chaosearching

“In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is, systems whose states evolve with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect).”

(Source: Wikipedia)

Bifurcation diagram of a logistic map, displaying chaotic behaviour past a threshold.

I use the internet constantly as a factory for ideas, searching through links in forums and social networking sites finding new ideas and searching for words and authors from within those ideas, often these searches bring me back to wikipedia, or to interesting blogs and online journals I hadn’t heard of before. I have begun to think of this pattern of seemingly random but naturally dynamically evolving research system as somewhat chaotic hence the title of this post.

In this utterly self indulgent post I want to present a few of my recent searchings and thoughts that pertain to them.

Process Philosophy and Alfred North Whitehead:

I had never heard of either Alfred North Whitehead nor Process Philosophy before I ran across the names on an email list discussion. Searching wikipedia (my immediate port of call for many questions) I discovered that there are some interesting ideas to be had, that may potentially be useful ideas for contemporary conservation theory and a history of science of conservation. The central idea of “Process philosophy” (or Ontology of Becoming) is explained on wikipedia as an idea that identifies metaphysical reality with change and dynamism.

“There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.”

(Source: Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, recorded by Lucien Price, p. 13, 2001).

Education:

I have recently been very interested in alternative approaches to education, and was very pleased to come across the idea of EduPunk on an online anthropology discussion forum. I have suggested before, and continue to believe, that the DIY culture is increasingly gaining in significance across all aspects of the world, including museums, and that Web 2.0 has helped enable this growth in recent years, simply put… punks not dead. I actually like the idea of developing PresPunk (preservation punk).

However enough of the tangent, back to edupunk, I read a blog about edupunk, and was pleased to see that Nina Simon’s Museums 2.0 was given as an example of EduPunk, searching for more information I immediately came across the inevitable entry on wikipedia that led me to a whole host of other interesting articles, blog posts and ideas, and was led to an article that summarised Edupunk as having 3 main strands:

* Reaction against commercialization of learning
* Do-it-yourself attitude
* Thinking and learning for yourself.

(Source: Rowell, Laurie (2008-07-08), “”Edupunk” Rocks the (Virtual) House”, eLearn Magazine).

Elsewhere, I also particularly liked the phrase “Never mind the pedagogues” from the New York Times article:

Kuntz, Tom (October 17, 2008), “The Buzz for ‘Edupunk’”, New York Times.

Rhizome:

Another interesting find in the world of education was the use of the philosophical concept of rhizome as a metaphor for the development of a Web 2.0 educational model.

The idea itself wasn’t this time something new to me, as the “Rhizome” idea from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s book “A Thousand Plateaus” the second part of two volume: “Capitalism and Schizophrenia”, is an idea I have seen used before, however, not in this context, this metaphor seems to me to be a very useful one and I believe it holds validity in the conservation, and probably all other, use of Web 2.0 too.

“Collaborative knowledge construction is also being taken up in fields that are more traditionally coded as learning environments. In particular, social learning practices are allowing for a more discursive rhizomatic approach to knowledge discovery. Social learning is the practice of working in groups, not only to explore an established canon but also to negotiate what qualifies as knowledge.”

(Source: Cormier, D. 2008. Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum. Innovate 4 (5).)

That’s all for now… I’m off to follow the links and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.