Creation of social value from a delayed response mechanism
November 17th, 2008
(this is a draft and is still being edited,
please correspond with the author if
you have a contribution to make to these thesis.)
The previous notes, see index, suggest that the creation and support of
specific social mechanisms may induce changes in situations faced by
members of under-served communities. Let us examine this
suggestion a bit further.
One may suppose that under-served communities are
under-served due to a history in which social situations have
collectively imposed constraints. One may further suppose that these
specific constraints propagate
the stable condition of being under-served. One may also
suppose that
this stable condition is a manifestation of influences originating in
"other" populations. These suppositions are accompanied with a core
assertion underlying our democracy.
The common good is served when the
condition of being under-served is positively addressed by all
communities. Arguments come directly from the American
Constitution's language regarding a
specific enumerated set of God given Rights. These are arguments for
creating and using
mechanisms that support equal opportunity and equal justice. Even
beyond this historical argument, in the
Constitution, are arguments
based on the concept of a common good. These arguments justify
the production of the means to produce equal opportunity and equal
justice.
The search for means to influence is a search for mechanism. An
example of such a mechanism is found in the cultural benefit
experienced by under-served students in minority serving
institutions. We turn to this example enriched by experience
within four of these institutions.
In these institutions, students are enrolled as
freshman and provided with a positive environment. The freshman
students
have strong potential but are often involved in various forms of social
protesting. This protest can and should be seen as quite
natural. The protest will take various forms, including not
attending class and "acting out". For example, while in class, a
student will claim to know less than he or she actually knows. He
or she will decline to study based on the paradoxes that arise from
this claim. Resolving these paradoxes is a means to reify, e.g. to
"create", an essential mechanism supporting the common good.
Federal funding is justified based on the possibility that mechanisms
of this type have been found. *<*>.
Basic demand side theory
In the previous section, we discussed how mechanism might arise
to support the common good. Now,
let us look at a larger issue. We, the
American People, perceive layers of crisis.
Financial and social systems are seen as needing foundational
reform. The education of under-served minorities might be
seen as less important, given these layers of crisis. However, my
work is predicated on the assertion that one must build a new social
structure that treats all citizens in a way that is entirely consistant
with the Constitution.
The "demand side theory" may help the nation sort
out some of the issues. This sorting out suggests a new type of
solution that is applied to education, and to information theory.
Let us consider the social system as a
system arising largely out of individual actions aggregated over
time. We suggest that a social system has a demand side and that
reification of mechanism is an essential process in demand side
systems. Mechanism first arises directly from success in meeting
demands. The evolution of mechanisms; however, leads to the
possible control over mechanism, and thus to the organized supply
side.
So what is "supply" side? Ah, this question is a good one!
In economics, an "organized" supply side comes through a concentration
of wealth and power. Initially this concentration empowers
a decision process in which national economies
benefit from economic activity. This process is not
perfect. The special, and often self-serving, interests of the
wealthy directly affect almost everyone. As an
individual, one can reduce this affect only with isolation from the
social world. Most of us do not make that decision.
Many such mechanisms are proposed in the
Resilience Project White Paper *<*>
and in the mechanisms specified in related
technical work. The underlying principles are drawn from my
study of
biological mechanism. For example, evolution works to create
mechanism based
on distributed
"demand". Questions about "supply side" are also answered from a
study of biology, in particular the biology of brain systems.
For example, an executive decision making process is known to arise in
the human brain from certain interactions between the pre-frontal
cortex and the limbic systems. *<*>
How do "mechanisms" arise and how is it that the control, or attempted
control of a mechanism, leads to supply side pressure. Our
research shows that a generalization is
abstracted from multiple instances of particulars, each particular *<*>
having a similar response to a "new" phenomenon. This
abstraction of the nature of particular instances into a category is
involved in the chemistry of event formation *<*>.
This is how I believe mechanism arises.
My belief seems consistant with science, given that the formation of
category and the reification of category status is an
observed biological phenomenon *<*>.
The exercise of intention through the manipulation of chains of linked
phenomenon is then hypothesized. Of course, we need only observe
social reality to see that control over mechanism does occur, for
example in the
supply of consumer goods.
When applied to information theory, these principles have been used by
"demand siders" to create an automation of mechanism creation in
digital systems. This work represents, in our opinion, the next
wave of innovation, a wave we refer to as being "second school" in
nature. In the White Paper, demand siders propose an
axiomatic-like technology that produces the binary constructions needed
by computing systems to instantiate human communication about new
phenomenon. [1]
The early application of demand side theory to educational pedagoy has
not been easy, and the examination of why is useful.
The cultural benefit, a case study
A distinct cultural benefit comes from allowing students time to
understand the potential provided by college. This benefit
developed over the years at one of the nation's colleges. This
college serves minority students and does so by providing young 18 year
olds with four years to mature into productive adults. Initially
most are not prepared nor motivated to take college seriouslly.
Through a formation process, mechanisms developed that recruited and
matrilated students. The result is that 74% of entering freshman
graduate after just four years.
Let us review the common good that is provided. The set of
mechanisms, taken as a whole, allowed students to decide to
become good students, while delaying the academic responsibility
normally associated with college life. Because
of this enlightened delay, a deeply personal
decision may then be made to do all that the individual may do so that
the academic benefits of college may accrue. By delaying the
expected
requirement that students
attend class and engage in learning the standard curriculum, the
students are allowed the time needed to grow up and assume a
responsible role in society.
This cultural benefit has two forms of consequence, individual and
collective. A positive cultural environment and the availability
of college level classes creates an space in which the decision to
engage in college is made available but not forced on the
individual. The institutional delay in making strong demands on
the individual creates the sense of personal control over life's
decisions. This sense is vital in
making positive personal decisions. Once a personal decision is
made, and
reinforced over an extended period of time, the individual him or her
self becomes part of the actual social mechanism leading to fundamental
changes in the status of being "under-served". The individual
"reifies" the social mechanisms that are shaping a future definition of
what it is to be under-served.
The class of concerns about delaying
responsibility
A number of concerns arise in allowing a student
the time to
become aware of what serves his or her best interests. As our
work shows, these
concerns
may be addressed in a positive fashion. A central concern
involves
accrediting students, as having passed courses, when in fact they have
not mastered the curriculum. This concern arises out of the
conflict
between institutional desire to delay strong requirements and the need
to conform
to standardized accreditation.
Students have many impositions pressing on
them. These
impositions include the difficulty experienced in obtaining financing
for college, on going family and personal constraints, as well as
philosophical issues that tie the individual to cultural beliefs
related to status as minorities historically under-served. A
student not attending a class may not be able to attend class due to
these impositions.
In the core mathematics and English classes this concern is perhaps
greater than in other classes. These core courses have the intent
of conforming student behavior and knowledge into the model that is in
fact, legitimately, being protested by the individual students.
The demand side theory and the Lifting
Strategy
The Lifting Strategy fits into
a broad solution, applicable to all disciplines. Understanding
the solution requires looking at
a puzzle. The under-served students may
pretend to understand college
algebra, when in fact two paradoxical realities are co-existing.
One of these is a pretense by the educational system, and the second is
a corresponding pretense by the students. This puzzle has a
social and an individual manifestation.
Much of the freshman class has taken high school courses that cover the
same material found in the two semester core mathematics class.
However, the students fairly uniformly reject acknowledging any
understanding of the curriculum, while paradoxically claiming to
deserve an A in the class. The reality is complex because there
the pretense
is systemically supported within the educational system. For
example, the
education system has shown an interest in surface testing.
Students have accommodated this interest.
Negative and positive results, as measured with the notion of common
good, matches up well with the cultural benefit we are
discussing. For example, if the pretense by the educational
system is not checked carefully,
this pretense may degenerate into a re-enforcement mechanism reifying
the recreation of communities that are under served.
This
checking process is supposed to be performed by the accreditation
agencies. The demand side theorists propose evidence that this
process is undermined by standard notions of standardization and by the
imposition of surface level skills based outcome metrics. The
evidence would seem collaborated by national reports *<*>,
in which systemic failure is claimed. It
is entirely possible that the system is
responding to peer systems and larger ecosystems, often supporting the
mechanisms that create the under-served status of
minority communities.
Returning to the positive benefit we return to practice issues and
observed results. Institutional pretense may be maintained until
the individual student
becomes aware of value that could be obtained if curriculum were
comprehended. The delay creates the means to induce a new
mechanism. During the delay, value to the system and the value to
the individual is not curtailed. This mention of mechanism
returns us to the technical issue.
It is not merely a theoretical construction we are suggesting, one can
appeal to direct case studies. When this delay is allowed, the
college may graduate young men and young women who are mature and
capable. In practical terms, the individual may voluntarily give
up the protest regarding dysfunctional systems and may decide for him
or her self that the knowledge to be gained is knowledge that is good
for the individual. Our case studies suggest that social
mechanism may be induced and thus that over time statistical studies
will confirm the now theoretical work.
More on this is addressed in Note #25. *<*>
[1] The scholarly literature on "language ontology reification" is
extensive but not centralized. We suggest a Google search *<*>.