attempting to extend the thread

From: Mike Cole (mcole@weber.ucsd.edu)
Date: Sat Apr 28 2001 - 12:08:51 PDT


Diane-- I have been experiencing unparlleled purturbations in my mail
system with new messages disappearing and hundreds of old messages reappearing
and perhaps for this reason, I did not perceive anyone as assuming LBE
unquestionable. I took Paul's example be responding directly with a
relevant example.

I personally continue to think about the implications of moving the zoped
concept to the level of activities themselves which is what I take Yrjo
to be doing not only in ch3 but in the whole developmental work research
strategy. His redefinition at this level removes the possibility of a
"more knowledgable other" but it also emphasizes both the risk and
the creativity involved.

One other source of continuing puzzlement for me is that I have long
interpreted Bateson somewhat differently than Yrjo.... which is not to say
better or worse, but simply from a different starting point/angle. I
think the differences arises because my own background was initially
in
American learning theory, which afforded a diffent way of considering level
1-2-3 distinctions (one that is clearly more individualistc and hence not
appropriate to Yrjo's project in LBE.

Yrjo/Bateson write (taken from the ms):
According to Bateson, Learning I comprises the forms of learning treated by various versions of connectionism: habituation, Pavlovian conditioning, operant
conditioning, rote learning, extinction. "In Learning I, every item of perception or behavior may be stimulus or response or reinforcement according to how the total
sequence of interaction is punctuated", Bateson (1972, 292) notes. On the other hand, Learning II or learning to learn (deutero-learning) means the acquisition of the
context or structure of some type of Learning I. Thus, common descriptions of a person's 'character' are actually characterizations of the results of Learning II. "It
follows that Learning II acquired in infancy is likely to persist through life." (Bateson 1972, 301.)

The outcomes of Learning II, the habits or the 'character', save the individual from "having to examine the abstract, philosophical, aesthetic, and ethical aspects of
many sequences of life" (Bateson 1972, 303). Learning III, on the other hand, is essentially conscious self-alteration: it will "throw these unexamined premises open
to question and change" (Bateson 1972, 303). Learning III is a rare event, produced by the contradictions of Learning II. On Level III, the individual learns to
control, limit and direct his Learning II. He becomes conscious of his habits and their formation. "Certainly it must lead to a greater flexibility in the premises
acquired by the process of Learning II - a freedom from their bondage." (Bateson 1972, 304.)

The difference arises at level 2. Listening to Yrjo speaking about this with
students at UCLA on Tuesday morning (we hope to be able to start streaming
those interactions soon) he emphasized how level 2 involves a reiorinetation
to the context of learning. Now I had not made that interpretation because
the phrase "learning to learn" I associated with the work of Harlow on others
where monkeys were given hundreds of discrcimination learning (level 1)
problems of the same kind and gradually "learned how to learn" such problems
so that after a lot of experience, they would solve novel problems "of the
same type" in a single trial. This seemed to provide a bridge between slow,
arduous acquisition of habits and insight, or so I interpreted it.

In this way of looking at level 2, level 3 becomse something like "metacognition". Now, as a result of the discussion with UCLA and here on MCA I am re-
mediating my own understandings. Will the result be expansion or schizophrenia?
stay tuned;.
mike



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