Yeah! Like Glen said. [see below]. Except that: when I was a professor, I thought that email was a wonderful way to committ people to writing. Hard to get students to commit. But it never quite worked that way for the reasons that Glen lays out. [sigh].
Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([email protected]) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella <[email protected]> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> > Date: 9/15/2009 8:34:00 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] FW: Re: Emergence Seminar--British Emergence > > > The lack of depth you point out is the dominant feature of online > discussion, at least in every online forum I've experienced over the > past 28 years. (Some people have told me it's _my_ personal problem and > not a feature of online comm at all. I ignore them, of course. [grin]) > I think the reason for the shallowness of the interaction is because > people can be (mis-)quoted, verbatim, and have their own words thrown > back at them. Very few people listen to what the writer is _trying_ to > say. They just listen to what they infer from the writing. > > Listening to what the writer is trying to say involves things like 1) > paraphrasing what they wrote by writing it anew in one's own words, 2) > reading and responding to a post's gestalt, rather than some fractioned > piece of it, and 3) reading what's being written with a coherent _model_ > of the writer. And these things, dominant in face-2-face communication, > are difficult and expensive for online comm. > > If any one person invests too much energy in exploring another person's > opinion, they a) can appear to hold that opinion themselves and b) can > dynamically be convinced of that opinion, perhaps without realizing it. > In f2f, that happens smoothly and naturally ... then after a few days, > the different opinions either smush together or spread apart. But > (without recording equipment) nobody can effectively add friction to the > process by quoting the other before or after any incremental evolution > or refinement of their opinion. (And, of course, most people end up > with a fuzzy-headed "sameness" or "otherness" sense of the opinions of > the other people, without any real, crisp, distinctions at all.) > > Hence, in online comm. (without a robust offline substrate) we find that > most people emphatically assert their individuality and focus on > contrast rather than comparison. If, however, a group of people who > have robust offline relationships augment their conversations with > online comm, the dynamic is much more cohesive.... except when the > sporadic "foreigner" pokes his head in with contributions that lack the > more robust context. ;-) > > That's just my opinion, of course. > > Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 09/14/2009 09:22 PM: > > I think our discussions on this list have tended to lack depth, in > > the sense that everybody has their opinion but has grave difficulty > > representing with any fidelity the opinion with which they disagree. > > > > > > that I was characterizing the discussion as a whole, not the > > contributions of any one of us. In short, we all should be mad at > > me, not any one of us. Clear as mud, right. I apologize if anybody > > felt singled out. > > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
