" here:
I envisage a school-teacher dealing with the "is of identity" somewhat as follows. "The grass is green." Show a picture a child may have produced where the grass has been crayoned in as green. Then show a picture of, say, Seurat's painting, "An Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte", in which we see figures of people standing and sitting under the trees. (open attached file). In the shade, under a tree, the grass looks purplish or even black. Out in the sunlight, the grass looks "greenish". Magnify the painting of the grass or any other parts of the painting to show the thousands of dots of many different colors. Show the "green" grass, magnified, and ask the children to count how many differently colored dots they can find. Repeat with the "grass in the shade".

Now this "dream lesson" to small children -- could it actually be done? Would it have value? Impact? Would real teachers do it? Could they be induced to try it?

[Nora]

Your dream lesson reminds me strongly of a protracted episode from my own childhood. My father, a doctor, painted in his leisure time. He leaned toward impressionistic realism--barns, country lanes, snowy fields with blue brooks, etc. One day I objected to his use of blue paint to create a shadow in one of those snowy fields. "Shadows are BLACK," I insisted. We argued a bit on the subject. Eventually, he made me go look, but for the longest time, I still only saw a "black shadow" laid across the white snow. I conceded that it might "look" blue, but the *shadow* was still a black thing. To my regret, I only came to my senses, and realized that "shadows" do not have an independent existence, after he died, so I never got to tell him he was "right".

This does suggest both the need for such a lesson, and the potential difficulty of getting it across. While little ones want very much to learn whatever they can, they also tend towards pretty literal interpretations. Of course, your provocative and nicely designed lesson would have more success in conjunction with many others and in the context of a prevailing attitude towards scientific thinking on the part of the teacher.

[l'm]

Hello David,

I feel like trying it out with 8 children from 7 to 9 years old tomorrow or Friday for a lecture in a little school of art where I have been teaching computer graphics for a long time.

I actually chose to create patterns with them (like for a real wallpaper or tiling etc...).

I will tell you if any interesting result.

I attach a detail of a pointillist work (Seurat again).

Cheers!

[Nora]

I look forward to hearing the results!

And oh look....a blue shadow under this man's chin!

[David Linwood]

Luc,

Fascinating!

Your wallpaper or tiling patterns will serve just as well for young students.

For older, teen-agers, the use of Seurat, or others, may serve as an introduction to impressionist era paintings.

Many people are not aware of the visual revolution produced by these pioneering artists who thumbed their collective noses at the academy painters with their "licking" style, dour, dark paintings- who were "controlling" the "norms" of painting. A real part of the French revolution we don't read about in the history books.

David