RE: [xmca] Problem solving and expertise

You may not be more or less of an expert on Vygotsky because you are
born Russian, but being able to read Russian would help. I can only
access Vygostksy through others translations, I cannot read Vygotsky how
Vygotsky wrote it.
 
As an academic who has been taught to go back to the original source, I
find this frustrating.
 
Louise

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Michael Glassman
Sent: Tuesday, 3 July 2007 03:02 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] Problem solving and expertise

Don,
 
That's a really interesting idea and one that gets very much to the
point maybe. Expert is a term for self-action, expertise is a point for
interaction, but when we get to transaction we are acting on a whole
'nother level. I think sometimes we consider somebody an expert because
of who they are. We assume that there is some type of internal quality
that makes them an expert that we cannot capture outside of this quality
(it is fixed). I remember Dewey referred to self-action as sort of
being based on the modern day equivalent of being inhabited by divine
fairies. We think a person is born with extraordinary mathematical
skills so that makes them an expert of anything mathematical. We think
people are born with excellent fine motor skills, so that makes them an
expert on fixing things around the house. Sometimes it is a quality
that is not really innate, but we consider a controlling part of the
individual. Are you more of an expert in Vygotsky say because you are
born Russian?
 
Then there is the interactive form of expertise. You develop expertise
in some particular idea or subject or person through interaction,
through reading a book. You sit and you struggle with the text and you
say, "Hah, here is what this person is saying and now I understand it."
as if what you are understanding is actually a thing, something that
exists in the world (is reified). Not only that, but there will be
other people around you who say, "Yes, yes, you know that thing, you
have developed a level of expertise in it, so you have some control over
how this thing is discussed in public." Or they say, "No, no, no, you
do not understand this idea, you do not have a right to be part of the
information flow here." I mean this is what the whole idea of peer
review is about, isn't it? But this is dependent on being focused on a
very limited arena of activity. A gunman is about to shoot a rabbit so
all that is important is the gunman's expertise and his sighting of the
rabbit. When I was younger, I can't remember how many years ago, there
was this character named Lee Iacoco (he's still around today doing
commercial with Snoop Dog). Anyway, the Chrysler car company was in
trouble and he came in and made some good decisions and he was able to
get it out of bankruptcy. This guy not only had major expertise in
Chrysler, but in business in general and how to run things. There was a
group of people who wanted the guy to run for president for Chrissakes.
The irony is a few years later he was called back to Chrysler, the same
company, in order to help it and this time he was a miserable failure.
I'm telling you we are being killed by the expertise that comes from
interaction in this society. 'For those of you who might not be aware
we are having a major healthcare crisis in this country. Michael Moore
just came out with this great movie about it called SICKO. A lot of
people are saying it's correct but I keep reading one person after
another with expertise telling us we can't really do anything about it
because the healthcare system used in every other industrialized country
wouldn't work here. Sometimes people with expertise just make stuff up,
and we accept what they say because....well, they have expertise.
 
In both of these cases critiques are possible because that individual
knows the "thing" and controls the "thing" because they have been
identified and/or conferred with the power of the expert or the
knowledge of expertise.
 
I think it is when we get to a transactional level of understanding that
the ideas of expert and expertise become much more problematic. Upton
Sinclair wrote (paraphrasing here), "No man is going to tell you the
truth if his job is dependent on not telling you the truth." I would
expand that to say, "no expert is going to tell you that he might not
know if his source of power is that he does know." But in a
transactional model things move too fast, they are too contingent, for
knowledge to ever be stable. The salaries of health care experts is
based on their being able to tell you what will work and what won't
work, not saying, "Well I couldn't tell you for sure what's going to
happen but I got these instruments here that have had some success, so
let's throw caution to the wind and run an experiment," all the time
wathcing the other individuals, as Andrew suggested, to see what you can
learn from them, all the time willing to accept that your instruments
might not be the right instruments this time, and you might not be the
one to turn to for instruments the next time.
 
Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Cunningham, Donald James
Sent: Sun 7/1/2007 1:38 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] Problem solving and expertise

Email really isn't my medium. I like to circle an issue, try out some
things and see if I can better understand it. As a consequence I
generally appear obtuse and esoteric. I'm better (I think) across a
table using conversation mediated by good red wine.

The reason I put up the video was to introduce a more humble example
than flying a plane or playing a computer game, one that did not involve
technology in the narrow sense that word is often used. Technology is
also "techniques" as in folding a shirt. The rhetorical aspects of a
YouTube video aside, I was trying to see if peoples' conception of
expertise would extend to folding shirts. See, I don't think it is
particularly helpful to invoke the notion of expertise. Michael G, you
know Dewey very well so perhaps you can critique this idea for me. You
know of Dewey's distinction between self-action, interaction and
transaction. From memory (I don't have _Knowing and the Known_ at hand),
self-action is when an action is accounted for by a characteristic of an
individual, either some stable attribute like intelligence or something
acquired like knowledge and information. So we could say that expertise
is some stable characteristic of an individual. Interactional introduces
the notion of individual entities in some causal relationship, so we
could talk about expertise as related to context or domain. We're not an
expert in general, only with respect to something else to which we are
connected. Like you are an expert on Dewey, but not folding shirts.
Transactional, as I understand it, says that an activity is a function
of a whole host, a veritable cloud of co-constraints, constructions,
etc. that are mutually emergent, not independent. So, expertise,
whatever it is, would be an emergent property of a "situation" (another
of Dewey's terms that I can probably misrepresent!). Expertise emerges
from the activity, the situation, from the interplay of a large number
of potentially relevant factors. It is not simply a case of some
acquired information brought to bear in a give context (two already
independently existing things), but the action itself.

As I said, this is all emergent in me as well and I may not be
explaining it very well. It does seem to me that there are some models
that move away from self action and interaction and move toward
transaction. Lave and Wenger's notion of participation, for example. No
need to posit something like an independent expertise to describe the
participation of a member of a community. Look at the participation!
Dynamic systems theory (e.g., Maturana and Varela) talks about
structural coupling and effective action. Semiotics isn't really about
signs, it is about semiosis, the action of signs. Peirce once said
something to the effect that nothing is a sign unless it is in an act of
semiosis. Of course we do build up structures of signs, and here the
term umwelt is much superior to context and environment. An umwelt is
co-determined, unique for everyone, but compatible across those who
share common experiences or communicate .

I have to stop for a few days while I tend to the class I am teaching
on-line (my last for Indiana U.!). Sorry to hit and run.

And I have to bow out for a while until I get some work done on the
class I am teaching this summer (my last for Indiana U.!).

Don Cunningham

Indiana University

Ancora Imparo!

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Michael Glassman
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 5:43 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] Problem solving and expertise

Don,

Looked at the video - it was pretty cute. Is the girl (and how about
the guy?) on the video solving a problem. Sure, why else would they be
doing it? What is their problem? I couldn't tell you for sure, because
I don't have enough information. They are not teaching me how to crazy
fold a shirt, because again, they don't really give me enough
information (though perhaps enough information to start experimenting -
but hey I can't fold a shirt the normal way). Is their goal to simply
fold the shirt? Perhaps, though then why put it on Google. If I were
going to make a guess it would be that they are trying to get as many
Google hits as possible. And the reason I would think this is because I
have enough information to know that individuals in Asia can actually
become stars based on where they are ranked in Google hits.

What is the tool - again I far prefer instrument to tool - well it would
be the shirt folding technique, just like if I was trying to develop
something beautiful out of paper oragami might be an instrument. The
big question is - is this person an expert at shirt folding, or an
expert at getting many hits on Google. The second is easier to answer -
just because you are able to create one video with many hits does not
mean you are going to create another video at another time with many
hits. Yet people might hire the makers as consultants anyway, and we
might see a thousand more Google videos on clothes folding. As to he
first, well they are able to fold those shirts in those particular
conditions, but would I call them an expert on clothes folding? When I
lived in a rural village in India many years ago they used to take the
clothes down to the river to wash them and then dry them there. They
would fold them before they brought them home. They would pull the
clothes right off the line and fold them in a couple of swings, very
different from the video. But there was no place to put the clothes
down without them getting diry again. So you tell me, is the girl in
the video an expert at folding shirts.

Would I want her to fly an airplane. Well if it was a choice between me
and her I think I would choose her. I somehow associate clothes folding
with the ability to fly a plane.

Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Cunningham, Donald James
Sent: Sat 6/30/2007 4:11 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [xmca] Problem solving and expertise

Michael (and others),

Is the person in this video solving a problem? Or put another way, is it
useful to think about this from the perspective of solving a problem?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7502458538500026068

Is she an expert? Using a tool (or a technology)? Is there a distinction
between the first person to come up with this and those who use it? Is
there a qualitative difference here between this video and flying an
airplane?

I'm really struggling to put into some coherent perspective all of the
terms buzzing on my screen: tools, thinking, experts, problem solving.

Don Cunningham

Indiana University

Ancora Imparo!

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Michael Glassman
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2007 1:57 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca]
Copernicus,Darwinand Bohr

Well, more related to information than to knowledge I suppose. Relating
back to your earlier message - if as humans we are not problem solvers,
then what are we? The way I look at it now, if our actions are not to
solve a problem, then they are being manipulated to solve somebody
else's problem. And the degree to which we are able to solve problems,
or understand that we are being manipulated to solve other people's
problems is dependent on informaton, use of it, and more importantly
control of it. If I can control information I can limit your ability to
solve a problem, or for you to even know that you have a problem.
Whether you actually do solve a problem is another issue. Recently I
have been reading the capability approach of Amartya Sen. He suggested
that many times oppressed individuals create the illusion they are happy
and don't have problems because they feel they have to do so to protect
community and those who are oppressing them (Friere makes a similar
argument from another direction I think). The more they lack
information, the greater the possibility of this happening. For
example, individuals from poorer regions actually report lower morbidity
and ill health than individuals from regions with greater health and
access to health care.

Maybe the idea of expert was developed precisely to control information
in a heirarchical fashion. It's hard for me to see how you can have
experts that are not related to information. Or how you can have human
action that is not in some way related to problem solving.

And in following the new and worthwhile admonition to link - here is a
link to some of Sen's ideas on social choice for those who might be
interested.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1998/sen-lecture.
pdf

Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Lois Holzman
Sent: Sat 6/30/2007 12:32 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca]
Copernicus,Darwinand Bohr

How come all the examples of experts are connected to knowledge?
Lois

> From: Michael Glassman <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>
> Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 23:18:18 -0400
> To: <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>, "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity"
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Conversation: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca]
Copernicus,
> Darwinand Bohr
> Subject: RE: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca]
Copernicus,
> Darwinand Bohr
>
> But the argument the other way around is that when you have an
identified
> expert you also have a hierarchy, and you give the knowledge of that
> identified expert some a priori higher worth. And again, I would ask,
who
> would be the person to identify the expert? We have financial experts
who
> invest our money for us, but for many you could do just as well
tossing darts
> at a board. You have international experts who tell us how to handle
> difficult international situations - and get us in to brutal wars with
no end.
> If you are in a birthing room with a nurse and a doctor, and the
doctor tells
> you that you must have a C-section right now, and the nurse tells you
that you
> should wait who do you listen to? Who gets listened to? If you go to
a
> brilliant Park Avenue heart doctor and he tells you that you need to
have a
> double bypass, and you go to a homeopathic doctor in a four floor walk
up in
> Brooklyn who tells you that you would do better with diet or
excercise, which
> is the right advice to choose?
>
> Of course the whole idea of expert is hard to shake loose. But the
truth is
> that we never know what the next problem, the next issue will be, so
how could
> anybody really be an expert at it? That doesn't mean we devalue the
abilities
> and knowledge individuals already have. When I raise the idea of
there being
> no experts to students they say, "Wouldn't you want a doctor who was
an expert
> operating on you?" I think from what I know of hospitals I would
rather have
> nurses that have not been overworked and an operating unit that works
well
> together - but if I thought about it I would rather have somebody who
could
> explain to me what they were going to do and help me make an informed
decision
> than somebody who carried that label of expert surgeon.
>
> We don't all start denovo, but to use Pepper's description of
contextualism -
> we come to a river and we build a boat to cross. We will never come
to that
> river, at that crossing point, at that particular time again. We
always have
> to take that in to account when we meet the next crossing point. To
forget
> our frailties and flaws, no matter how successful we may be been
previously,
> is to invite tragedy.
>
> Michael
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Mike Cole
> Sent: Wed 6/27/2007 10:51 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca]
> Copernicus,Darwinand Bohr
>
>
>
> Hi Louise.
>
> I spend a lot of my time working on creating activities where
expertise is
> widely
> distributed across age, class, gender, etc. So the heterogeneity of
> expertise
> is important to me for many reasons. It is a wonderful generative
condition
> of human life, or can be.
>
> But, to deny that in a domain specific way there are people who have
> attained a deep
> mastery of activities in that domain: abacus users, magicians, cooks,
> pre-school teachers,
> invites the idea that there is no differentiation, in general, to cope
well
> with life challenges.Next time
> you fly, ask yourself if you want to change places with the
pilot......
>
> I fear that that way lies cultural nihilism and the idea that we all
start
> de novo. That is a very despairing
> view. Equal to the despair of the experts as unquestionable, context
free
> authorities, and not, as my son likes to remind
> me, drips under pressure.
> mike
>
> On 6/27/07, Louise Hawkins <l.hawkins@cqu.edu.au> wrote:
>>
>> I also find issue with the distinction between expert and novice, as
if
>> the expert has something to give and the novice something to receive.
>> How many times is it the student who poses a question that raises a
>> point that the 'expert' learns from?
>>
>> Louise
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
[mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>> On Behalf Of Michael Glassman
>> Sent: Wednesday, 27 June 2007 04:37 AM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: RE: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca]
Copernicus,
>> Darwinand Bohr
>>
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> Why this distinction between expert and novice? What does it really
buy
>> us? And who gets to make the distinction? It seems to me in an
>> expert/novice scenario all power lies in the hands of those who get
to
>> make this distinction on whatever level, and get to define the two
>> classes. Take a look at the political class in the United States, we
>> define experts as those who have the right cultural capital, wear the
>> right type of ties and suits, who speak in somber, modulated voices
with
>> a weary sigh of resignation, suggesting "of course you cannot see
what I
>> can see, but trust me."
>>
>> This is not to say every generation starts from scratch. Every
>> generation starts with the tools that they have, but then they figure
>> out how to use those tools to solve what invariably must be new
>> problems, or they develop new tools out of the old tools. Let's say
we
>> have a set of spears we use to hunt food. There are great spear
>> throwers who use those spears and teach others to use them as well.
>> Their "expertise" in spear throwing gives them great power within the
>> community. But things change, and the spears that were once used on
>> larger animals are not as good for smaller animals. Are the spear
>> throwers going to give up their place in the community as "experts?"
Or
>> are they going to say, well if we just wait, or if we use the spear
in a
>> different way, or it is the fault of our lazy children who do not
train
>> in spear throwing the way previous generations did. Meanwhile the
food
>> supply dwindles for the community. A young person examines the spear
>> and says, hmmm, the arrow head pierces the skin but it cannot reach
the
>> skin with these new animals that we hunt. Perhaps I can create
>> something else - a bow and arrow perhaps. But she is not an expert.
>> Who, in a hierarchical system of knowledge development would listen
and
>> adopt the work of this young innovator? This is always the danger of
a
>> heirarchical system of knowledge development.
>>
>> In a more lateral system of development information is everything.
As a
>> species were are problem solvers, but our problem solving is based on
>> the easy access and flow of information. I just read the most
>> fascinating article by the economist Amriyat (sp?) Sen. In it he
talks
>> about famine. He makes a really good argument that famine is almost
>> never about food. There is always enough food even in some of the
major
>> famines of the twentieth century. It is about the lack of capability
>> for getting to the food. At its core the lack of information as a
tool
>> in obtaining this basic human function. What else is there other
than
>> information. When we define information as static and give it value
>> separate from the problems we are working on, isn't that when we find
>> the most trouble, have the most difficulties in problems solving?
>>
>> I watch my son play his World of Warcraft game. I wish I knew more
>> about it. But I see him adapting and recalibrating constantly,
>> developing strategies and processes that see incredible to me. It is
a
>> virtual world in which there are no "experts." The world and my son
and
>> the other players co-exist.
>>
>> I don't know if I've done such a good job trying to explore this.
>> Perhaps a problem that needs greater consideration.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Martin Packer
>> Sent: Tue 6/26/2007 2:04 PM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca] Copernicus,
>> Darwinand Bohr
>>
>>
>>
>> Michael, you would have each generation start on their own, from
>> scratch? No
>> experts, just novices? That really is a post-apocalyptic vision!
>>
>> My point was there is more to life (and education) than "functioning"
>> and
>> "information." The danger with the tool metaphor, and the emphasis on
>> artifacts as tools, is that they reduce all of life to the production
>> process. That is not just a conceptual mistake, it is a political
>> agenda. To
>> argue that thinking is not important, only tool use, is not to argue
>> against
>> formalization, it is to promote a purely instrumental conception of
>> human
>> action and interaction. It is to promote an extreme version of the
>> division
>> of labor, in which only a tiny elite get to think about the nature of
>> thinking, and everyone else is simply using tools skillfully but
>> thoughtlessly.
>>
>> On 6/26/07 12:40 PM, "Michael Glassman" <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>
wrote:
>>
>>> But if this information is so important, and it exists as part of
the
>> problem
>>> solving tools of humanity, don't we trust humans to discover it
>> through their
>>> own activities?
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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Received on Mon Jul 2 16:56 PDT 2007