Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Networks and Biology: Wiring ourselves into a bad theory

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Readers know I've long advocated a network theory of learning, so it's natural that I would want to highlight here good arguments opposing that approach. I think this is one.  Mark Johnson writes, "If we designed our technology from the metaphor of the cell, rather than the metaphor of the network, we would have very different technology... This is the 'network' science we need. It is not a science of networks at all, but of dynamic processes of maintaining boundaries at all levels of organisation, from the brain and the liver through to consciousness, communication, technology and education." The problem with network theory, he explains, is that "instead of cooperating and organising themselves, the bruised egos of individual nodes compete against one another, each node seeing to be the loudest or the best, or 'clusters' of damaged souls reinforce pathological and explosive boundaries in politics." Image: Wikipedia.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Dec 24, 2024 2:46 p.m.

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