Cards for Insight: Aesthetics
In a network, mind in nature.
Cards for Insight
As easy as a card game, as powerful as a social machine.
In a network, finding ourselves at a different aesthetics.
Conversations that mind, cultivate, transform and matter.
Gregory Bateson’s “Uncovery” Of Ecological Aesthetics
— Peter Harries-Jones
“The interrelation of meaning and coherence is invested in, and derived from, formal properties of nature. Change in the formal properties of natural order is perceived by human beings as either ugly or beautiful; both are examples of an aesthetic response of intelligence or mind in nature. While ugliness is a clearly located phenomenon with its attendant emotions of fear, beauty is a weaving of relations among and between unlocated sensibility. It remains a patchwork of feeling and impressions which, unlocated and difficult to communicate, are nevertheless coherent and impelling. Bateson’s uncovery of ecological aesthetics is entirely consistent with his widely recognized definition of information, “the difference which makes a difference” which, as he shows, is also a second-order phenomenon.”
— Peter Harries-Jones, p. 165
… notice the anti-pattern here:
I prefer to lead a mostly meaningless life, with my thoughts mostly incoherent. Made worse by proprietary platform grand theft data.
… and, an adjacent possible as a way beyond:
In a network, patterning, re-aligning.
… and, a possibility space how:
flow = structure x process
“x” = patterning in general and shared understanding in particular
Cards for Insight: Card Session
Pick two cards, add your thoughts between.
Patterning, re-aligning, shared understanding.
Card: Question
A question is mind rediscovering
the generative nature of relating
with reality and transforming it
into possibility.
… pick two cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Understanding
What if understanding is our
ability to hold space for the
possibility of knowledge, as
it emerges, unfolds, directs
and discloses its relevance
to unexplored aspects of
things known?
… pick two cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Insight
A sudden awareness of
the solution to a problem.
… pick two cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Insight
A catalytic, clear, meaningful, generative,
comprehensive, perspective-shifting and
profound perception into behavior, path,
understanding and shared understanding.
… pick two cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Shared Understanding
Language as UI; conversations that mind,
cultivate, transform and matter as UX.
Cards for Insight: Card Sessions
In card sessions, shared understanding is the stopping rule.
Other, good enough card session stopping rules are
actionable insight, alignment around path, outlining
preferable outcomes, agreeing on accountability, tasks
and next steps, all in light of behavior turned agency.
- attention turned situational awareness
- will turned flow
- intelligence turned ability
- behavior turned agency
“turned” = knowledge
Knowledge in general and mapping our moves, questions, cards, comments, insights and shared understanding, to spheroid spirals between comfort zone and preferable outcomes, in particular.
Cards for Insight: Cards navigating the new
Agency applied to what? A re-alignment of community,
knowledge gardening and stewardship, navigating the new.
All four governed (multi-order cybernetics) by an
aesthetics, as outlined above, an aesthetics connecting
meaning and coherence.
Card: Cards
Scroll back up for a few. Here’s another one:
Card: Cards
When combined with play dispositions,
cards augment our intelligence and
improve knowledge flow and mapping.
… more cards here …
Card: Cards
Chunks of text and information, forming
large finite sets, with underlying pattern
languages and generative sequences,
cards help weave human insights and
shared understanding with social
computing in information ecologies.
… pick two cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Cards
Three functions: combination, intelligence
augmentation and information affordance.
- Combining with an underlying (large finite set of patterns of play^n) pattern language.
- Augmenting intelligence turned (response)ability.
- Affording shared understanding, particularly when played in light of small group genius addressing a worthwhile dilemma.
