Difference between revisions of "Walk:Viabilitaet"

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|stationConclusion=Wenn also nun die Insel untergehen sollte, haben die Japanmakaken eine viable Lösung für das Problem: Sie können schwimmen.  
 
|stationConclusion=Wenn also nun die Insel untergehen sollte, haben die Japanmakaken eine viable Lösung für das Problem: Sie können schwimmen.  
  
Aber auch wir passen uns täglich an unsere Umgebung an.  
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Aber auch wir passen unser Wissen an unsere Umgebung an.
 
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|stationText=Compatibility does not imply identity, it merely implies viability in the given circumstances. That is why, after having used a word in a particular way for fifty or more years, we may discover that it is not quite the way others are using it – it is just that the circumstances in which we have so far used the word happened to be such that they did not bring out any differences.
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|stationText=What I suggest now, is that the relationship between our knowledge and “reality” is similar to the relationship between organisms and their environment.[4] In other words, we construct ideas, hypotheses, theories, and models, and as long they survive, which is to say, as long as our experience can be successfully fitted into them, they are viable. (In Piagetian terms we might say that our constructs are viable as long as our experience can be assimilated to them.) This, of course, immediately raises the question as to what “survival” and “viability” mean in the cognitive domain. Briefly stated, concepts, theories, and cognitive structures in general, are viable and survive as long hey serve the purposes to which they are put, as long as they more or less reliably get us what we want. “Getting us what we want,” however, means different things in different realms of experience. In the realm of everyday experience, for instance, Newton’s physics serves our purposes well and is perfectly viable. Most of us simply do not enter the realms of experience where the methods and predictions based on Newton’s concepts break down. This is not so for the ideal scientist (e.g., as portrayed by Popper, 1934/1965 and 1962/1968) who is perennially searching for concepts and theories that “get by” the constraints encountered in all realms of experience and who is, therefore, more concerned with the possible “falsification” of his concepts and hypotheses than with their practical success as means in the pursuit of certain limited ends. This leads to the somewhat peculiar situation that Newton’s ideas are quite “true” for the man in the street, the mechanic, and the working engineer, whereas hey are “false” for a relatively small group of specialized scientists. What must be stressed, however, is that none of this can change the epistemological status of the ideas, concepts, theories, or models that we consider as constituting our “knowledge.
|stationDocumentSourceTitle=Source: Why I Consider Myself a Cybernetician
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|stationDocumentSourceTitle=Source: The Concepts of Adaptation and Viability in a Radical Constructivist Theory of Knowledge
|stationDocumentSourceURL=http://dbis-digivis.uibk.ac.at/mediawiki/index.php/Why_I_Consider_Myself_a_Cybernetician
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|stationDocumentSourceURL=http://dbis-digivis.uibk.ac.at/mediawiki/index.php/The_Concepts_of_Adaptation_and_Viability_in_a_Radical_Constructivist_Theory_of_Knowledge
 
|stationVideoURL=
 
|stationVideoURL=
 
|stationImageURL=
 
|stationImageURL=
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|stationType=normal
 
|stationType=normal
 
|stationHeader=
 
|stationHeader=
|stationText=It was, indeed, radical to break away from the traditional way of thinking according to which all human knowledge ought or can approach a more or less “true” representation of an independently existing, or ontological reality. In place of this notion of representation, radical constructivism introduces a new, more tangible relationship between knowledge and reality, which I have called a relationship of “viability.” Simply put, the notion of viability means that an action, operation, conceptual structure, or even a theory, is considered “viable” as long as it is useful in accomplishing a task or in achieving a goal that one has set for oneself. Thus, instead of claiming that knowledge is capable of representing a world outside of our experience, we would say, as did the pragmatists, that knowledge is a tool within the realm of experience.
+
|stationText=Compatibility does not imply identity, it merely implies viability in the given circumstances. That is why, after having used a word in a particular way for fifty or more years, we may discover that it is not quite the way others are using it – it is just that the circumstances in which we have so far used the word happened to be such that they did not bring out any differences.
|stationDocumentSourceTitle=Source: Why Constructivism Must be Radical
+
|stationDocumentSourceTitle=Source: Why I Consider Myself a Cybernetician
|stationDocumentSourceURL=http://dbis-digivis.uibk.ac.at/mediawiki/index.php/Why_Constructivism_Must_be_Radical
+
|stationDocumentSourceURL=http://dbis-digivis.uibk.ac.at/mediawiki/index.php/Why_I_Consider_Myself_a_Cybernetician
 
|stationVideoURL=
 
|stationVideoURL=
 
|stationImageURL=
 
|stationImageURL=
Line 68: Line 68:
 
|stationType=normal
 
|stationType=normal
 
|stationHeader=
 
|stationHeader=
|stationText=What I suggest now, is that the relationship between our knowledge and “reality” is similar to the relationship between organisms and their environment.[4] In other words, we construct ideas, hypotheses, theories, and models, and as long they survive, which is to say, as long as our experience can be successfully fitted into them, they are viable. (In Piagetian terms we might say that our constructs are viable as long as our experience can be assimilated to them.) This, of course, immediately raises the question as to what “survival” and “viability” mean in the cognitive domain. Briefly stated, concepts, theories, and cognitive structures in general, are viable and survive as long hey serve the purposes to which they are put, as long as they more or less reliably get us what we want. “Getting us what we want,however, means different things in different realms of experience. In the realm of everyday experience, for instance, Newton’s physics serves our purposes well and is perfectly viable. Most of us simply do not enter the realms of experience where the methods and predictions based on Newton’s concepts break down. This is not so for the ideal scientist (e.g., as portrayed by Popper, 1934/1965 and 1962/1968) who is perennially searching for concepts and theories that “get by” the constraints encountered in all realms of experience and who is, therefore, more concerned with the possible “falsification” of his concepts and hypotheses than with their practical success as means in the pursuit of certain limited ends. This leads to the somewhat peculiar situation that Newton’s ideas are quite “true” for the man in the street, the mechanic, and the working engineer, whereas hey are “false” for a relatively small group of specialized scientists. What must be stressed, however, is that none of this can change the epistemological status of the ideas, concepts, theories, or models that we consider as constituting our “knowledge.
+
|stationText=It was, indeed, radical to break away from the traditional way of thinking according to which all human knowledge ought or can approach a more or less “true” representation of an independently existing, or ontological reality. In place of this notion of representation, radical constructivism introduces a new, more tangible relationship between knowledge and reality, which I have called a relationship of “viability.” Simply put, the notion of viability means that an action, operation, conceptual structure, or even a theory, is considered “viable” as long as it is useful in accomplishing a task or in achieving a goal that one has set for oneself. Thus, instead of claiming that knowledge is capable of representing a world outside of our experience, we would say, as did the pragmatists, that knowledge is a tool within the realm of experience.
|stationDocumentSourceTitle=Source: The Concepts of Adaptation and Viability in a Radical Constructivist Theory of Knowledge
+
|stationDocumentSourceTitle=Source: Why Constructivism Must be Radical  
|stationDocumentSourceURL=http://dbis-digivis.uibk.ac.at/mediawiki/index.php/The_Concepts_of_Adaptation_and_Viability_in_a_Radical_Constructivist_Theory_of_Knowledge
+
|stationDocumentSourceURL=http://dbis-digivis.uibk.ac.at/mediawiki/index.php/Why_Constructivism_Must_be_Radical
 
|stationVideoURL=
 
|stationVideoURL=
 
|stationImageURL=
 
|stationImageURL=

Revision as of 17:53, 6 April 2020