2. An ontological theory of learning addresses in equal measure, on the one hand, bodies and material nature (meanings-in the material), and on the other, cognition (meanings-of, attributed by the ideal).
2.1. Learning occurs in the play of the material and the ideal. There is no ideal without connection to a material referent. Not that the ideal is reducible to the material – the ideal can exceed the material (conjecture, imagination, fiction); and the material can exceed the ideal (the discoverable, the interpretable).
2.2. Learning is a recursive dialogue between the material (objects, bodies, historical facts, natural artifacts and such like) and the ideal (conceptualizations, theories, worldviews, ideologies and such like).
2.3. Cybersocial learning is a reflexive and dialogical process, recognizing the equal play of learner agency (identity, interests, lifeworld experience) in encounters with newly learnable material and socially idealized realities.
2.4. Cybersocial learning recognizes that Mind is distributed, where the idealizations of the material world have historical provenance in multiform meaning systems (speech, imaging, embodied experience, and such like), while also always uniquely refigured by every learner as they remake these meanings for themselves (Cope & Kalantzis, 2020; Kalantzis & Cope, 2020, 2022).
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COPE, Bill and KALANTZIS, Mary, 2022. The cybernetics of learning. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 6 December 2022. Vol. 54, no. 14, p. 2352–2388. DOI 10.1080/00131857.2022.2033213, p. 2382.