Structures that can adapt

To resolve this paradox, it is best to think of mind sets or cognitive models as being made up of components that come together to be applied to a current situation: a collection of many small conceptual models, similar to the way a Lego set construction is made up from many different component parts. Lego have an interesting sales strategy. Most of the Lego components are not sold as kits but as small made up models. When my two sons had a Lego set building craze, they would buy these models not for what they were, but, for the components they contained. Each new purchase was immediately disassembled and cannibalised for the novel parts it contained, which they could then add to their own creations. Soliloquies should be treated like this, not as single entities but as assemblies of components, each of the components able to be extracted separately and used in other soliloquies.

Richard Dawkins, in his book, "The Selfish Gene" created the concept of a meme. This is a mini concept that can be thought of as a component of an idea in the same way that a gene is a component of a genome (the genetic material that provides the building instructions for an organism). Just as genes vary from one organism to another to create different species or as gene variations create individual characteristics and traits, so memes can be varied to create different ideas or variations of ideas.

The breakthrough that Dawkins' meme concept brought about was to allow ideas to be seen as capable of evolving through an evolutionary process similar to the way in which biological organisms evolve: through the evolution of the changing genes on the genome. This means that ideas do not necessarily have to change dramatically, but, can change in small increments according to the addition or subtraction of individual memes.

As is evidenced by the observations of evolutionary biologists, changes caused by altering genes are not necessarily linear. A newly acquired gene may make hardly any difference but on occasions the new gene can totally change the nature of the organism in a significant way. This is the way it is with memes and ideas. Just as a newly acquired Lego component can sometimes inspire a completely new design for a Lego construction, so, a new meme, insignificant in itself, can bring about a sudden and dramatic new line of thinking or reasoning. Such unpredictable dramatic change also describes the phenomena of paradigm shifts that we covered earlier.

It is in this way we should interpret the idea of soliloquies or individual mind sets. They are not static, permanent view points, but flexible assemblies of mini ideas that are a current snap shot of an evolving cognitive model. Collaborative learning can then be seen as a form of mating, where expressing view points is a way of exchanging memes. After the exchange, new memes may or may not be incorporated into the ongoing conceptual model of any individual receiving them.

It is in this light, that the reader should be reading this book. Maybe you are familiar with most of the memes it contains. Maybe you disagree with many of them. Maybe the conclusions are not entirely acceptable. But, the value of the book is not in its entirety, but, as a receptacle for holding many memes - any of which the reader can use as appropriate, taking them out of context if necessary, to add to their own conceptual understanding of the world of information.

Structures that can adapt are made up of interchangeable plug-in modules

To resolve this paradox, it is best to think of mind sets or cognitive models as being made up of components that come together to be applied to a current situation: a collection of many small conceptual models, similar to the way a Lego set construction is made up from many different component parts. Lego have an interesting sales strategy. Most of the Lego components are not sold as kits but as small made up models. When my two sons had a Lego set building craze, they would buy these models not for what they were, but, for the components they contained. Each new purchase was immediately disassembled and cannibalised for the novel parts it contained, which they could then add to their own creations. Soliloquies should be treated like this, not as single entities but as assemblies of components, each of the components able to be extracted separately and used in other soliloquies.

Richard Dawkins, in his book, "The Selfish Gene" created the concept of a meme. This is a mini concept that can be thought of as a component of an idea in the same way that a gene is a component of a genome (the genetic material that provides the building instructions for an organism). Just as genes vary from one organism to another to create different species or as gene variations create individual characteristics and traits, so memes can be varied to create different ideas or variations of ideas.

The breakthrough that Dawkins' meme concept brought about was to allow ideas to be seen as capable of evolving through an evolutionary process similar to the way in which biological organisms evolve: through the evolution of the changing genes on the genome. This means that ideas do not necessarily have to change dramatically, but, can change in small increments according to the addition or subtraction of individual memes.

As is evidenced by the observations of evolutionary biologists, changes caused by altering genes are not necessarily linear. A newly acquired gene may make hardly any difference but on occasions the new gene can totally change the nature of the organism in a significant way. This is the way it is with memes and ideas. Just as a newly acquired Lego component can sometimes inspire a completely new design for a Lego construction, so, a new meme, insignificant in itself, can bring about a sudden and dramatic new line of thinking or reasoning. Such unpredictable dramatic change also describes the phenomena of paradigm shifts that we covered earlier.

It is in this way we should interpret the idea of soliloquies or individual mind sets. They are not static, permanent view points, but flexible assemblies of mini ideas that are a current snap shot of an evolving cognitive model. Collaborative learning can then be seen as a form of mating, where expressing view points is a way of exchanging memes. After the exchange, new memes may or may not be incorporated into the ongoing conceptual model of any individual receiving them.

It is in this light, that the reader should be reading this book. Maybe you are familiar with most of the memes it contains. Maybe you disagree with many of them. Maybe the conclusions are not entirely acceptable. But, the value of the book is not in its entirety, but, as a receptacle for holding many memes - any of which the reader can use as appropriate, taking them out of context if necessary, to add to their own conceptual understanding of the world of information.