Is there something inherent in "mental model" terminology that brings
out the onion analogy or was it my reference to endless connections
between things? At any rate, the onion analogy has its uses but
obscures the very thing that I was attempting to point at.
Peeling the onion suggests that there are hierarchically dependent
layers and that each is "deeper" or more "at the source" than the
previous one. It also implies that there is a core at the centre or
that there is only layers and when we peel the last one there is
nothing.
But what I was attempting was that as you explore, you are led to
other connections that do not follow a logical path (except the logic
of intelligence) and which will lead back to "less deep" places.
Moreover, each "visit to a place" will be different than the last
because of the new interpretations that coming at it differently with
different connections will make.
I prefer the idea of getting richer and more varied interpretations
than of getting "closer to the sources" or "deeper". (I tend to
reserve "deeper" for levels of abstraction which are usefrul
linguistic tools for particular kinds of explorations.)
Rick shares a useful access:
> I'll relate little thought experiment I use in some of my programs. I
> ask, "How big does an organization have to be in order to be complex?"
> The intial answers are always hundreds or thousands of people. Someone
> will usually offer the idea that even small groups can be complex. I then
> suggest that just what goes on in one mind deserves to be called complex.
My term for an organisation and its complexity is borrowed from
Murray Gell-Mann. Its composite complex adaptive systems. That is,
the organisation is a complex entity in its own right (even if a very
small team) which emerges from and is related to the complexity of a
mind. Everything that we are likely to run into that is a complex
adpative system is composed of and emerged from other complex
adaptive systems.
> What then are the probes that one uses to bring this out? If we approach
> this as a complex, dynamic structure, how would this change our methods
> for gaining insight, both when working with groups and when being
> introspective ourselves.
Ira Progroff's journal method is wonderful. Thanks for reminding me
of it. I would also say that dialogue itself will fullfill this
role. Any method that gets the internal external or the implicit
explicit will be helpful. The value isn't so it can then be worked
with logically, however, the value is the new perspective and the new
interactions that the idea, thought or representation will contact.
Physical, verbal or representational metaphors are all useful
accesses. I think that the important part is to seek what wasn't
already there rather than to get at what was there but deeper or
hidden.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk