Exploring Metaphors and Systems in Learning

Prompt:

Given the following text "Cathedrals in the Mind"

reverse-engineer the given text into individual notes as if they were from a Zettelkasten or multi-way system. Then, analyze each claim using the Toulmin model in the spirit of Mike Caulfield, we “Stop, Investigate, Find trusted sources, Trace claims”. Give alternative paths through the Zettelkasten/multi-way system. ___ FORSYTHE, Kathleen, 1986. Cathedrals in the Mind: The Architecture of Metaphor in Understanding Learning. In: TRAPPL, Robert (ed.), Cybernetics and Systems ’86: Proceedings of the Eighth European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research, organized by the Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies, held at the University of Vienna, Austria, 1–4 April 1986. Online. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. p. 285–292. ISBN 978-94-009-4634-7. [Accessed 30 April 2025]. The pervasiveness of metaphor in our conceptual system suggests a central and basic role in the underlying architecture of thought. Metaphor represents the ability to understand one thing in terms of another as we ascribe an understood pattern to an unknown phenomena and perceive their structural integrity within the environment of our experience. We can then begin to perceive the environment of learning as one in which analogical thinking serves as architecture, analytical thinking serves as engineering and the imagination ensures that the interactions which create life and meaning are always being realized anew. The implications for this approach to applied epistemology provides insight into the design and development of learning systems that support the creative nature of learning.

CATHEDRALS IN THE MIND: THE ARCHITECTURE OF METAPHOR IN UNDERSTANDING LEARNING !!Kathleen Forsythe Paper given to the European Congress on Cybernetics and Systems Research, Vienna, April 1986. Best paper award for Pask Symposium on Architecture, Humanity and Conceptualization. published in Cybernetics and General Systems, Robert Trappl, ed. Reidel Publishing Co. Amsterdam , 1986 !ABSTRACT. !The pervasiveness of metaphor in our conceptual system suggests a central and basic role in the underlying architecture of thought. Metaphor represents the ability to understand one thing in terms of another as we ascribe an understood pattern to an unknown phenomena and perceive their structural integrity within the environment of our experience. We can then begin to perceive the environment of learning as one in which analogical thinking serves as architecture, analytical thinking serves as engineering and the imagination ensures that the interactions which create life and meaning are always being realized anew. The implications for this approach to applied epistemology provides insight into the design and development of learning systems that support the creative nature of learning.

1.0 It can be argued that metaphor is at the fundamental core of our conceptual system as surely as the logic of form which we use in argument and debate. However, because our conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of, we have failed to account for its metaphorical nature in our discussion of truth and meaning. Yet its pervasiveness suggests a central and basic role in the underlying architecture of thought. Metaphor can create new meaning, create similarities and so define a new insight and new perception of reality. Such a view has no place in the dominant objectivist picture of the world. Metaphor is the architecture of similarity and relation where whole pattern is created from the composite unity of both our subjective and objective points of view as they are experienced. Thus metaphor is part of the vitality of our interactions in both the inner and outer environment through a living language of pattern. And so, the repeated discovery of coherent patterns in both nature and our own inner system of symbols suggests that our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentall metaphorical in nature. Gregory Bateson, just before his death, had the following insight: "...metaphor is not just pretty poetry, it is not either good or bad logic, but it is in fact the logic upon which the biological world has been built, the main characteristic and organizing glue of this world of mental process..."[1]

1.1 Sample sees the metaphorical mind and the metaphorical way of learning as linked to hemispheric ways of knowing.[2] Von Bertalanffy's General Systems Thinking has been termed "the science of similarities", which are called "isomorphisms", by which he meant structural likenesses that reflect a commonality in the way the parts of a system relate to each other.[3] Pribam has suggested that there is no such thing as metaphor because, in a sense, all metaphor is true, "Everything is isomorphic."[4]

1.2 Analogy and its poetic expression, metaphor, may be the "meta-forms" necessary to understanding those aspects of our mind that make connections, often in non-verbal and implicit fashion, that allow us to understand the world in a whole way.

2.0 THE CATHEDRAL - A PARADOXICAL METAPHOR

"We were led into a large cavern. At first, it was dark and the size was felt rather than seen. Then it began to change - the elegant thrust of a vaulted roof, the exquisite detail on this protuberance, on that wall - it must be some kind of cathedral but what a cathedral! shimmering and changing with light and colour, the walls breathing with life, organic forms that shifted like a kaleidoscope, now structural, now softly organic. I wanted to stop and examine each change but the guide made me go on. The idea came that if I was to understand I must see the whole of the cathedral. Then I would be free to travel through it at my leisure. We went on - the shifting magical forms compelled us. Then I knew I was alone - inside this pulsing glowing cathedral. The shifts had meaning! The structure was elegant, labyrinthine yet organic. The colours altered seeming at will. As I breathed, it breathed; as it breathed, I breathed. Could it be my will? I was somehow affecting this structure and it, affecting me! Then, as suddenly as the dream began, I moved from here to there. I was outside and inside at once. Just as suddenly, I knew I had been on a tour of my own mind as it was thinking. I had been the conscious architect of the cathedral as well as being in it and of it. I had participated in the process of learning and I felt it."[6]

2.1 The above experience was not induced by drugs or a meditative state. It was a very vivid example of insight. These very powerful flashes of insight, usually follow periods of intense study or emotional or intellectual activity. From them, it is possible to learn 'guiding principles' which help one to understand one's relationship to the world around and the world within. Such experiences validate both an introspective and extrospective journey of trying to understand the process of learning, to describe it and to try and find a metaphor which may prove useful to others who also seek to understand and feel their own learning.

2.2 The concept of the cathedral has proved to be a seminal metaphor in trying to describe the process of 'ideational architecture'. It is paradoxical that such an enduring stone structure as the cathedral should seem such an apt description of the elegant process of thinking which is such a dynamic dance of activity. However, paradox seems to be a common thread in any discussion of the nature of thinking.

2.3 The concept of 'structure' as a root to understanding is certainly not a new one. However, the growth in the application of 'systems' thinking to social and individual behaviour is providing a context for modelling dynamic structures at both a meta, macro and microcosmic level. As Von Bertalanffy pointed out, we are a 'denizen of two worlds', the physical universe and a universe of our own construction - the world of symbols. Symbol triggering patterns may lie at the root of meaning and may be our guide posts to the universe of understanding.

2.4 Indeed, no sooner had the cathedral metaphor presented itself than it seemed to change, and its greatest strength seemed in its incipient instability. It was as if, when we take in information, what we are doing is mentally asking: ! "Is this the tile for the mosaic down the left corridor of the nave? I've been waiting for years for that piece! Zap! That tile is in its place!" or "Is this a whole new left nave? Zap! the cathedral is altered!" or "Is this a whole new cathedral? Wow! That one is gone and another one is in place." and we look around to see universes of cathedrals of which we are both the conscious architects as well as the substance of their structure.

2.5 All of this is done with a rapidity of analysis, synthesis, judgement and decision-making that is so intense and collapsed in time as to be unrecognized. Thus the process of taking in information, assessing it and discarding or integrating with what is already known is a process of qualitative and quantitative change that can occur with incredible rapidity Conversely, like the cathedrals of old, it can also be a process or rumination over years. As one teacher remarked after hearing the above cathedral analogy, "At last, I understand Piaget's accommodation and assimilation and I have found a metaphor for my own learning."

2.6 Learning is the process of changing one's mind - literally and the cathedral metaphor provided a structure to describe the nature and order of the changes. Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific progress via 'paradigm shifts' is particularly apropos of the cathedral metaphor.7 In the face of accumulating experience that is not explained by existing models, the mind searches for a more workable model. Thus the metaphorical dissolving cathedral is also an image for paradigm shift. And just as the great cathedrals took almost one hundred years to built, the enormous capacity of the mind is exemplified by the speed of change of mind.8 The process of this change is not without order but is analogous to the dissipative nature of open systems as they constantly dissolve to re-form into new synthesis of complexity as meta-forms.

2.7 The cathedral is only one metaphor. The architectural modelling process, however, is a way to think about visual, ideational, emotional and social knowledge structures in order to examine the thesis that experiencing and examining one knowledge structure in depth will facilitate the ability to recognize and develop other knowledge structures i.e. experiencing one's own thought while one is thinking will improve one's thinking ability. Concomitant with this thesis is the notion that we could design a learning system to enable one to consciously experience one's own process of learning while one is learning. Being able to comprehend both content and process is fundamental to achieving a new way to think about learning. We have to be able to selfreference in order to see our minds changing. We have to find our own personal metaphor to provide a way to give feedback to our minds on the mind's own terms

3.0 Yet how are we to find a way to talk about such a phenomena without entering into that infinite regress so characteristic of "thinking about thinking about thinking etc." Hofstadter, in asking what is the key to understanding creativity, describes a difference between the human process and the machine process: ! "I would summarize it by saying that it is a general sensitivity to patterns, an ability to spot patterns of unanticipated types in unanticipated places at unanticipated times in unanticipated media." !He goes on to point out that clearly there is something lacking in a machine. ! "The thing that is lacking can be described in a few words: it is the ability to watch oneself as one deals with the world, to perceive in one's own activities a pattern and to be able to do so at many levels of abstraction."

3.1 To use Hofstadter's analysis further, "In a way "pattern" means "the underlying logic of a given structure", yet perhaps more accurately "pattern" means "a structure possessing an underlying logic."9 It is the ability to "order" one's perception. As Bohm says, a general way of perceiving what is meant by order is to say that order means "to give attention to similar differences and different similarities."10

3.2 The issues of content and process are no longer the key issues in the new ways of thinking about learning. What both behaviourists and cognitivists have had in common, is their assumption that analytical thinking based on logical deduction and logical inference is evidence of use of cognition and that the form of our thinking can be separated from its content. The point of interface, and the exclectical point of the new way, is a much older philosophical question: "What is the precise relationship between thought and thinking." Bohm suggests ...."indeed, content and process are not two separately existent things, but rather, they are two aspects or views of one whole movement."11

3.3 The key words here are relationship, process and movement because thought is not static, which is precisely why it is too mercurial to discuss using direct referential language. We can only catch the kinetic and relational nature of our thought through a relational language such as a calculus or through analogy and metaphor, the connection making algebra of language

3.4 If we accept this view, we may then begin to look for an analogy to describe the "patterns" of relationship between ideas or "knowables", their relational architecture and the process of learning. Construction of new knowledge or finding our way through the entailment of idea structures - the web of imagination - can then be based on shared concepts and meaning and can be ordered through our agreement or disagreement.

3.5 The fundamental difference in this new view of learning is to see analogical thinking as the architecture and analytical thinking as the engineering of our mind's view of the world. Thinking and learning then becomes a dynamic "open" geometry (Fuller, 1979)12 characterized by increasing complexity and transformation as a dissipative structure (Prigogine, 1977)13 based on a kinetic, relational calculus (Pask, 1976)14. The meta design is not built on inference and syllogism but on analogy and relation thus allowing form to develop from an underlying logic the morphogenesis of an idea. (Sheldrake, 1981).15 Knowledge is seen not as an absolute to be known but always in relation to agreement and disagreement, to coherence and distinction in terms of individual, cultural and social points of view. The language we use to communicate then takes on a heightened importance (Wittgenstein 1933)16 whether that be the language of words or the metaphor language of pattern (Alexander, 1979)17

4.0 In order to try and understand the implications of the architecture of metaphor in understanding learning, the author designed and developed a prototypical learning system, Project Unicorn, that endeavoured to create an architecture of metaphor applied through a variety of media. A number of questions were intriguing. !1. How do we conceive of "newness?" Where does "newness" come from? !2. Is there a skill of complex pattern fluency that underlies our conceptual ability? If so, does child- thought give us a gateway to understand how we develop this skill? !3. Can children grasp the insights of Conversation Theory if it is presented through metaphor. What if the metaphor is contained in a learning system that utilizes television and print? 4. How do media such as television and print provide a means for conversation?

4.1 Because every system with a purpose has a purpose in it, it was essential that the design and development of this prototype also practise the principles it was trying to communicate. For this reason, Project Unicorn modelled the architecture and design of creative television production exemplified in the Treasure Hunters - a television special for children that is designed to evoke conversation in the imagination of viewers. The design of a conversation book, Hunting the Treasure, intended to evoke conversations between adults and children, was also based on metaphorical architecture.

4.2 The metaphor chosen as the kernel of the architecture was one that is also fundamental to understanding Conversation Theory. When "argument is war" is the metaphor used in conversation then we build walls of disagreement. When we choose the metaphor "argument is a journey of discovery of difference" then we build bridges leading to new understanding.19

4.3 In presenting this metaphor as a children's allegorical adventure, the author intended to present in a powerful, visual and dramatic way, an alternative pattern that was based on the multi-varied logic of Conversation Theory - a logic of process not only a logic of proposition. The patterns, derived from the above kernel, were exemplified in the language patterns of drama, colour, landscape, music, poetry and images of the product. !Just as the author's experience of understanding her own thinking as a constantly dissolving cathedral had led her to perceive the power of metaphor in describing the self-referential quality of thought, so Project Unicorn endeavoured to provide a dynamic universe of coherent patterns that would connect with deeply formulated patterns in the minds of those who would use the learning system. It was anticipated that the story would evoke new patterns that could begin to bridge inner and outer reality, thus providing metaphorical tools with which to conceptualize their own thought. This is the power of metaphor in understanding and it lies at the essence of our humanity.20

4.5 In this view, learning is understood as the perception of newness. The essential distinction in this approach is to predicate the act of learning as an individual perceptual decision, that the individual makes, based on the feedback from interaction with the environment. The interaction with th environment is the behaviour.21 In this there is both the perception of newness of things previously unknown to the learner but known to others in the environment and there is the perception of newness that has not been known. It is arguable that insight and understanding are always new to the individual regardless of whether there seems to be a body of knowledge. The interaction of these public and private "quests for newness" involve the imagination, i.e. the ability to conceive of what has not been known before. Learning, then, is a creative act.

5.0 Metaphor is also the ability to understand one thing in terms of another. This is a function of the imagination - we are able somehow to ascribe an understood pattern to an unknown phenomena and perceive their structural integrity in the environment of our experience. This function of imagination is one measure of the autonomy of the cognitive faculty that allows us to distinguish personhood from which we derive our sense of individual freedom and responsibility.22 The architecture of how we structure the reality of our imagination is metaphoric. Metaphors are bridges that order the nature of our collective and individual humanity. Metaphor provides the vitality to the pattern language of thought for it is the mechanism of ordering newness. Language only lives when each person has his or her own version that must constantly be re-created in each person's mind as he or she interacts with others in the environment. It is only through understanding these inner patterns that we can begin to consciously bring the outer pattern of our lives into harmony. !"Imagine that one day millions of people are using pattern languages and making them again. Won't it impress itself then, as extraordinary, that these poems which they exchange, this giant tapesty of images, which they create, is coming alive before their eyes. Will it be possible then, for people to say stonily, that poems are not real, and that patterns are nothing but images; when, in fact, the world of images controls the world of matter. !In early times the city itself was intended as an image of the universe - its form a guarantee of the connection between the heavens and the earth, a picture of a whole and coherent way of life. A living pattern language is even more. It shows each person his connection to the world in terms so powerful that he can re-affirm it daily by using it to create new life in all the places round about him. And in this sense, finally, as we shall see, the living language is a gate."23

6.0 FOOTNOTES 1. Bateson, Gregory - "Form, Substance and Difference" STEPS 2. Samples, Bob - The Metaphoric Mind, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Don Mills, 1981 3. Davidson, Mark - Uncommon Sense: The Life and Thought of Ludwig von Bertalanffy,J.P. Tarcher, Inc.,Los Angeles, 1983 4. Wilber, Ken - Editor, The Holographic Paradigm and other Paradoxes, Shambhala, Boulder, 1982 5. Bohm, David - Wholeness and the Implicate Order Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1980 6. Forsythe, Kathleen- original insight 7. Kuhn, Thomas - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970 8. Buzan, Tony - Using Both Sides of Your Brain Dutton, New York, 1983 9. Hofstadter, Douglas The Mind's I Barton Books, Toronto 1982 10. Bohn, David - Op Sit. 11. Ibid. 12. Fuller, Buckminster -Synergetics 2 MacMillan Publishing Co.Inc., New York,1979 13. Prigogine, IlyaOrder Out of Chaos Bantam Books,Toronto 1984 14. Pask, Gordon - Conversation, Cognition and Learning, Elsevier, Amsterdam and New York, 1975 15. Sheldrake, RupertA New Science of Life, Granada,Toronto 1983 16. Wittgenstein, Ludwig- The Blue and Brown Books Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1972 17. Alexander, Christopher - The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press, Berkeley, 1979 18. Forsythe, Kathleen- "In Search of Unicorns", paper given American Society for Cybernetics, Philadelphia, 1984 19. Lakoff, George,Johnson,Mark - Metaphors We Live By University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1980 20. Forsythe, Kathleen,/Haughey, Margaret - Learning Metaphors, The Knowledge ConnectorsPaper given to the International Council for Distance Education, Melbourne, 1985 21. Powers, William T.- Behaviour, the Control of Perception, Wildwood House, London, 1983 22. Ibid. 23. Alexander, C. - Op Sit. ___

Think (DeepSeek):

Okay, so I need to reverse-engineer the text "Cathedrals in the Mind" into individual Zettelkasten notes and then analyze each claim using the Toulmin model in the spirit of Mike Caulfield's "Stop, Investigate, Find trusted sources, Trace claims." Then provide alternative paths through the Zettelkasten. Let's start by breaking down the main ideas from the text. First, the text talks about the centrality of metaphor in our conceptual system. Forsythe argues that metaphor isn't just decorative but fundamental to how we structure thought. She references Bateson, Von Bertalanffy, Pribam, and others. The cathedral metaphor is used to describe the dynamic, evolving nature of learning and thought, comparing it to a living, changing structure. I need to extract key claims and concepts here. Let's list the main points: 1. Metaphor is central to the architecture of thought. 2. Learning is a dynamic process akin to building and modifying a cathedral in the mind. 3. Analogical thinking is the architecture, analytical thinking the engineering. 4. Imagination is crucial for creating meaning. 5. Systems thinking and conversation theory support this view. 6. Project Unicorn as an applied example using metaphor in learning systems. Each of these can be individual notes. Then, for each note, apply the Toulmin model: Claim, Grounds, Warrant, Backing, Rebuttal, Qualifier. Following Caulfield's approach, I should verify the sources, check if the experts cited are credible, see if there's consensus or debate on these ideas, and trace the origins of the claims. Alternative paths through the Zettelkasten might connect metaphor in learning to other systems theories, or link to critiques of metaphor theory, or connect to modern educational practices using metaphor. Wait, Toulmin model might require each claim to be analyzed. Let me structure each note with Toulmin elements. Also, need to ensure that the analysis includes checking the sources Forsythe cites. For example, Bateson's quote on metaphor as biological glue – is that accurately cited? Von Bertalanffy's isomorphisms, etc. Possible challenges: Some of the sources are from the 70s-80s. Need to check if current research supports or challenges these ideas. Also, Project Unicorn is an example of applied metaphor in learning – how effective is that? Are there studies validating this approach? I might need to split the notes into more granular concepts. For example, the cathedral metaphor as a paradoxical structure, the role of systems theory in learning, the connection between hemispheric brain functions and metaphor (Sample's work), etc. Also, need to trace how Forsythe builds her argument: from metaphor's pervasiveness, to the cathedral example, to systems theory, to application in Project Unicorn. Each step can be a note. Alternative paths could explore related concepts like conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson), critiques of systems thinking in education, or the role of architecture as a metaphor in other disciplines. I should make sure each note has a unique ID, links to related notes, and the analysis part addresses validity through trusted sources. Maybe also note any potential biases, like Forsythe's own involvement in Project Unicorn, which might affect objectivity. Okay, let's start structuring the notes.