http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Can-you-guess-the-source-tp523696p523734.html
Hi Allison: your project sounds great, please keep us posted. There is a
sub-communities would like to have available in the tool-chest. If you'd be
> Hello all,
>
> This is a fun discussion to be following. The use of technology to
> influence the emergence of socio-political processes & dynamics is
> something
> that I've become interested in as well. I've begun working with some USF
> Complexity Brownbag colleagues on developing a web platform of sorts to
> facilitate the "co-creation" of policy...we call it "WikiPolicy" for
> short.
> We plan to use the policies and issues relating to the institutional abuse
> of youth as the pilot issue / policy, as I am aware that there is already
> a
> lot of web-based discussion and community-organizing occurring in relation
> to this issue. As we've conceived of it so far, in WikiPolicy there will
> be
> a "room" for each perspective: let's say youth, parents, program
> operators,
> child-serving professionals, and legislators. New rooms may form as
> additional perspectives show up, such as educational consultants,
> transport
> services, and others involved in "the industry" of private residential
> treatment. Each room will include a mechanism for uploading & tagging
> stories (either using Dave Snowden's Cog Edge Sensemaker software or
> possibly Theodore Taptikis' Storymaker software), a wiki for a collective
> &
> continually re-worked "our perspective" statement, a wiki for the
> continual
> tweaking and editing of an actual policy relating to the issue(in this
> case,
> we'll go with George Miller's H.R. 1738 which died last year in committee
> but we hear will soon be revived) and a chat space for continual
> sense-making among participants. The idea is that policy makers could
> then
> tap into the WikiPolicy site to get a more detailed sense of how different
> folks feel about the issue and what more specifically people take issue
> with
> in terms of proposed legislation, rather than just flying in a few people
> to
> provide testimony to inform the crafting of a given piece of legislation.
> If it really took off, it might even change dynamics relating to lobbying.
> Also, we think it would be interesting to see what happens when
> individuals
> / sectors with different perspectives are able to become more familiar
> with
> the particulars of one another's perspectives, and then to see how this
> might influence self-organization in terms of decisions and actions
> regardless of what plays out with regard to policy.
>
> If anybody's got suggestions for us, technology-wise or otherwise, I'd be
> glad to hear your thoughts & ideas.
>
> Allison Pinto
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On
> Behalf
> Of Michael Agar
> Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 12:15 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source.
>
> "Reflexivity" is one of those terms... Nice and neat in set theory,
> a relation R is reflexive in set A iff for all a in A aRa is true.
> Then there's the ethnomethodology version, which means talk and
> situation dynamically co-constitute each other. Then there's the
> focused ethno version I learned, namely that the ethnographer is part
> of the data. Then there's the critical theory version, namely putting
> a project in broader historical context to evaluate interests it
> serves with a critical evaluation vis a vis a model of the good society.
>
> Almost as bad as trying to define "complexity" (:
>
> Mike
>
>
> On Apr 13, 2007, at 7:06 PM, Matthew Francisco wrote:
>
>> Dr. Daniels,
>>
>> I want to make sure I understand you. See below...
>>
>> On 4/13/07, Marcus G. Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>>> Mikhail Gorelkin wrote:
>>>> reflexivity is also a part of cybernetics (of second order), and
>>>> cybernetists think that complexity theory is a part of
>>>> cybernetics too...
>>>>
>>> For the social scientist, the approach raises two problems:
>>>
>>> 1) Too much reflection means too much attention to models of the
>>> world.
>>> To ask the right questions means having unbiased data on how
>>> people in
>>> some context of interest actually behave.
>>
>> I take it that when you say context of interest you are inferring that
>> this is a model of the world. I understand you as meaning that
>> context is unstable, always shifting, as a natural outcome of
>> reflection. The act of shifting contexts and perspectives and between
>> models of the world is reflexivity. That's a good way to think of it!
>>
>> Asking the right questions means settling on a few world models at the
>> most but one, a context of interest, is preferred. I'm, however,
>> unclear on the relationship of unbiased data to the framework you are
>> proposing. Does biased data arise from gathering data in one model of
>> the world, moving to another, gathering more data, moving to another
>> model of the world and so on? I believe that there is some other
>> criteria that you have for determining if data is biased or unbiased
>> that might not be related to one or many world models and the shifting
>> between them, but I'm unsure. I acknowledge that I may be asking the
>> wrong questions here. Please advise!
>>
>>
>>>
>>> 2) It's typically not possible to sufficiently influence or observe
>>> people to understand cause and effect across individuals or groups.
>>> The insights gained from reflexive participation will just be the
>>> kind
>>> of models we get living life (but with fancied-up language to
>>> sound more
>>> important than they are). Seems to me this kind of modeling is
>>> more the
>>> domain of the intelligence agencies than universities.
>>>
>>
>> I take it that when you say that there is an impossibility to
>> influence or observe then you are speaking from a particular model of
>> the world. I cannot understand what you mean by sufficiency until I
>> better understand where you are coming from. I think that it is most
>> appropriate here for me to take responsibility for my ignorance on
>> this because I don't think that I adequately explained the model of
>> the world that I'm living in when I speak of reflexivity much less
>> interpret how you think about it based on what I said or what you
>> already know. I really would like to share it with you if I can, but
>> I also don't want to bore FRIAM (I'm absolutely capable of that!).
>>
>> I think that if reflexive participation, as you put it, by an analyst
>> could get at the world you experience living your life then it would
>> be a highly successful approach. That's a pretty radical claim you're
>> making! I'd say that such analysis would give some insight into
>> another person's world but definitely not a replication of the same
>> model.
>>
>> I recently watched a whole slew of spy movies (The Conversation,
>> Syriana, The Good Shepard.) and I think that you're absolutely right
>> that the model of reflexivity your proposing, shifting between models
>> of the world, fits with the narratives portrayed in these films. You
>> defiantly gave me an entirely new way to think about reflexive
>> sociology! Does such an approach not belong in the University?!? I'm
>> intrigued. Thanks for this response, you really got me thinking!
>>
>> Have a good night
>>
>> Matt
>>
>>
>>>
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http://www.friam.org>>>
>>
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org>
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