It does, so
Hello Jeff,
thank you very much for the invitation. I m glad to have the possibility to join this space, to share thinking to understand better….
I m an educationalist, working in public education with a small group of children, living there because they can t live with their families for different reasons.
I m dealing with the ideas of Gregory Bateson and Maturana/Varela (Tree of knowledge) for many years, two decades now.
I m really interestested in understanding different kinds of learning better and epistemological shock seems to be a necessary part of a deeper learning process, expierienced as shock….
A very basic human expierience, hard to deal with without basic orientation about what s happening and without compassion…
Both are hard to find in systems that reduce learning to content learning and even learning to learn is mostly completely deminished to "learn, how to learn contents more efficient"…
(But it isn t that way- learning to learn could although mean to gain insight in the mechanisms of learning….somehow gaining a higher level of learning and therefore be able to understand what we have learned and to think about how to change difficult or unhealthy patterns by re-learning.)
Shock is a high energie phänomen, too much, so that we can t deal with….
and epistemological shock might therefore be related to other kinds of shock, probably traumatic expieriences….on different levels in our system…And there s a moment of evaluating coming in…and that seems to be important…
Given that traumatic reaction is a possibility of our biologie to deal with probably too much, in order to survive, our expieriences with all kinds of shocks might come in when we are challenged by an epistemological shock…
And, given that learning on higher levels is a great deal about unlearning what we ve learned so far, epistemological shock might be a central moment of learning higher order….(it is what we expierience….but there might be very different "formal cases" leading to the same kind of expierience…)
I ve found some texts appearing to deal with epistemological shock….
or with the the differentiaton of shocks…
Jo Reichartz/ Abduction, Deduction and Induction in Qualitative Research. (available over his website, downloads, english texts)
which I related to G. Batesons thoughts about the relation of induction and deduction in epistemologies/ Ecologie of mind.
And a complete other kind of knowledge, out of I Ging
There s the sign Thunder, NR.51 in the I ching
There s access over internet to the english translation of Wilhelm
And there are different kinds of knowledge. There s implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge, and implicit knowledge might be devided in implicit learned kowledge (implicit learned rules) and an other kind, even deeper rooted in our systems…And how is epistemological shock related to the different kinds of knowledge? And how are they related with each other….? and how do they built?
I just found an interesting overview, I m thinking about:
Ernst Poeppel, Yan Bao, Three modes of knowledge as basis for intercultural cognition and communication - A theoretical perspective
available over Poeppels website under the categorie opinions.
And, there s an approach from Peter Levine to understand Trauma from an biological point of view, dealing with trauma in terms of learning…..
and in terms of processes of over- and undercoupeling….over different subsystems of perception….
that leads to inflexibility….and resolving leads to more flexibility….
and there s a summarize about the implications for differnt fields…I ll look for it.
So, those are the pieces I m dealing with. That s it for the moment. I really believe that understanding the meaning of those expieriences in learning processes is really important for human growth….and education.
And there s a poem from Goethe, that might be related…
Selige Sehnsucht
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Holy Longing
Translated by Shinzen Young
Sagt es niemand, nur den Weisen,
Weil die Menge gleich verhöhnet:
Das Lebendge will ich preisen,
Das nach Flammentod sich sehnet.
Tell it to no one but the wise
For most will mock it right away
The truly living do I prize
Those who long in flame to die.
In der Liebesnächte Kühlung,
Die dich zeugte, wo du zeugtest,
Überfällt dich fremde Fühlung,
Wenn die stille Kerze leuchtet.
In the coolness of loves evenings
Where you beget and were begotten,
You're overcome by strange new feeling
As the silent candle brightens.
Nicht mehr bleibest du umfangen
In der Finsternis Beschattung,
Und dich reißet neu Verlangen
Auf zu höherer Begattung.
No longer are you trapped and mired
In the darkened shadowings
But swept away by new desire
To a higher lovemaking.
Keine Ferne macht dich schwierig,
Kommst geflogen und gebannt,
Und zuletzt, des Lichts begierig,
Bist du, Schmetterling, verbrannt.
Distance cannot slow your flight
Spellbound through the air you're borne
Til at last mad for the light
You are a butterfly, then�gone.
Und solang du das nicht hast,
Dieses: Stirb und werde!
Bist du nur ein trüber Gast
Auf der dunklen Erde.
And until you know of this:
How to grow through death
You're just another troubled guest
On the gloomy earth.