User:KostaToronto/Work in Progress 1

Working Titles:


 * What's a Wiki Workbench Doing in My Mindspace? and Other Musings on Education, Technology, and Philosophy

Key Words


 * archaeology: In Foucaultian terms, the comparative study of epistemes.


 * episteme: An underlying system of thought. Broader than a paradigm or world-view, an episteme is so ubiquitous, taken for granted, or subconscious that we don't even engage with it consciously. Foucault defines two epistemes (and, in later works, modified his earlier position by stating that more than one episteme can be in effect at once):


 * continuity: This episteme is one of fluidity, universality, and analogy; all things are inherently connected universally (e.g., the Great Chain of Being, with God at its summit) and can be known by juxtaposition with other things with similar qualities, which is why Foucault called it "similitude." One can visualize a universal continuum or spiral that includes all things, including objects (be they abstract/spiritual or physical), phenomena (e.g., visible or invisible), utterances, words, even letters. Within this episteme, an athlete's speed can be explained by way of an analogy to a horse or wings (centaurs, winged sandals), which is analogous to the wind, to the incantation of a certain vowel sound by a sorcerer, etc.; a treacherous river is likened to the Hydra monster ("hydra" meaning "water" in Greek); society functions like a human body (the Medieval body politic, with arms being the soldiers, legs being the labourers, the king being the head, etc.). According to Foucault, this episteme began in prehistoric times and lasted until it experienced a gradual decline by the mid-1600s.


 *  reason: Foucault argues that this episteme emerged during the Neoclassical Age (c. 1650-1810), hence why Foucault called it "classisism." It is primarily one of containment, contextualization, and contrast. In particular contexts or fields of knowledge, units of meaning, such as words or signs, can be applied in a one-to-one correspondence to refer to things, and truth can be defined in context. Since the mind of man is the locus of reason, man, not God, becomes the centre of all knowing (hence what some boldly have called "the death of God"). Reason remains the dominant episteme among people in most Western countries (consider how controlled, contexualized, and well-defined utterances by "experts" are the kind that we take most seriously today).


 * mindspace: My conceptual model (think of it as an extended visual metaphor) of an individual's field of knowledge. I like to imagine a large, grassy field with trees, rocks, and some uneven terrain (although any image of an open field works). One's mindspace includes many components (see below):


 * materials: Adhesives, parts, and pegs.


 * adhesives: Epistemes that keep building blocks securely together so that they can be understood in relation to one another. For quick reference, these can be glue (similitude) or tape (reason). (I chose glue because it can stretch in a continuous, analogous fashion; the image of tape works well because it is two-sided: one side "sticks" as a functional/contextual truth, whereas the other merely stands in opposition as falsehood.)


 * parts: Basic utterances that are complete ideas (e.g., basic phrases and individual sentences; signs, symbols, and gestures that denote meaning, such as a "no-smoking" sign that means "Do not smoke or you may be punished," or crossed arms and a frown that collectively mean "I am angry with you"). Scattered on the ground in your mindspace, these are all the bits of knowledge that you have ever heard, read, or experienced in any shape or form. The average adult's mindspace contains millions upon millions of parts.


 * pegs: Individual content words (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) and their empirical counterparts (images, colours, shapes, visible movements, sensations, sounds); function words (i.e., conjunctions, prepositions, etc.), punctuation marks, and other conventions of communication generally (e.g., frame changes). These help to keep parts together, but they have no real meaning themselves. We usually gloss over these when we listen to, read, or otherwise experience information.


 * monuments: Parts that have been partially or fully constructed (using adhesives and pegs) or taken apart. These can be heaps (piles of materials that have yet to be constructed--i.e., bits of undigested knowledge), or, at the other extreme, landmarks (unchanging constructions--i.e., ideas accepted as truths and no longer questioned). For instance, reading a book without really stopping to think of what you are inputting is like shovelling piles of materials into a big heap in your mindspace; then, reviewing the material, comprehending it, coming to a detailed understanding of it, and constantly engaging in building/taking apart is the activity of learning and lifelong engagement that I call monumental learning; if learning ends and the monument has dried and solidified into an unchanging, fossilized, "finished" structure, one has a landmark.


 * workbench: A conceptual table or desk upon which rests an individual's short-term thoughts and concerns. Other popular concepts include the "front burner" or one's "short-term memory." Imagine a table placed in front of you in your mindspace.