transdisciplinarity 5-course

(5) Course: Foundations ofDiscipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity

Achieving Breadth and Depth of Understanding

Vincent Vesterby

Conference theme: Educating the next generation

Who Might be Interested In this Course?

1. Disciplinarians within a single subject area that are interested in viewing their discipline in a focused pattern-of-organization mode that enhances accuracy of observation and understanding.

2. People working in an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or transdisciplinary manner.

3. People seeking an introductory course for a curriculum leading to a doctoral degree in modern-generalist-discipline-independent-transdisciplinarity.

Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 2

Course Content ...1

The course provides understanding of the fundamentals of the generalist mode of discipline-independent-transdisciplinarity.

The fundamentals are the physical basis of the methodology, the methodology itself, and the language of transdisciplinarity as introduced in digital posters 529, 530, and 539.


Course Content ...2

Some topics the course will contain:

•Recognizing general-factors in the areas of interest of those taking the course.•Using general-factors as conceptual-tools of qualitative analysis.•Diagramming patterns-of-organization.•Mapping the stages of the process of emergence.•List-mapping.•Spreading out the development.


Course Content ...3

• Development.• Foundational-development-of-reality.• Universals.• General-development-of-reality.• Intrinsic nature of change.• Intrinsic nature of emergence.• Hierarchic-organization-of-material-reality.• Existential-pathway-development.• Development-of-origin.• Factor-development.


Course Structure

Study materials are read before class.

Class time is for questions and discussion.

Students learn the general universal-conceptual-model from study materials.

Students then identify and describe general-factors within their areas of interest.

Gathered discoveries are integrated into each student’s individual version of the universal-conceptual-model.

All student’s models are integrated together to create a whole-class model, which all the students then adopt.


Graphic Outline ...1

Much of the content of the course is presented as graphic outlines.

Why graphic outlines?

A transdisciplinarian needs to see as much of a situation as simultaneously as possible.

The outline format visually aids the identification of conceptual relations, increases the rate of comprehension, and enables the overview.


The Graphic Outline ...2

In prose, the relations between the written concepts are disguised by the block form of the paragraphs.

The next slide will have an example of text in paragraph format.

The following slide after that will show the same material in a graphic outline.


9

Modern Generalist Intellectual Tool Kit

1.Biological epistemology.

The modern generalist mode of exploration, analysis, understanding, and description is based entirely on epistemological factors – on factors of mind. The mind is based entirely on neurological factors – the brain, the nervous system, and the sensory systems. The brain, the nervous system, and the sensory systems are all biological factors – their origins, structure, and processes are all biological in nature.

To use, in a realistic and effective manner, the knowledge and understanding that are the products of the modern generalist mode, it is necessary to understand what knowledge and understanding are and why they exist. It is necessary to understand that they are epistemological factors, biological factors, consequences of biological evolution, which is itself a factor of both the intrinsic biological self-organization of organisms and the ecological interrelations between those organisms and their biotic and abiotic environments. It is necessary to understand, then, that knowledge, understanding, and their neurological bases, in their roles of enhancing the ongoing survival of the organisms that possess them, have been honed for millions of years to be tools of particular effectiveness in detecting, analyzing, and interrelating with the biotic and abiotic ecological conditions in which those organisms lived.

Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course

10Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course


The graphic outline uses a variety of visual aids to leave the mind free to focus on significance, on meaning:•Hierarchic organization.•Connecting lines.•Dendritic organization.•Box outline for each sentence or concept.•Line thickness.•Color.•Color shade.•Numbering.•Font color.



The graphic outline provides the overview that gives as much information as possible as simultaneously as possible. It enables the eyes to quickly roam over the entire chart relating various parts one with another.

The big picture and the details are seen simultaneously.



There are hyperlinks in the graphic outline that connect to additional graphic outlines, resulting in multiple pathways of investigation into deeper levels of details.

These pathways of outline links also have a dendritic organization of connections, similar to that of the graphic outlines themselves.

There are also Reference, Essay, and Illustration links connecting to supplementary material.General Systems Essentials: An Introductory Course for a Modern Generalist Curriculum


http://themoderngeneralist.com/articles/article_generalist_training.htm

The Course Will Require Expository Writing

This expository writing will be rigorously accurate, avoiding the use of:•Metaphor.•Teleology.•Hypothesis treated as fact.•Assumptions.•Anthropomorphism.•Anthropocentrism.•Excessive jargon.A characteristic of this form of writing is that it is accessible to specialists from any discipline.

Vincent Vesterbyhttp//:www.themoderngeneralist.com [email protected]


http://www.themoderngeneralist.com/

http://www.themoderngeneralist.com/

transdisciplinarity 5-course

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